Night came on, but a low yellow moon burnt the fringe of the rising woods. They were retracing almost the very stones of the track she and Prosper had followed a year before.
Matt's intake they passed, she saw a light in the window. The heath loomed ghostly before them, with the dark bank of trees rising steadily as they neared. Athwart them rose also the moon; there was promise of a fine still night. They entered the trees, heading for Martle Brush.
Suddenly Galors pulled up, listening intently. There was no sound save that strange murmur the night has (as if the whole concave of heaven were the hollow of a shell), and the secret rustling of the trees. Still Galors listened. It was so quiet you might almost have heard two hearts beating.
As an underchant, sinister accompaniment to the voices of the night, there came to them the muffled pulsing of a horse's hoofs; a quick and regular sound—a horse galloping evenly with plenty in hand.
Both heard it. Galors drove in the spurs, and the chase began. They were yet a mile away from Martle Brush. If they could cross the brook and gain the ridgeway, it was long odds on their being overtaken that night.
CHAPTER XXXII
'BIDE THE TIME'
Walking the rounds at Hauterive the night of his coming there, a man sprang out at Prosper from a black entry and stabbed at him between the shoulders. "For the ravisher of Isoult!" was all the message that did not miscarry, for Galors' mail of proof stopped the rest. Prosper whipt round in an instant, but the assassin had made up the passage-way. There was a quick chase through the break-neck lanes of the steep little town, then blood told. Prosper ran his man to earth in a churchyard. He proved to be a red-haired country lout, whose bandy legs had been against him in this work. He asked for no quarter, seemed beside himself with rage.
"Friend," said Prosper, "you struck me from behind. You must have wished to make very sure. Why?"
Said Falve, "Thou ravisher, Galors."