'Come with me,' Helena said; 'I can show you.'
They hurried round to the stables, and found a wide-awake groom or two who had a lady's horse properly saddled, and a man's horse with no saddle, but only a bridle on. They had evidently taken the Dictator's command to the letter, and assumed that he had some particular motive for riding without a saddle.
Ericson lifted Helena into her seat. It has to be confessed that she was riding in her already-mentioned dressing-gown, and that she had nothing on her head, and that her bare feet were thrust into slippers. Mrs. Grundy was not on the premises, and, even if she were, Helena would not have cared two straws about Mrs. Grundy's reflections and criticisms.
'Oh, look here, you haven't a saddle!' she cried to Ericson.
'Saddle!—no matter—never mind the saddle,' he called. The horse was a little shy, and backed and edged, and went sideways, and plunged. One of the grooms rushed at him to hold his head.
The Dictator laid one hand upon his mane. 'Let him go!' he said, and he swung himself easily on to the unsaddled back and gripped the bridle. 'Now for it, Helena!' he exclaimed.
Now for it, Helena! She just caught the words in the wild flash of their flight. Never before had he used her name in that way. He rode his unsaddled horse with all the ease of another Mephistopheles; and what delighted the girl was that he seemed to count on her riding her course just as well.
'Look out everywhere you can,' he called to her; 'tell me if you see a squirrel stirring, or the eyes of an owl looking out of the ivy-bushes.'
Helena had marvellous sight—but she could descry no human figure, no human eyes, but his anywhere amid the myriad eyes of the dark night. They rode on and round.
'We shall soon find out the whole story,' he said to her after a while, and he brought his horse so near to hers that it touched her saddle. 'There is no one in the grounds, and we shall soon know all, if we have only to deal with the people who were indoors. I think we have settled that already.'