The glade ended in a dense thicket so overgrown with creepers that to force a way through would have been difficult. Dick pulled up, thinking hard. Someone was near, he felt—and there came a queer, pricking sensation in his skin as he wondered what it felt like to be speared. Then he saw an opening on his right hand, and pushing through, found himself on the edge of a long gully, fringed with ferns and thick with sarsaparilla and clematis. Here was where Olaf had come; the pony's hoof marks were clearly visible among crushed flowers and leaves in the rich soil. And then his heart gave a great bound, and stood still.
Merle was running desperately towards him, dodging in and out of the trees that grew on the bank of the gully. She was hatless, and there was a long smear of mud on her face that looked like blood. And behind her, running swiftly and silently, were half a dozen men—slender black figures with horrible patterns on their bodies in black and red, and in their hands bundles of spears. Dick saw one flash in the air past Merle, burying its point in a tree.
He shouted, sending Conqueror forward. Something hard knocked against his side with the sudden movement, and he gasped with relief as he remembered Mrs. Macleay's pistol. There was no aiming, with Merle between him and the racing black figures; he fired twice in the air, shouting with mingled joy and excitement when he saw them pause and dodge behind cover. Then he was beside Merle, and she was clinging to his stirrup. He found himself praying desperately.
"Oh, God! keep Conqueror steady!"
The great horse stood like a rock. Dick kicked his feet out of the stirrup and slid to his back behind the saddle.
"Jump up!" he said sharply. "You've got to be in front."
Somehow, with his help, she managed it. Her boot caught him in the face as she gained the saddle and almost knocked him off. She gathered up the reins, and Dick caught her belt with one hand. The blacks showed again on both sides of the gully. He fired wildly among them, and thought he saw one man drop. But there was no time to see anything. Conqueror was off, and they were tearing up the long glade. A spear whistled by them, and Dick flung his arms around Merle, sheltering her as best he could.
"Lie down on his neck," he gasped. "He'll take us home if they don't hit him."
Right ahead a knot of blacks showed, fiercely barring the way, and a flight of spears came whirring through the air. Dick fired his last shot, with a feeling of numb despair. Conqueror would never face them, and once he turned, wheeling back among the trees, what chance had they? For the bush was alive with blacks. He could see their fierce forms slipping in and out among the timber; could hear their guttural shouts. He forced Merle down yet further, vainly trying to shield her with his body.
A spear caught the tip of Conqueror's ear, and another grazed his flank. He plunged so violently that his riders were almost unseated; and then, mad with pain and terror, the great horse charged forward, pounding the glade with outstretched neck and nostrils flecked with foam. The blacks stood for an instant, and then wavered and fled, and Conqueror swept by them, shaking the earth in the might of his stride. A few spears flew harmlessly past, and then Dick felt a sudden red-hot pain in his shoulder; but it did not seem to matter—nothing mattered save the wild exultation of that race with Death. He shouted triumphantly, "Good old Conqueror!" and heard a sound from Merle that was half laugh, half sob.