“That you won’t. It’s coming in from the land, too. It’ll be thick in five minutes, and we’ll snag, or break our precious necks on these dwarf-cypresses!”
“We’ll be out in half a minute!” Julia said, shook her reins, and was off.
“Keep Miss Lewis back!” Longacre shouted it over his shoulder.
He heard Thair take up the words and call them again to some dim horseman looming large in the mist.
Already the hounds were a faint cry far in front, the girl a gray wraith flitting among the trees. Now the cypresses had her! Now she flashed into a clearing! Longacre heard hoofs and faint voices behind him, but in that fog, that covered the earth and swallowed the sun, the rider a length ahead of him was the only living creature. Before them the slope slid away into white oblivion. It was madness—this blind flight. He felt himself gaining upon her. His hand was ready for the black’s bit. The thicket opened out; the trees fell away right and left. A dark line swam up in front.
“What’s ahead?” he shouted.
“Fence!” She flung it back at him with a note of fear. The sound of that brought him abreast her. Stark and black, the rails sprang out at him. He saw a glittering mist where the other side should have been—heard voices shouting through the fog—shouting them to stop. He snatched for the mare’s bit. She swerved—she sprang to the spur. He saw Julia’s profile, white on white, flash past him. His ears were full of his own name—her voice calling his name—as the roan leaped upward.
To Thair and Holden, blundering down the field, seeing six feet in front of them, came a sound—the dull, unresonant drop of a body falling from a height—a cry, suddenly cut off. Involuntarily they halted. Thair peered into the obscurity. Holden halloed. The silence was dreadful. They edged cautiously forward, expecting a hail for direction. Then suddenly out of the fog the black mare plunged on them, empty saddle, flying rein.
“God!” said Holden.