The people with their stores of provender were some distance ahead, and Mark thought no more of them, for, soon after, his attention was taken up by a group of men behind them a few hundred yards, walking, and coming on hurriedly, as if to overtake them.
“Let’s ride on faster, Mary,” he said rather quickly.
“Why? What is the matter?”
“Nothing now; only I don’t quite like the look of the men behind.”
“Not robbers, are they?”
“Oh no, I think not; only we hear so much about Captain Purlrose’s men, it sets one thinking that every man one sees is a marauder. But it would not matter if they were; we could soon leave them behind.”
They rode on, entering the straits, as the place was called from the river contracting, as it did in several other places, and running between two upright walls of rock. The men were some distance behind, and they had ceased to trouble about them, when, to Mark’s consternation, on passing round one of the curves in the track, he found that there in front the narrowest part was blocked by the horses with their loads; and a something in the aspect of the party of men in charge of the laden beasts slightly startled him, for he thought them suspiciously like some of Purlrose’s followers.
The next minute he was awake to the fact that they were in danger, for from behind a block of stone a slight figure, whose hands were bound with cords, and who made Mark stare, suddenly started to his side, shouting:
“Ride for it! ride! You are in a trap.”
There was no time for hesitation. Two men dashed after the prisoner they had made, and in another instant they would have had him, but for Mark’s quick movement. He caught his sister’s rein, touched his horse’s side with the spurs, and the two active animals sprang between the men and their quarry as they were sharply turned.