man. To that I set it down that we went on headlong and desperate. As
for the thicket itself, it was full of men--I could see their figures
between the trees. We must have passed twenty of them in the darkness
before one came out, plump on our path and cried out to us to halt.

"Hold, hold," shouts he; "is it you, Bob Williams?"

"It's Bob Williams, right enough," says I, and with that I gave him one
between the eyes, and down he went like a felled ox. The man who was
with him, stumbling up against Seth Barker, had a touch of the
shillelagh which was like a rock falling upon a fly. He just gave one
shuddering groan and fell backwards, clutching the branches. Little
Dolly Venn laughed aloud in his excitement, elbowed Peter Bligh who
gave a real Irish "hurrugh"; but the darkness had swallowed it all up
in a minute, and we were on again, heading for the shore like those
that run a race for their very lives.

"Do you see any road, Peter Bligh?" asked I, for my breath was coming
short now; "do you see any road, man?"

"The devil a one, sir, and me weighing fourteen stone!"

"You'll weigh less when we get down, Peter."

"And drink more, the saints be praised!"

"Was that a rifle-shot or a stone from the hills?" I asked them a
moment later. Dolly Venn answered me this time.

"A rifle-shot, captain. They'll be shooting one another, then--it's
ripping, ripping!"

"Look out, lad, or it'll be dripping!" cried I; "don't you see there's
water ahead?"

I cried the warning to him and stood stock-still upon the borders of as
black a pool as I remember to have seen in any country. The road had
carried us to the foot of the hills, almost to the chasm which the
wicker-bridge spanned; and we could make out that same bridge far above
us like a black rope in the twilight. The water itself was covered with
some clinging plants, and full of winding, ugly snakes which caused the
whole pool to shine with a kind of uncanny light; while an overpowering
odour, deadly and stifling, steamed up from it, and threatened to choke
a man. What was worse than this was a close thicket bordering the pond
on three sides, so that we must either swim for it or turn back the way
we came. The latter course was not to be thought of. Already I could
hear footsteps, and boughs snapping and breaking not many yards from
where we stood. To cross the pond might have struck the bravest man
alive with terror. I'd have sooner forfeited my life time over than
h