Still, however, Emmeline screamed; and the one who had as yet said nothing put his hand over her mouth to smother her cries, whispering, at the same time, but still in French, what seemed persuasions to come quietly, and promises which she neither heard nor understood.
Freeing her lips, she screamed again and again; and then--oh, blessed sound!--she heard the noise of a horse's feet upon the road.
"It is my guardian," she thought; and another long piercing cry succeeded.
It caught the ear of the horseman on the road. He checked his horse, and beheld by the light, which was becoming now more strong, two men dragging a woman up the hill. There was a steep bank between the road and the turf above; but he struck his spurs fiercely into his horse's sides; and, with a straining effort, the fine powerful beast overcame the obstacle, reached the turf, and sprang forward. Stretching out, as if running a race, the horse, in a few seconds, brought him up to the spot where Emmeline was, and even a little beyond it, before his career could be checked. The latter circumstance, however, was favourable; for it placed the rider between the men and the wood, and also showed him, in passing, that they were determined to resist his interference. As soon as they perceived that the intruder upon their enterprise was alone, the swords of both were drawn; and one of them said to the other, in a low voice, and in French,
"Keep him off, while I take her on. Three hundred yards farther, and we shall be within hail of the boat's crew."
But the stranger was not so easily to be disposed of. His horse was wheeled rapidly; his sword was out of the sheath in a moment; and in another instant he was upon the two men, from whom Emmeline was struggling hard to free herself. As if he at once divined their plan, he suffered the one who had let go his hold of the lady to advance, sword in hand, and aim a blow at him, unreturned, merely making his horse swerve to avoid it; and, pressing hard upon the other, who still held the poor girl in his strong grasp, he forced him to turn and defend himself. The rescuer was obliged to play a wary game, however; for the other man ran up behind, as if to strike him from his horse; but, practised in every military exercise, although the animal he rode had never been trained in the manège, he governed his steed with perfect ease with the hand and heel, wheeling him now upon one, now upon the other, parrying a blow here, aiming a blow there; and, in the end, compelled the one who had still the young lady in his grasp, to quit his hold in self-defence.
At the same moment, the loud deep barking of a large dog was heard; and one glance showed the gentleman on horseback an enormous hound, followed quickly by a human figure, running over the hill towards them from the lower wood in which the road seemed to lose itself.
The same sight met Emmeline's eye also; and, finding herself free, she sprang forward towards the new comer; but, exhausted with struggling and with terror, she fell upon the green turf before she had gone twenty yards.
"Run, run, Matthew!" cried the man who had last retained his grasp of Emmeline, still speaking in French; and then, with one of the blasphemous and horrid oaths of which that language has a copious vocabulary, he added; "She has escaped us! Through the wood and by the path round at the back! I will show you the way down the cliff."
Thus saying, he turned to fly with his companion; but still he retired with a sort of sturdy cautiousness, stopping short every ten or twelve paces, and turning round, ready for defence. The stranger, however, seemed in no degree disposed to follow him. His object was accomplished in freeing a lady from the hands of two ruffians; he had no knowledge of the circumstances; and, after pausing for an instant to make sure that the scoundrels had no intention of returning, he sprang from his horse and approached the poor girl, who was now raising herself upon her arm.