With that I drew off, and the coach rolled away, disappearing into the shining distance; but I rode back a little distance until I had come to the Half Moon tavern in the middle of that wilderness. Here I sat for an hour or more, hob-a-nobbing with the landlord, and drinking of mulled wine to keep me warm. There was no sound upon the roads in all that time, so that I had grown to fear Sir Gilbert was mistaken, and that the lady was gone another way. A little on eleven, however, there comes a sound from far away, and the landlord sets his ear to the door.
"'Tis a coach," says he, "and they drive fast."
"They have a need," said I, with a yawn, "for 'tis growing late enough, and indeed, 'tis time I was upon my road." With which I called on the ostler for Calypso. By the time I was in the saddle, and standing ready before the tavern in that great open space of the woods, the coach had rolled up and fled past into the night with a huge clamour and the groaning of axles and shrieking of postilions. But in that glimpse of the lights I had seen that the body was of a greenish colour.
I pulled Calypso out on the highway, therefore, and, taking to my pistols, set her to canter sharply across the waste. The coach was flying like a frightened pigeon, and the lights dwindled afore me, shaking and rocking as they ran. But I was in no hurry, and fetched the mare nearer, keeping her at an even distance. Then it seemed that some suspicion took them, for the moonlight struck full upon me, throwing me out like a black shadow a-riding on them. So the postilions heightened their pace, plying their whips, and when that would not serve, they began to call out, and turned the horses from the highway upon a track that ran among vast and sombre pines. I cried to them to halt, but the fools only increased their terror and their efforts, and the big coach lurched and rumbled over the rough ground, crashing among the branches of the firs, while the horses galloped and leaped in a panic. I put spurs to the mare and went after them, cautiously enough, for the road was darkened by the trees about it. Yet I drew nigh foot by foot, being in no haste, for the wretches knew not whither they rushed. And presently I heard a woman's voice calling angrily and calling loudly, and then there was a stream of oaths from the postboys mingled with some shrill screaming. I came out at that instant from the cover of the firs, and there before me was the coach, sunk to its axles in a marshy place such as are thereabouts, with the devil of a commotion in progress.
"What ado is this?" I cried, coming up and pulling in the nag. But at that the screaming began again, and one of the postboys levelled a pistol at me. "Put up that toy," said I, sharply, "or by the Lord I will let light in your brains, you numbskull."
"Jerry, do as the gentleman bids you," said a woman's voice out of the coach, and looking in I saw plain enough that I had here what I wanted. She was a slim-bodied girl with a great canopy of guinea-coloured hair, her bosom moved quickly for all her brave voice. But that gave me a kindly sense of her.
"Who are you?" she says boldly enough, while the maid was still whimpering by her.
"Bless those red lips," says I, "but who should I be save one attracted by your distress who is come to help you?" She regarded me doubtfully. "Come," I went on, "let me give you a hand, mistress, for that pretty face will ere long kiss the mud else, which is no business for it."
She shrank away, but I took hold on her. "Come, come," said I, "by your leave, pretty miss."