“They’ll be after cutting off the poor fellows’ heads,” cried Gerald. “How did we come to miss them? I would not have gone on if I hadn’t thought they were close at our heels.”
“Nor would I,” said Archie; “it’s some blundering of that fellow Billy Blueblazes. He must have tumbled off his horse, and Tom wouldn’t leave him.”
The lieutenant could give them very little consolation. The Tae-pings, from the reports received, committed the most horrible cruelties in the places they had taken, and when they captured Pow-shun they put to death indiscriminately men, women, and children; the defeated Imperialist troops having joined them and assisted in plundering the place.
“Our horses must be rested; it is time for us to be going back,” said Roy at last.
Thanking the lieutenant, they again mounted. Just as they got outside the house they heard the sound of homes’ hoofs.
“Don’t fire!” cried the officer to his men. “These must be friends.”
In another moment two horsemen were seen coming along the road, and Gerald, dashing forward, shouted out, “Hurrah! Why, it’s Tom Rogers and Billy Blueblazes!”
Gerald was not mistaken, although their friends could scarcely be distinguished from the masses of mud which covered them and their steeds. Tom and Billy having received the congratulations of the party, and being introduced to the lieutenant, explained that finding the Tae-pings gaining upon them, they had leaped over a ditch bordered by trees, which concealed them from the view of their pursuers, and that they had then galloped along over the soft ground, having to scramble through a number of ditches, which were too wide to leap, until they, once more catching sight of the lights in the village, made their way back to the road.
As Tom and Billy were wet through, they declined to do more than stop and take a cup of hot tea, and the whole party then galloped on, as fast as their tired steeds could go, to the town, and managed to find their way back to the stable from which they had hired the horses.
The old man examined them with his lantern, exhibiting a rueful countenance, and shaking his head, muttering as he did so, “No good, no good!”