Very, very gently Sophia lifted her head, saw that Hawkesworth was looking the other way, and gave the signal. Betty, nimble and active, was over in a moment unseen, unheard. Sophia followed, but the fence creaked under her, and Hawkesworth heard it and turned. He saw her poised on the fence, in the full moonlight, so that not a line of her figure escaped him; with a yell of triumph he darted towards her. But directly in his path lay a low gorse-bush, still in shadow. He did not see it, tripped over it, and fell all his length on the grass. By the time he was up again, the two were dim flying shadows, all but lost in the darkness that lay beyond the fence.
All but lost; not quite. In three seconds he was at the fence, he was over it, he was beginning to gain on them. They strained every nerve, but they had to breast the steep side of the hill, and though fear and the horror of his hand upon their shoulders gave them wings, breath was lacking. Then Betty fell, and lost a precious yard; and though she was up again, and panting onwards gallantly, for a few seconds he thought that he would catch them with ease. Then the ascent began to tell on him also. The fall had shaken him. He began to pant and labour; he saw that he was not gaining on them, but rather losing ground, and he slackened his pace, and shouted to the man on guard in the road above, bidding him stop them.
The man with an answering shout reined back his horse to the narrow pass where the road ran between the house and the cottages. There, peering forward, he made ready to intercept them. Fortunately, the moon, above and a little behind him, showed his figure in silhouette in the gap; and Sophia clutching Betty's hand, dragged her back at the moment she was stepping into the moonlit road. An instant the two listened, trembling, palpitating, staring, like game driven into the middle of the field. But behind them Hawkesworth's scrambling footsteps and heavy breathing still came on; they could not wait. A moment's sickening doubt, and Sophia pressed Betty's hand, and the two darted together across the road, and took cover in a space still dark, between the two cottages that flanked it on the farther side.
The man in the gap gave the alarm, shouting that they had crossed the road; and Hawkesworth, coming up out of breath, asked with a volley of curses why he had not stopped them.
"Because they did not come my way!" the fellow answered bluntly. "Why didn't you catch 'em, captain?"
"Where are they?" Hawkesworth panted fiercely.
"Straight over they went. No! Between the hovels here!"
But Hawkesworth had a little recovered his breath, and with it his cunning. Instead of following his prey into the dark space between the buildings, he darted round the other side of the lower cottage, and in a twinkling was on the open slope beyond. Here the moonlight fell evenly, the hillside was clear of gorse, he could see a hundred yards. But he caught no glimpse of fleeing figures, he heard no sound of retiring footsteps; and quick as thought he turned up the hill, and learned the reason.
A high wall ran from cottage to cottage, rendering exit that way impossible. Sophia had trapped herself and her companion; they were in a cul de sac! With a cry of triumph he turned to go back; as he ran he heard the horseman he had left call to him. Opportunely, as he gained the road, he was joined by the third of the band, the rogue he had left at the stepping stones.
"Have you nabbed them?" the fellow panted.