“Quick,” said Eva to me, pushing me gently on.
I was over the bridge and on the further side in a flash along with two others; turning back I heard an exclamation from the watchmen with the lanterns, and some expostulations.
“’Twas not in the bargain,” I caught; then there were more words which I heard too imperfectly to understand, but I recognised from the mere tone of one of the voices who the speaker was.
And with this there dawned on me also whose was the voice I had heard after I had been struck down. It was Dermot Fitzgerald’s! And he it was who was our guide!
In what way he satisfied the watchmen I do not know, but, having done so, he and Eva crossed the bridge. Then there was a whistle, and now a horse neighed; and thereafter the trampling of chargers broke upon the ear. The horse-boys brought the animals up to us, and presently we were in the saddle, moving off from the castle notwithstanding the gloom, Fitzgerald leading the way.
I wondered where we were going, but I had been told not to utter a word, in the one brief sentence I had exchanged with Eva when we were mounting the horses, and I followed on after her as I would have done to the end of the world, but I was fair dazed with these strange, fantastic tricks of fortune.
We had gone about a couple of leagues, as I conjectured, from Askeaton, riding for the greater part of the distance through the forest, when Fitzgerald stopped—and so did we all.
The darkness had grown perceptibly less intense, and we could now see a sort of path among the trees.