"Dead! my love, dead."

"Oh! poor little Cecil," she cried, "that we were all so fond of. And
Mrs. Mayford and Ellen?"

"They have escaped!--they are not to be found.--They have hidden away
somewhere."

They crossed the river, and dismounting, they led the tired horse up
the steep slope of turf that surrounded a little castellated tor of
bluestone. Here they would hide till the storm was gone by, for from
here they could see the windings of the river, and all the broad plain
stretched out beneath their feet.

"I do not see them anywhere, Alice," said Sam presently. "I see no one
coming across the plains. They must be either very near us in the
hollow of the river-valley, or else a long way off. I have very little
doubt they will come here though, sooner or later."

"There they are!" said Alice. "Surely there are a large party of
horsemen on the plain, but they are seven or eight miles off."

"Ay, ten," said Sam. "I am not sure they are horsemen." Then he said
suddenly in a whisper, "Lie down, my love, in God's name! Here they
are, close to us!"

There burst on his ear a confused sound of talking and laughing, and
out of one of the rocky gullies leading towards the river, came the men
they had been flying from, in number about fourteen. They had crossed
the river, for some unknown reason, and to the fear-struck riders it
seemed as though they were making straight towards their lair.

He had got Widderin's head in his breast, blindfolding him with his
coat, for should he neigh now, they were undone, indeed! As the
bushrangers approached, the horse began to get uneasy, and paw the
ground, putting Sam in such an agony of terror that the sweat rolled
down his face. In the midst of this he felt a hand on his arm, and
Alice's voice, which he scarcely recognised, said, in a fierce
whisper,--

"Give me one of your pistols, sir!"

"Leave that to me!" he replied in the same tone.

"As you please," she said; "but I must not fall alive into their hands.
Never look your mother in the face again if I do."

He gave one more glance round, and saw that the enemy would come within
a hundred yards of their hiding-place. Then he held the horse faster
than ever, and shut his eyes.

* * * * *

Was it a minute only, or an hour, till they heard the sound of the
voices dying away in the roar of the river? and, opening their eyes
once more, looked into one another's faces.

Faces, they thought, that they had never seen