any men would have been capable of. For
it did not by any means end with the Coupee. When he got to bed of a
night, and fell asleep at last, he was still crossing the Coupee with
his joggling lantern all night long, and suffered things in dreams
compared with which even his actual experiences were but holiday jaunts.

And at times these grisly imaginings came back upon him as he actually
walked the narrow path next night, and it was all he could do to keep
his head and not fling the lantern into the depths of the pit and follow
it.

They were all getting exceedingly weary of the whole business; indeed,
it was getting on all their nerves in a way which threatened
consequences, when, mercifully, the end came--suddenly, not at all as
they had looked for it, quite outside all their expectation.

It was one of the shrouded nights. The Doctor and the Senechal, flat in
the heather, saw the lantern issue from the Sark cutting and come
joggling towards them. They heard a snort of surprise behind them, but
gave it no special heed. The Senechal grinned briefly at remembrance of
his fright when the beast snuffled down his neck that other night.

Then, this is what happened.

Gard--his lantern in his left hand, and the Senechal's father's
"dunderbush" in his right--his eyes pinching spooks out of every inch of
the black wall about him, and every string at its tightest--had reached
the crumbly bit of path near the Little Sark side, when, like a clap of
thunder out of a blue sky, the black silence of the cutting vomited
uproar--the wild clang and beat of what sounded, in that hollow space,
like the trampling of a thousand dancing hoofs--shrill neighings and
whinnyings and screamings, all blended into an indescribable and
blood-curdling clamour that gashed the night like an outrage.

And then, before even he had time to wonder, the great white stallion
was upon him--dancing on its hind legs on that narrow path like an
acrobat, towering above him to twice his own height, striking savagely
down at him with its great front feet, screaming like a fiend.

He had no time to think. His left arm and the lantern went up with the
natural instinct of defence. Just one glimpse he got--and never forgot
it--of vicious white eyes and teeth, flapping red nostrils, wild-flying
hair, and huge pawing feet descending on him, with the dirty white hair
splaying out all round them as they came down. Then his right hand went
up also, and he fired full