“Well, nothing surprises me nowadays, and in this beastly country. That old man—begging the lady’s pardon for referring to her dad—is hardly the one to let a good thing slip out of his hands for lack of a few horses, and golden ouzas to hire trackers. But we’ll give ’em the slip, see if we don’t?” was his reply.
“I’m afraid it is true—he is very determined. Why, it was his threat to injure you, Morgan, that made me obey him,” said Hildegarde, clinging to my arm closely.
“Why, I don’t believe the old villain had the remotest idea where upon the face of the earth such an individual as myself could be found, or that he was in any position to hurt me.”
“I think the same way now, but at the time he told such a plausible story I was forced to believe he had it in his power to injure you. Yes, I fear he will never give up the pursuit while he has life.”
There was no time to say more, but secretly I expressed a fervent wish that something might speedily befall the vindictive old schemer, whom I positively believed to be a fraud, yet whom my wife had accepted as her worthless parent.
The approaching party streamed down the calle; I could see the shovel hats in the van, and smiled to think how easily the affair had been won by them in the first round.
Little I cared—the game was not worth the candle to me; my honors had been unsought, and were relinquished without regret.
Luckily, they did not appear in time to discover the little group that hurried out of the other end of the narrow calle—perhaps they could not dream that the president of three hours would think of such a thing as flight, and expected him to be sound asleep, as he might have been, but for that remarkable secretary of war, who could sniff battle in the very air.
We made several turnings.
“Hark!” exclaimed Robbins, with a laugh.