He was himself very much fatigued, having risen from a sick bed on receiving the letter sent him by Harry from Landau. As he drew out of Oerschot, where the team was again changed, he pulled up the wooden slat blinds, and settled himself in the corner of his seat for a short nap. So much exhausted was he that he was still sound asleep when, nearly two hours later, the coach reached the end of the park wall of Lindendaal.
It was now growing dark. All at once Grootz was roused from sleep by the stopping of the coach. In his half-awake condition he thought that he was at his journey's end, and was rising to lower the blinds when there was a shout and the report of a pistol-shot. Wide-awake in an instant he groped in the darkness for his own pistol. But just as he laid his hand upon it the coach jolted on again, throwing him back into his seat. It was rattling and swaying from side to side, the horses being urged to their utmost speed. His first impulse was to let down the blinds and endeavour to get a shot at one of the men who had waylaid him. Then he hesitated; a sudden thought had occurred to him; he gave a quiet chuckle, and peeped through the slats of the blinds, first on one side, then on the other. He could just see that a horseman was riding at each side of the carriage, and through the small window at the back he saw a third following. He smiled grimly, and, holding his pistol ready, waited for what he suspected must happen before long.
His own postilion, he guessed, had been killed or wounded by the pistol-shot he had heard, and the coach was now driven by a stranger. He was thus one against four. He might shoot one of them, but would clearly be at the mercy of the three others. It was a lonely road; there was nothing for the present to be gained by resistance, and besides, he had a further reason for biding his time. Delay would not worsen his own situation; while if his suspicions were correct the longer he remained passive the better his purpose would be served.
After a headlong, rattling, bumping flight of about two miles, as it seemed to Grootz, he heard the horseman on his right shout an order to the postilion. The coach was pulled up; the horseman threw himself from the saddle, and wrenching open the door peered in.
"I regret, Madame, the necessity——"
He started back, for in the waning light he had just become aware that there was but one figure in the carriage, and that clearly the figure of a man.
"Triché, morbleu!" he cried in fury. "Someone shall pay for this. Come out, or I will empty this pistol into you!"
The only answer was the click of a pistol within the coach, and a flash from the corner. Grootz's weapon had missed fire. Whipping his own pistol from his belt Polignac fired; and the Dutchman fell back, hit in the shoulder. With a cry to his companions Polignac sprang on his horse, and galloped furiously back along the road he had come, the other two horsemen hard at his heels. Immediately afterwards the postilion cut the traces and set off in haste after his employer, leaving Grootz, the coach, and one horse to themselves.
Five minutes later, from the Eyndhoven direction, up rode two horsemen at speed. It was now almost totally dark; the coach could barely be discerned in the middle of the road, and Harry, who was foremost, pulled up only just in time to save his horse's knees. In a moment he was out of the saddle; Sherebiah was by his side, and while the man held the horses, Harry, anxiety tearing at his heart, looked into the coach. There was a huddled heap upon the floor.
"Steel and tinder!" he cried to Sherebiah.