r beds."

CHAPTER XIV. UNTIL THE DAY BREAK.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away.

It was not at first that Ralph was a prey to sentiments of horror. His
physical energy dominated all emotion, and left no room for terrible
imaginings--no room for a full realization of what had occurred. That
which appeared to paralyze the others--that which by its ghastly
reality appeared to fix them to the earth with the rigidity of
stone--endowed him with a power that seemed all but superhuman, and
inspired him with an impulse that leapt to its fulfilment.

Mounted on the young horse, he galloped after the mare along the long
range of the pikes, in and out of their deep cavernous alcoves, up and
down their hillocks and hollows, over bowlders, over streams, across
ghylls, through sinking sloughs and with a drizzling rain overhead. At
one moment he caught sight of the mare and her burden as they passed
swiftly over a protruding headland which was capped from his point of
view by nothing but the mist and the sky. Then he followed on the
harder; but faster than his horse could gallop over the pathless
mountains galloped the horse of which he was in pursuit. He could see
the mare no more. Yet he rode on and on.

When he reached the extremity of the dark range and stood at that
point where Great Howe fringes downward to the plain, he turned about
and rode back on the opposite side of the pikes. Once more he rode in
and out of cavernous alcoves, up and down hillocks and hollows, over
bowlders, over streams, across rivers, through sinking sloughs, and
still with a drizzling rain overhead. The mare was nowhere to be seen.

Then he rode on to where the three ranges of mountains meet at Angle
Tarn and taking first the range nearest the pikes he rode under the
Bow Fell, past the Crinkle Crags to the Three-Shire Stones at the foot
of Greyfriars, where the mountains slope downward to the Duddon
valley. Still the mare was nowhere to be seen.

Returning then to the Angle Tarn, he followed the only remaining range
past the Pike of Stickle until he looked into the black depths of the
Dungeon Ghyll. And still the mare was nowhere to be seen. Fear was
behind her, and only by fear could she be overtaken. It was at about
two o'clock in the afternoon that the disaster had occurred. It was
now fully three hours later, and the horse Ralph rode, fatigued and
wellnigh spent, was slipping its feet in the gathering darkness. He
turned i