“Ready?” he asked.
“In a moment!”
And then he felt her hand in his.
“Which way?”
He glanced back through the trees. The boat was at the bank; its occupants were leaping out, rifles in hand; the searchlight swept up and down.
“This way, I think!” and he guided her diagonally to the right. “Go carefully! The less noise we make the better. But as long as those fellows keep on shooting, they can’t hear us.”
Away they went, stumbling, scrambling, bending low to escape the overhanging branches, saving each other from some ugly falls—up a long incline covered by an open wood, across a little glade, over a wall, through another strip of woodland, into a road, over another wall—and then Stewart gave a gasp of relief, for they were in a field of grain.
“We shall be safe here,” he said, as they plunged into it. “I will watch, while you finish dressing,” and he faced back toward the way they had come.
The full moon was sailing high above the eastern hills, and he could see distinctly the wall they had just crossed, with the white road behind it, and beyond that the dense shadow of the wood. It was on the strip of road he kept his eyes, but no living creature crossed it, and at last he felt a touch upon his arm.
“My turn now!” the girl whispered.