“They had my boots, confound them!” returned Frobisher, “as I am beginning to realise to my cost. These wrappings are about worn through, and my feet are almost as sore as though they had been skinned.”
“By Jove, yes! I had forgotten them,” said the little skipper.
The two men pounded along over the sand in silence once more, the walls and buildings of the ruined town standing out more and more clearly every moment. Only another half-mile or so, and they would be safely hidden from view among the maze-like streets of the place. But could they do it in time? Would their pursuers sight them before they could get under cover? These were the questions which haunted them both.
“See,” Drake presently panted, pointing in front of him, “we are pretty nearly there now. That opening in the walls is the site of one of the city gates; and once inside that, we are safe.”
Frobisher took a hasty glance behind him, but the pursuers had not yet put in an appearance. There was nothing in sight but the three black dots on the sand, where the fight with the dogs had taken place.
“Nothing in sight as yet,” he gasped encouragingly to Drake, on whom the pace was again beginning to tell. “Keep it up a little longer; we are nearly there now.”
A couple of minutes more of hard running placed them almost in the shadow of the walls, and Frobisher was congratulating himself on their escape, when suddenly something whizzed past his ear with a shrill, whining sound, and starred itself out in a splash of metal on the stones of the gateway, plainly visible in the moonlight. A moment later the crack of a modern rifle made itself heard.
“Confound it!” growled Frobisher, looking round, “half a minute too late, by all that’s annoying! Buck up, Drake! Those fellows are in sight and have spotted us,” he shouted. “It will be touch-and-go now, and no mistake.”
Drake nobly responded to the call, and a few seconds later the two men plunged through the gateway and were under cover. But, unfortunately, their pursuers had seen where they had gone, and would not now be at all likely to give up the chase until they had examined every possible hiding-place inside the walls.
Along the first street that the fugitives came to they dashed, then down a turning to the left, and along another street leading out of it, only to find that this was a blind alley, and that their way was stopped.