THE MAN THAT DISAPPEARED
Now, whatever his enemies (if he has any) may say against James Moggin, no one can deny the fact that, for a man of his age, his behaviour on the night when his carriage was "held up" on the North Moor was meritorious. On discovering that the "impident rascal" had deliberately broken one of the coach windows with the butt of a pistol, the worthy coachman's rage knew no bounds. Leaving his well trained but trembling horses, and still clasping the whip in his hand, he scrambled down from the box and fell upon the cyclist in the rear.
To speak more accurately, the latter individual fell back into his arms, an action on his part caused by Mr. Laurence having risen in the carriage and aimed a powerful blow with his fist at the face that had a second time appeared at the cracked window.
Moggin, had he flung down his whip, might easily have held the assailant until the arrival of Laurence, who was fumbling with the catch that fastened the carriage door, and which had been in some way jammed by a piece of broken window glass. As it was, the audacious cyclist managed in the dark to wriggle himself out of the coachman's clutches and reach the spot where his bicycle lay.
Laurence alighted from the carriage with unbecoming haste, only in time to see the dusky figure of the highwayman throw his leg lightly over the saddle of his machine, and bound forward past the vehicle again with the dexterity of an accomplished rider. He noticed that his garments fluttered out behind him in a peculiar manner.
In his evening clothes and thin dancing "pumps," with the roads an inch thick in mud and puddles, young Carrington knew that pursuit was useless. Even if he requisitioned one of the terrified horses, he realised that the man would have disappeared from sight before the operation of unharnessing could be accomplished. One thing he did—that was to seize the whip from Moggin's hand, and, taking a couple of steps forward, cut sharply at the retreating form with the long lash. The blow went home, for the fellow gave utterance to a hoarse cry of pain. Even in that exclamation, both Carrington and the coachman were conscious of something unnatural and horrible.
And thus it was that the mysterious creature on the bicycle disappeared into the blackness of the night.
Laurence waited until he had the dissatisfaction of witnessing the hasty departure of the unwelcome visitor; then he turned to the open-mouthed and shivering Moggin.
"Let us now see what has happened to your master," he said abruptly.
The two men hurried back to the carriage and carefully stepped inside.