So Primus was ordered to drive slowly, and under other circumstances the English girl would have been vastly amused at the motley procession that began to straggle along behind her; but the danger was too imminent and too great to admit of any thoughts save those of anxiety and fear.
"TO LEAB BEHINE DE ONLIEST FEDDER BED SHE DONE GOT."
An hour or more passed without incident. The sun beat down fiercely from an unclouded sky, and the shadows of the tall pines seemed to nestle close to the brown trunks in an effort to escape his scorching rays. A sound of locusts filled the air. The grateful sea-breeze that would steal inland an hour later was still afar off, and but for the urgency of their flight, the slow-moving cavalcade would have rested until it came. The tongues of the cattle hung from their mouths, and a cloud of dust enveloped them. The heads of horses and mules were stretched straight out, and their ears drooped. Old Primus nodded on the carriage seat. Letty was fast asleep, and even her young mistress started from an occasional doze.
Unobserved by a single eye in all that weary throng, another cloud of dust, similar to that hanging above and about them, rose in their rear. It approached rapidly, until it was so close that the clouds mingled. Then from out the gray canopy burst a whirlwind of yells, shots, galloping horses, and human forms with wildly waving arms.
In an instant the fugitives were roused from their drowsiness to a state of bewildered terror. Men shouted and beat their animals, women screamed, horses plunged, mules kicked, and carts were upset.
The first intimation of this onset that reached the occupants of the carriage, was in the form of madly galloping cattle that, with loud bellowings, wild eyes, and streaming tails, began to dash past on either side. Then their own horses took fright, and urged on by old Primus, tore away down the road.
All at once the terrified occupants of the flying vehicle looked up at the sound of a triumphant yell, only to behold fierce eyes glaring at them from hideously painted faces at either door. The muzzle of a rifle was thrust in at one of the open windows, and at sight of it Anstice Boyd hid her face in her hands, believing that her last moment had come.
When she recovered from her terror sufficiently to look about her once more, Letty was sobbing hysterically on the floor, but there was no motion to the carriage, and all was silent around them. Primus was no longer on the box, and the carriage was not in the road.