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The last of the scattered hamlets had been passed. The sun glowed red before them in an angry, lowering sky. Sir Richard and his son and Lord Culverhouse paused on the brow of the ridge to look both before and behind. They had in their impatience outridden their servants, who, less well mounted, found some difficulty in spurring along the deep mire of the ill-made roads.
The security with which he chose to prosecute even this favourite, and, in the ordinary case, somewhat dangerous amusement, as well as the rest of his equipage, marked King James. No attendant was within sight; indeed, it was often a nice strain of flattery to permit the Sovereign to suppose he had outridden and distanced all the rest of the chase.
"It will be a race for life; and if we are beaten, all we can do is to sell our lives as dearly as may be. It is not robbery alone, it is vengeance, the old grudge against the Trevlyns. But if we can but make Cross Way House ere we are outridden, we may save ourselves yet." Lady Humbert had left the Cross Way House for a three days' visit to a sick relative who had sent an urgent message to her.
She had been outridden, swept from her saddle as if she were a puppet, and compelled to bear the proximity of the man's own hateful body and the restraint of his arms. No one had ever dared to touch her before. No one had ever dared to handle her as she was being handled now. How was it going to end? Where were they going? With her face hidden she had lost all sense of direction.
Young men, he thought impatiently, could no longer even curse respectably. They lisped like females at an embroidery frame. When he was young, younger, he corrected himself, he could have outdrunk, outridden.... His train of thought was abruptly terminated by a group unexpectedly occupying the smoking room.
The palanquin reached the bottom and stopped, and the fakir, who had followed it, opened the curtains and helped out a bent figure unmistakably Sher Singh. A shriek broke from the Rani. "He has outridden me and reached this place first!" she cried. "See his weakness, his deathly aspect. What but four days and nights of riding could account for it?"
He could not hope to make people credit his tale. Mounting his horse, he rode with all speed through the forest, not drawing rein till the coast was reached. He had far outridden the news of the tragedy. Taking ship here, he crossed over in haste to Normandy, and thence made his way to France, not drawing a breath free from care till he felt the soil of his native land beneath his feet.
"We must push on something faster," said Culverhouse impatiently, "if we are to reach Cross Way House before dark." "We have already far outridden our men," said Sir Richard, frowning slightly as he turned his head to look over his shoulder; "and this is the worst part of the road before us."
"You got a stride like a unbroke yearlin'," said; Cheyenne, as Bartley unconsciously drew ahead. Bartley stopped and turned into step as Cheyenne caught up. He held himself to a slower pace, realizing that, while his companion could have outridden him by days and miles, the other was not used to walking. As they topped a low rise a coyote sprang up and floated away.
Jack raised his head with a returning sense of his surroundings to see some mounted men, eight in all he counted, riding along the range trail a half mile nearer the water-hole than themselves. Their horses had the gait of exhaustion after a long, hard ride. "You know who it is?" Firio whispered. "Yes," Jack answered. "They had the better trail and have outridden us. All right, Firio!"
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