More deep lanes, more high, open, windy spaces, more silent cottages, more rough stones, and always the measured fall of the cob's feet and the continued shining and throbbing of the stars overhead. At last, far away ahead, on the top of a high incline, he caught sight of a solitary point of ruddy fire, which presently disappeared. That, he concluded, was the carriage he was pursuing going round a corner, and showing only the one lamp as it turned into the lane. They were not so far in front of him as he had supposed.
But how to overtake them? So soon as they heard the sound of his horse would they dash onward at all risks, and have a race for it all through the night? In that case George Rosewarne inwardly resolved that they might go to Plymouth, or into the deep sea beyond, before he would injure his favorite cob.
On the other hand, he could not bring them to a standstill by threatening to shoot at his own daughters, even if he had had anything with him that would look like a pistol. Should he have to rely, then, on the moral terrors of a parent's authority? George Rosewarne was inclined to laugh when he thought of his overawing in this fashion the high spirit of his younger daughter.
By slow and sure degrees he gained on the fugitives, and as he could now catch some sound of the rattling of the carriage-wheels, they must also hear his horse's footfall. Were they trying to get away from him? On the contrary, the carriage stopped altogether.
That was Harry Trelyon's decision. For some time back he had been listening attentively. At length he said, "Don't you hear some one riding back there?"
"Yes, I do," said Wenna, beginning to tremble.
"I suppose it is Mr. Roscorla coming after us," the young man said coolly. "Now I think it would be a shame to drag the old gentleman halfway down to Plymouth. He must have had a good spell already. Shall I stop and persuade him to go back home to bed?"
"Oh no," said Mabyn, who was all for getting on at any risk.
"Oh no," Wenna said, fearing the result of an encounter between the two men.
"I must stop," Trelyon said. "It's such precious hard lines on him. I shall easily persuade him that he would be better at home."