Another shoe was shed; his horse began to flounder now, and he heard the pursuing hoofs coming fast upon his rear. Cecil knew from experience the cruelty of which the Montenegrin nature is capable. He had heard, and seen, how Turkish wounded and prisoners had been shorn of their lips, noses, and ears, by the sharp yataghans of those so-called Christians, the Black Mountaineers, whose favourite household ornament is a Turkish head, dried in smoke; and who often bury their prisoners up to the breast and make targets of them at a hundred yards; and such a fate might now be his if he fell into their horrible hands; and he knew not how many were in pursuit of him.
It was not impossible that Mattei Guebhard had thus beset the road to cut him off, in a spirit of jealousy, rivalry, and revenge; but it seemed more probable that his present desperate and lawless proceedings had some mysterious reference to the interception of the despatches. This fact proved an alarming puzzle to Cecil, who longed, sternly, eagerly, breathlessly, to have the captain alone with him, face to face, and within range of his pistols.
In hopes to baffle pursuit, he had quitted the direct road, or that which he supposed to be such, and wheeled off by a path to the left, but did so in vain, for they were following him fast, and his horse, shoeless now, failed to grip the loose soil of the way with its hoofs alone.
Outriding the rest, two were now getting unpleasantly close to him, as the path, a very narrow and winding one, began to ascend a steep spur of Mount Mezlanie. He rid himself of one of these by his pistol, but as he wheeled round in his saddle to deliver the Parthian shot by which he did so, he felt in his right arm a maddening pang of pain, and a cold perspiration burst over him.
'God!' he exclaimed, 'if it is thus with me now, how will it be if I come to use my sword!'
The second Montenegrin, fast and far outrode the rest, and without wasting time in using rifle or pistol, he came thundering full upon the rear of Cecil, whose horse, though fresh from the stable, after days of enforced idleness, and liable to resent the use of bit, curb and spur, was toiling up the steep and rugged path there was no quitting or avoiding. Cecil could see that it came close to the very verge of a precipice and then turned acutely to the left.
This he perceived just in time to save himself from a sudden and horrible catastrophe, by slackening speed, and guiding his horse, by bridle and knee, carefully round the perilous corner; while his pursuer, intent blindly on bloodshed and slaughter, came furiously up to the spot, and failing to turn the angle, being ignorant of it, or unable to check his speed, went over the precipice—headlong, horse and man—through the air, to find mutilation and death, where soon the vultures would be gathering, at its base, some hundred feet below.
His fate evidently made the rest more wary and caused some delay in the pursuit, which enabled Cecil to distance them considerably, as he pursued the pathway through a solitary glen; but he could see that they were still keeping him in sight, at a time when the afternoon was far advanced, and the darkness of a sudden thunderstorm began to obscure both sky and scenery.