“No!”
“Well, we’re going to have a trifle of a gallop now, so cling tight!”
They came out from the cover of the trees as he spoke on to a tract of more open ground. The moon was momentarily obscured by a drifting cloud, but there was light enough for the flying horse to be seen by its pursuers. Two shots cracked almost simultaneously, and Eustacie felt the arm that cradled her give a queer jerk, and heard her cousin catch his breath sharply. “Winged, by Gad!” he said. “Now, who’d have thought an Exciseman could shoot as straight as that?”
“Are you hurt?” Eustacie cried.
“Devil a bit!” was the cheerful response. He looked fleetingly back over his shoulder. “Four of ’em, I think. Riding hard, too. You can always trust an Exciseman to follow his nose ... That’s better.”
They were under cover again, and he let Rufus slacken his pace to a trot, bending him easily this way and that through the outskirts of the Forest. Eustacie, after a very little of this erratic progress, began to feel quite lost, but it was evident that her cousin knew the Forest like the palm of his hand, for they steadily penetrated farther into its darkness. Behind them the pursuit sounded as though it were in difficulties, but they had not yet outstripped it, and once Ludovic reined in altogether to give it time to come nearer, and, since it showed signs of abandoning the chase, fired his second pistol invitingly. This had the required effect; the Forest reverberated with shots, and they moved forward again, heading northward.
It was fully half an hour later before they finally lost the Excisemen, and Ludovic was swaying in the saddle.
“You are hurt!” Eustacie said, alarmed.
“Oh no, only a scratch!” he murmured. “Anyway, we’ve led them in such circles they’ll be hunting one another till daylight.”
Eustacie put her hands over his, and pulled Rufus up. “Where are you hurt?” she demanded.