"Nay, 'tis Charles—my brother, perchance."
"'Tis not your brother!"
"How can you tell?"
"I know!" said he grimly and lifted his holster-flap. Thus, mile after mile they rode with never a word between them, yet, despite their speed, faint and far behind was that rhythmic beat of pursuing hoofs, now lost, now heard again, faint but persistent, never any nearer yet never any further off. And often Mr. Dalroyd glared back across his shoulder and spoke only to encourage his companion to faster pace.
Uphill and down they spurred and across wind-swept levels while the moon waned and the stars paled to the dawn; and with the first chill breath of coming day there reached them the sharp, salt tang of the sea. Mr. Dalroyd uttered a short, fierce laugh and, seizing his companion's rein, spurred his jaded animal to the hill before them. A sloping upland, wild and desolate, a treeless expanse clothed with bush and scrub, with beyond, at the top of the ascent, a little wood. Spurring still, they reached this wood at last and here Mr. Dalroyd drew rein, whipped pistols into pockets and dismounting, lifted my lady from the saddle; then he turned and looked back to see, far away upon the lonely road, a solitary horseman indistinct in the half-light.
"I can do it yet!" he laughed and, catching his companion's hand, hurried through the wood, across a short stretch of grass and so to the edge of a cliff with the sea beyond, where a two-masted vessel rode at her anchor close inshore, while immediately below them was a little bay where a boat had been drawn up. Mr. Dalroyd whistled shrilly, at which signal two men rose from where they had sprawled on the shingle and ran the boat to the edge of the tide.
Then Mr. Dalroyd turned and laughed again.
"Come Betty—my Betty!" he cried. "Yonder lies France and happiness."
"But Charles——"
"He's aboard like enough."