For the Captain, having spurred his jaded steed some way into the bog, reined up suddenly, and tried to turn back. The horse’s legs were already sunk to the knees, and in his struggle to get clear plunged yet a yard or two farther towards the middle. Then he sank miserably on his side, throwing his rider to the ground. The man, with a wild effort, managed to fling himself on the flank of the fast sinking beast; but ’twas a short-lived support. With a yell that rings in my ears as I write, he struggled again to his feet and tried to run. But the bog held him and pulled him down inch by inch—so quickly that, before I could understand what was passing, he was struggling waist-deep like a man swimming for his life. Next moment I saw his hands cast wildly upwards. After that, the bog lay mirky and silent, with no record of the dead man that lay in its grip.
Before I could fling off the awful spell that held me and rush to the place, the man on the other side of the valley had uttered a cry and dashed in the same direction.
And, as we stood thus, parted by the fathomless depth of the dead man’s grave, we looked up and knew one another.
For this was Ludar.
Chapter Thirty.
How the Sun went down behind Malin.
I think it was the sudden shock of this great discovery, and naught else, that arrested our feet in time and saved us from madly rushing on the doom of our lost enemy.
At such a time how could we think even of him?