"We'll follow," said Martin.
"And kill him—kill him!" said the girl. "And if you have any thought for a deceived woman, let him know that I sent you."
A few moments later Martin and Fellowes were in the street, talking eagerly as they went. Martin's head was not barren of schemes to-night.
"You understand, Fellowes. To Crosby first. Tell him everything. Bid him not spare his horse, nor pass a coach without knowing who rides in it. Then let him hasten to 'The Jolly Farmers,' Tell him to wait there for me as he did once before. On no account must he leave it. Then start on your road, and leave Dorchester behind you as fast as horse can gallop. One of us shall find Rosmore before the dawn."
* * * * *
Heavy clouds sailed majestically across the face of the moon. Now the long road lay dimly discernible in the pale misty light, now for a time it was dark, so that a coach might have driven unawares on to the greensward, or a stranger stumbled into the ditch by the roadside. Lonely trees shivered at intervals with a sound like sudden rain, and from the depths of distant woods came notes of low wailing, as though sad ghosts mourned in a hushed chorus. Hamlets were asleep, and not a light shone from wayside dwellings. Yet into a tired man's dreams there came the rhythmic beat of a horse's hoofs, far distant, then nearer, nearer, and dying again into silence. A late rider, and with this half-conscious thought, and an uneasy turning on the pillow perhaps, sleep again. On another road, beating hoofs suddenly came to the ears of a wakeful woman; someone escaping in the night, perhaps, and she murmured a prayer; she had a son who had fought at Sedgemoor. The grinding of coach wheels on one road, followed by the barking of dogs; and a woodcutter asleep in his hut, which lay at the edge of a forest track, was startled by the thud of hoofs, and, springing quickly from his hard couch, peeped from the door. Nothing to be seen, but certainly the sound of a horse going quickly away. There was naught in his hut to bring him a visit from a highwayman.
A man, riding in haste towards Dorchester, with papers and money in his pocket which might save his son from Judge Jeffreys, halted suddenly. Meeting him came another galloping horseman, and suddenly the moonlight showed him.
"Have you passed a coach upon the road?"
The galloping horseman drew rein, and the anxious father trembled. Horse and rider might have been of one piece; every movement of man and animal was perfect, and the man wore the dreaded brown mask.
"No, I have not seen a coach." And the father, remembering vaguely that this notorious highwayman was said to have helped many to escape from the West, burst out in pleading. "Oh, sir, have mercy. My son lies a prisoner in Dorchester, and the money I have may be his salvation."