"Sorry, Jim," said Marah's voice. "I knew you'd try it. You only got your clothes wet. Come on, now."
"Hoo-hoo" went the owl again, and at this, the third summons, we distinctly heard many horses' hoofs coming at a gallop towards us, though at a considerable distance.
"Marah! Come on, man!" cried several voices.
"Come on," said Marah, dragging me to the horses. "Off, boys," he called. "Scatter as you ride," Many horses moved off at a smart trot up the hill to Stoke Fleming. Their horses' feet were muffled with felt, so that they made little noise, although they were many.
Marah swung me up into the saddle of one of the three horses in his care. He himself rode the middle horse. I was on his off side. The horse I mounted had a keg of spirits lashed to the saddle behind me; the horse beyond Marah was laden like a pack-mule.
"We're the rearguard," said Marah to me. "We must bring them clear off. Ride, boys—Strete road," he called; and the smugglers of the rearguard clattered off by the back road, or broken disused lane, which leads to Allington. Still Marah waited, the only smuggler now left on the beach. The preventive officers were clattering down the hill to us, less than a quarter of a mile away. "It's the preventives right enough," he said, as a gust of wind brought the clatter of sabres to us, above the clatter of the hoofs. "We're in for a run to-night. Some one's been blabbing. I think I know who. Well, I pity him. That's what. I pity him. Here, boy. You ought not to ha' tried to cut. You'll be half frozen with the wet. Drink some of this."
He handed me a flask, and forced me to take a gulp of something hot; it made me gasp, but it certainly warmed me, and gave me heart after my disappointment. I was too cold and too broken with misery to be frightened of the preventives. I only prayed that they might catch me and take me home.
We moved slowly to the meeting of the roads, and there Marah halted for a moment. Our horses stamped, and then whinnied. A horse on the road above us whinnied.
One of the clattering troop cried, "There they are. We have them. Come along, boys."
Some one—I knew the voice—it was Captain Barmoor, of the Yeomanry—cried out, "Stand and surrender." And then I saw the sabres gleam under the trees, and heard the horses' hoofs grow furious upon the stones. Marah stood up in his stirrups, and put his fingers in his mouth, and whistled a long, wailing, shrill whistle. Then he kicked his horses and we started, at a rattling pace, up the wretched twisting lane which led to Allington.