The wheels of fate were turning. Events were in God’s hands now.
* * *
Mary wandered aimlessly across the high plateau toward the sea, feeling lost and miserable. As she walked she watched the fog rise slowly and evaporate, along with all faith in herself. Vaguely she told herself that she would never again live with her mother in the dark, dismal hut, where everything was smoke and confusion. But even this seemed a wavering resolve. How could she promise herself anything, when she had been so weak.....
A single tear broke from the stillness of her face, as she realized that in all the haste of her flight she had nonetheless seized the heavy cloak from its peg by the door, the same which she now wrapped about her. She cried because this instinctive action showed her, more even than the painful workings of her mind, that a part of her still wanted to live. As much as she had loved Michael, and loathed the thought of a world without him. . .still, she desired life. It was in that moment an unbearable anguish.
She heard hoofbeats approaching from the west. This did not at first seem to register, except perhaps for a dim realization that it could not be the man she feared, who would have to approach from the east---behind her.
The plateau had gradually sunk and narrowed, until now it was little more than a rough gully between the two rocky shoulders which pressed upon it. It occurred to her that the riders, still hidden by the rise and fall of the track ahead, would soon be upon her, and that there was nowhere to hide. But the same nightmare logic that says not to fear, it is only a dream, told her now that this could not be what in fact it was: a dangerous meeting in a place far from help. It all seemed so inevitable. And she was tired of fighting.
Two horsemen appeared on the track below her as she reached the crown of the rise, which occurred at the very point where the opposing walls were highest, rising in serrated levels to a height of sixty feet, several yards to either side of her.
The riders were dressed in red.
She looked quickly about her for a sheltering shadow or place to hide, as all the warnings that she had been raised on began to torment her. But the noon sun was hidden by a cloud, as if it had not the heart to watch: there were no shadows. And they had seen her.
The two men rode easily, lazily in their fine English saddles. Young cavalrymen, they had been sent to investigate reports that one of the escaped prisoners believed to be in the area had been sighted.