"Back, back, boy!" said Roland, with a soldier's quick wit, and spurring his jaded horse from the yard. "They will have taken a cross-road or by-lane. We shall track them by the hoofs of the horses or the print of the wheels."
Our postilion grumbled, and pointed to the panting sides of our horses. For answer, Roland opened his hand—full of gold. Away we went back through the dull sleeping village, back into the broad moonlit thoroughfare. We came to a cross-road to the right, but the track we pursued still led us straight on. We had measured back nearly half the way to the post-town at which we had last changed, when, lo! there emerged from a by-lane two postilions and their horses.
At that sight our companion, shouting loud, pushed on before us and hailed his fellows. A few words gave us the information we sought. A wheel had come off the carriage just by the turn of the road, and the young lady and her servants had taken refuge in a small inn not many yards down the lane. The man-servant had dismissed the postboys after they had baited their horses, saying they were to come again in the morning, and bring a blacksmith to repair the wheel.
"How came the wheel off?" asked Roland sternly.
"Why, sir, the linchpin was all rotted away, I suppose, and came out."
"Did the servant get off the dickey after you set out, and before the accident happened?"
"Why, yes. He said the wheels were catching fire, that they had not the patent axles, and he had forgot to have them oiled."
"And he looked at the wheels, and shortly afterwards the linchpin came out?—Eh?"
"Anon, sir!" said the postboy, staring; "why, and indeed so it was!"
"Come on, Pisistratus, we are in time; but pray God—pray God—that—" the Captain dashed his spur into the horse's sides, and the rest of his words was lost to me.