And often Mr. Dalroyd glared back across his
shoulder and spoke only to encourage his companion to faster pace.

Uphill and down they spurred and across wind-swept levels while the
moon waned and the stars paled to the dawn; and with the first chill
breath of coming day there reached them the sharp, salt tang of the
sea. Mr. Dalroyd uttered a short, fierce laugh and, seizing his
companion's rein, spurred his jaded animal to the hill before them. A
sloping upland, wild and desolate, a treeless expanse clothed with bush
and scrub, with beyond, at the top of the ascent, a little wood.
Spurring still, they reached this wood at last and here Mr. Dalroyd
drew rein, whipped pistols into pockets and dismounting, lifted my lady
from the saddle; then he turned and looked back to see, far away upon
the lonely road, a solitary horseman indistinct in the half-light.

"I can do it yet!" he laughed and, catching his companion's hand,
hurried through the wood, across a short stretch of grass and so to the
edge of a cliff with the sea beyond, where a two-masted vessel rode at
her anchor close inshore, while immediately below them was a little bay
where a boat had been drawn up. Mr. Dalroyd whistled shrilly, at which
signal two men rose from where they had sprawled on the shingle and ran
the boat to the edge of the tide.

Then Mr. Dalroyd turned and laughed again.

"Come Betty--my Betty!" he cried. "Yonder lies France and happiness."

"But Charles----"

"He's aboard like enough."

"But----"

"Come!" he cried, glancing toward the little wood.

But now my lady's petticoats must catch which caused much delay; free
at length she, not troubling for Mr. Dalroyd's hand, went on down the
precipitous path. The sailors, seeing her coming, launched their boat,
and my lady, not waiting for their aid and heedless of wet ankles,
sprang in, motioning them to do the same.

"But th' gentleman, mam--you'll never run off wi'out your fancy man,
lady!" laughed one of the men and pointed to where Mr. Dalroyd yet
stood upon the edge of the cliff, staring back towards the wood.

"Lady do be in a 'urry an' no mistake. Tom, give my lord a hail!"

The fellow Tom hailed lustily whereupon Mr. Dalroyd shook clenched fist
at the little wood and turned to descend the cliff, but in that instant
was a faint report; Mr. Dalroyd staggered, wheeled round, took a
reeling pace towards that dark wood and fell.

"Lord--Lord love me, Tom!" gasped the sailor.