“No more I.”
“Asleep, perhaps? It won’t do for us to go any nearer, till sure. He’s had the advantage of me too often before. I can’t afford giving it again. Ha! what’s that?”
The dog has suddenly slewed round, and sniffs in the opposite direction. Clancy and Jupe, turning at the same time, see that which draws their thoughts from Richard Darke, driving him altogether out of their minds.
Their faces are turned towards the east, where the Aurora reddens the sky, and against its bright background several horsemen are seen en silhouette, their number each instant increasing. Some are already visible from crown to hoof; others show only to the shoulders; while the heads of others can just be distinguished surmounting the crest of the cliff. In the spectacle there is no mystery, nor anything that needs explanation. Too well does Charles Clancy comprehend. A troop of mounted men approaching up the pass, to all appearance Indians, returning spoil-laden from a raid on some frontier settlement. But in reality white men, outlawed desperadoes, the band of Jim Borlasse, long notorious throughout South-Western Texas.
One by one, they ascend en échelon, as fiends through a stage-trap in some theatric scene, showing faces quite as satanic. Each, on arriving at the summit, rides into line alongside their leader, already up and halted. And on they come, till nineteen can be counted upon the plain.
Clancy does not care to count them. There could be nothing gained by that. He sees there are enough to make resistance idle. To attempt it were madness.
And must he submit? There seems no alternative.
There is for all that; one he is aware of—flight. His horse is strong and swift. For both these qualities originally chosen, and later designed to be used for a special purpose—pursuit. Is the noble animal now to be tried in a way never intended—retreat?
Although that dark frowning phalanx, at the summit of the pass, would seem to answer “yes,” Clancy determines “no.” Of himself he could still escape—and easily. In a stretch over that smooth plain, not a horse in their troop would stand the slightest chance to come up with him, and he could soon leave all out of sight. But then, he must needs also leave behind the faithful retainer, from whose lips has just issued a declaration of readiness to follow him to the death.
He cannot, will not; and if he thinks of flight, it is instinctively, and but for an instant; the thought abandoned as he turns towards the mulatto, and gives a glance at the mule. On his horse he could yet ride away from the robbers, but the slow-footed hybrid bars all hope for Jupiter. The absconding slave were certain to be caught, now; and slave or free, the colour of his skin would ensure him cruel treatment from the lawless crew.