"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Don't you hear the shouts of men before you?" I said. "The way is closed there, and you know that others are hot behind you! You must hide, and escape when the pursuit dies! See that house, the one with the lawn in front and the gardens behind! Run! hide yourself there! It's the house of John Desmond, a friend!"
Without my noticing it until then, the windings of the chase had brought us before John Desmond's home, and I saw no chance for Alloway unless he could hide for the time in the house or gardens.
"Quick," I cried, "over the fence! See, there is a light appearing in the house now! It may be John Desmond himself! If it is an old man of noble appearance, trust him, but put yourself in the hands of no woman, and say nothing of me!"
He obeyed, leaped the fence, and disappeared instantly in the shrubbery just as the hue and cry emerged from the alley and swept up the street towards me.
I was in the shadow of the buildings, and I ran forward with great energy, plunging violently into the arms of somebody who went down under the shock of the collision. But he held tightly to me and shouted,—
"I have him! I have him! It's my capture!"
I displayed a similar fierce zeal, and clung to him, exclaiming,—
"I thought that I would cut you off, and I have done it! Yield yourself!"
I reinforced my victory by sundry sound blows on the side of my antagonist's head, but in a few moments the crowd surrounded and then separated us, disclosing the bedraggled features of Moore, my captive.