Her syren call had the desired effect—as well it might. The gentlemen addressed, both of whom were labouring up the slippery slope with bent heads, stopped suddenly, and looked about them. Next moment they were doubling heavily through the long grass in the direction of the road, making signals as they ran. They appeared agitated about something.
“Come off that road!” shouted one of them, who was leading by ten yards, to the two female figures in the mist. “Quittez le chemin! C’est dangereux! Beat it for here! Dépêchez-vous! As hard as you—well—I’ll—be—” he swallowed something—“Frances Lane?”
With a final bound, Boone Cruttenden, with a steel helmet on his head, a gas apparatus slung on his chest, and acute fear in his eyes, landed squarely in the ditch; then scrambled out upon the road.
“Why—Boone?” began Frances affably. But, a grasp of iron fastened on her arm just above the elbow, and a badly frightened young man proceeded to propel her, without ceremony, across the ditch and away from the road.
“You fetch the other one, Major!” he called over his shoulder.
“I shall be charmed,” replied an unmistakable English drawl.
“Boone, listen!” protested Miss Lane breathlessly, as she was towed sideways across the hillside. “What are you—?”
But her escort merely muttered to himself, as they ran:
“Can you beat it? Can you beat it?”
Presently, having placed a distance of more than a hundred yards between itself and the road, the panting convoy was permitted to halt.