The man turned to look back. Starting, she whispered: “There’s that man!”
They were abreast of him when, suddenly, the wind blew back his robe, giving them a moment’s glimpse at a flash of peculiar green.
Then it was that the Colonel did a strange thing. Apparently he kicked his donkey in the back of the forelegs, for, suddenly, he stumbled and fell to his knees. At the same time the Colonel went over sideways with a lunge that carried both him and the astonished pedestrian in a Persian robe, over the edge of the road and half way down the steep decline.
Expecting a struggle and perhaps shots, Mary sprang from her donkey.
There were no shots. Instead, in the half darkness she saw one shadowy figure go gliding down the hill while the other came struggling back up.
“Dad! Did you get it?” she whispered, greatly excited.
“If I hadn’t I would be going down, not up.” He was panting a little.
“Couldn’t you hold him?”
“Didn’t want to.”
“You didn’t want to!”