Just as she emerged upon the highroad, her pony and carriage came up. A sergeant of police was, however, in waiting beside it, who, saluting her respectfully, said, ‘There was no disrespect meant to you, miss, by our search of the carriage—our duty obliged us to do it. We have a warrant to apprehend the man that was seen with you this morning, and it’s only that we know who you are, and where you come from, prevents us from asking you to come before our chief.’
He presented his arm to assist her to her place as he spoke; but she declined the help, and, without even noticing him in any way, arranged her rugs and wraps around her, took the reins, and motioning Larry to his place, drove on.
‘Is my drawing safe?—have all my brushes and pencils been put in?’ asked she, after a while. But already Larry had taken his leave, and she could see him as he flitted across the bog to catch her by some short cut.
That strange contradiction by which a woman can journey alone and in safety through the midst of a country only short of open insurrection, filled her mind as she went, and thinking of it in every shape and fashion occupied her for miles of the way. The desolation, far as the eye could reach, was complete—there was not a habitation, not a human thing to be seen. The dark-brown desert faded away in the distance into low-lying clouds, the only break to the dull uniformity being some stray ‘clamp,’ as it is called, of turf, left by the owners from some accident of season or bad weather, and which loomed out now against the sky like a vast fortress.
This long, long day—for so without any weariness she felt it—was now in the afternoon, and already long shadows of these turf-mounds stretched their giant limbs across the waste. Nina, who had eaten nothing since early morning, felt faint and hungry. She halted her pony, and taking out some bread and a bottle of milk, proceeded to make a frugal luncheon. The complete loneliness, the perfect silence, in which even the rattling of the harness as the pony shook himself made itself felt, gave something of solemnity to the moment, as the young girl sat there and gazed half terrified around her.
As she looked, she thought she saw something pass from one turf-clamp to the other, and, watching closely, she could distinctly detect a figure crouching near the ground, and, after some minutes, emerging into the open space, again to be hidden by some vast turf-mound. There, now—there could not be a doubt—it was a man, and he was waving his handkerchief as a signal. It was Donogan himself—she could recognise him well. Clearing the long drains at a bound, and with a speed that vouched for perfect training, he came rapidly forward, and, leaping the wide trench, alighted at last on the road beside her.
‘I have watched you for an hour, and but for this lucky halt, I should not have overtaken you after all,’ cried he, as he wiped his brow and stood panting beside her.
‘Do you know that they are in pursuit of you?’ cried she hastily.
‘I know it all. I learned it before I reached the village, and in time—only in time—to make a circuit and reach the bog. Once there, I defy the best of them.’
‘They have what they call a warrant to search for you.’