The
edging soldier had come within arm's reach, and when I swung the
casement a little wider, he laid a hand on my shoulder.
"In the name of the king!" he said; and this was all he had time or
leave to say. For at the summons I drove my fist against the point of
his wagging jaw, to send him plunging among the dancers, and the recoil
of the blow carried me clear of the window-seat with what a din and
clamor of a hue and cry to speed the parting guest as you may figure for
yourselves.
The alighting ground of the leap was the body of Dick's late antagonist
lying prone beneath the window ledge; but the lad himself was up and
ready to catch me when I stumbled over the vanquished one.
"'Tis legs for it now," he cried. "Make for the avenue and the horses at
the hitch-rail!"
At rising twenty a man may run fast and far; at rising forty he may
still run far if the first hundred yards do not burst his bellows. So
when we had darted through the thin line of encircling horsemen and were
flying down the broad avenue with all the troopers who had caught sight
of us thundering at our heels, Dick was the pace-setter, whilst I made
but a shifty second, gasping and panting and dying a thousand deaths in
the effort to catch my second wind.
"Courage!" shouted Dick, flinging the word back over his shoulder as he
ran. "There is help ahead if we can live to reach the gate!"
But, luckily for me, the help was nearer at hand. Half way down the
box-bordered drive, when I was at my last gasp, the shrill yell of the
border partizans rose from the shrubbery on the right, and a voice that
I shall know and welcome in another world cried out:
"Stiddy, boys! stiddy till ye can see the whites o' their eyes! Now,
then; give it to 'em hot _and_ heavy!"
A haphazard banging of guns followed and the pursuit drew rein in some
confusion, giving us time to reach the great gate and the horse-rail,
and to loose and mount the gray and the sorrel we had marked out.
Pages:
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435