again, and the road ran between high banks for a
short distance.

As they reached this point they disappeared for the moment from
the yeomanry, and the force of the wind was broken by the banks,
so that they could breathe more easily, and hear one another's
voices.

Tom looked anxiously round at the lieutenant, who shrugged his
shoulders in answer to the look, as he bent forward to ease his
own horse, and said--

"Can't last another mile."

"What's to be done?"

East again shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing.

"I know, Master Tom," said Harry Winburn.

"What?"

"Pull up a bit, sir."

Tom pulled up, and his horse fell into a walk willingly enough,
while East passed on a few strides ahead. Harry Winburn sprang
off.

"You ride on now, Master Tom," he said, "I knows the heath well;
you let me bide."

"No, no, Harry, not I. I won't leave you now, so let them come,
and be hanged."

East had pulled up, and listened to their talk.

"Look here, now," he said to Harry; "put your arm over the hind
part of his saddle, and run by the side; you'll find you can go
as fast as the horse. Now, you two push on, and strike across the
heath. I'll keep the road, and take off this joker behind, who is
the only dangerous customer."

"That's like you, old boy," said Tom, "then we'll meet at the
first public beyond the heath." They passed ahead in their turn,
and turned on to the heath, Harry running by the side, as the
lieutenant had advised.

East looked after them, and then put his horse into a steady
trot, muttering,

"Like me! yes, devilish like me; I know that well enough. Didn't
I always play cat's-paw to his monkey at school? But that convict
don't seem such a bad lot after all."

Meantime, Tom and Harry struck away over the heath, as the
darkness closed in, and the storm drove down. They stumbled on
over the charred furze roots, and splashed through the sloppy
peat cuttings, casting anxious, hasty looks over their shoulders
as they fled, straining every nerve to get on, and longing for
night and the storm.

"Hark! wasn't that a pistol-shot?" said Tom, as they floundered
on. The sound came from the road they had left.

"Look, here's some on 'em, then," said Harry; and Tom was aware
of two horsemen coming over the brow of the hill on their left,
some three hundred yards to the rear. At the same instant his
horse stumbled, and came down on his nose and knees. Tom went off
over his shoulder, tumbling aga