Away I ran through the maze of hedge and shrubbery, threading the well-known paths unerringly. I heard excited shouts as the guardsmen, aroused by their comrade’s shot, poured from the mansion and plunged into the gardens to follow me. But it was dusk by this time, and I had little fear of being overtaken.
The estate was bounded upon this side by an impenetrable thick-set hedge, but it was broken in one place by a gardeners’ tool-house, which had a door at each side, and thus admitted one into a lane that wound through a grove and joined the main highway a mile beyond.
Reaching this tool-house I dashed within, closed and barred the door behind me, and then emerged upon the lane.
To my surprise I saw a covered carriage standing in the gloom, and made out that the door stood open and a man upon the box was holding the reins and leaning toward me eagerly as if striving to solve my identity.
Without hesitation I sprang into the carriage and closed the door, crying to the man:
“Quick! for your life—drive on!”
Without a word he lashed his horses and we started with a jerk that threw me into the back seat.
I heard an exclamation in a woman’s startled voice and felt a muffled form shrinking into the corner of the carriage. Then two shots rang out; I heard a scream and the sound of a fall as the driver pitched upon the ground, and now like the wind the maddened horses rushed on without guidance, swaying the carriage from side to side with a dangerous motion.
These Brazilian carriages have a trap in the top to permit the occupants to speak to the driver. I found this trap, threw it upward, and drew myself up until I was able to scramble into the vacant seat. The reins had fallen between the horses, evidently, but we were now dashing through the grove, and the shadows were so deep that I could distinguish nothing distinctly.
Cautiously I let myself down until my feet touched the pole, and then, resting my hands upon the loins of the madly galloping animals, I succeeded in grasping the reins and returned safely to the box seat.