I'll kill the first
man that lays his hand on you!"

The blaze of bitter blood was in the ex-Dragoon's fiery face as the moon
shone on it, and he drew out one of his holster pistols, and swung round
in his saddle, facing the narrow entrance of the lane; ready to shoot
down the first of the pursuit whose shadow should darken the broad
stream of white light that fell through the archway.

Cecil looked at him, and paused no more; but vaulted into the old
familiar seat, and Forest King bore him away through the starry night,
with the brown mare racing her best by his side. Away--through the
sleeping shadows, through the broad beams of the moon, through the
odorous scent of the crowded pines, through the soft breaking gray
of the dawn; away--to mountain solitudes and forest silence, and the
shelter of lonely untracked ravines, and the woodland lairs they must
share with wolf and boar; away--to flee with the flight of the hunted
fox, to race with the wakeful dread of the deer; away--to what fate, who
could tell?

Far and fast they rode through the night, never drawing rein. The horses
laid well to their work; their youth and their mettle were roused, and
they needed no touch of spur, but neck-and-neck dashed down through the
sullen gray of the dawn and the breaking flush of the first sunrise.
On the hard, parched earth, on the dew-laden moss, on the stretches of
wayside sward, on the dry white dust of the ducal roads, their hoofs
thundered, unfollowed, unechoed; the challenge of no pursuit stayed
them, and they obeyed the call that was made on their strength with good
and gallant willingness. Far and fast they rode, happily knowing
the country well; now through the darkness of night, now through the
glimmering daybreak. Tall walls of fir-crowned rocks passed by their
eyes, all fused and dim; gray piles of monastic buildings, with the dull
chimes tolling the hour, flashed on their sight to be lost in a moment;
corn-lands yellowing for the sickle, fields with the sheaves set-up,
orchards ruddy with fruit, and black barn-roofs lost in leafy nests;
villages lying among their hills like German toys caught in the hollow
of a guarding hand; masses of forests stretching wide, somber and silent
and dark as a tomb; the shine of water's silvery line where it flowed
in a rocky channel--they passed them all in the soft gray of the waning
night, in the white veil of the fragrant mists, in the stillness of
sleep and of peace. Passed them