that none
followed me. I heard, moreover, Brian's voice peremptorily ordering me
back, but to it I turned a deaf ear, for still clearer seemed to sound
Beryl's voice urging me forward. "Bring back Meerkat," had been her
parting words to me. And now there the horse was--not so very far in
front of me. Brian might shout himself voiceless: this time I would pay
no attention to him. A mad gallop, a short exhilarating pursuit, I
would knock off its back the greasy rascal who was riding it, and would
bring back the horse--Beryl's horse--in triumph. The idea was more than
exhilarating.

Yes, but behind that lay its realisation, and this was not quite so
easy. For the way was literally "dark and slippery." Over
staircase-like rocks, and rolling, slipping stones, it ran, now beneath
the gloom of trees, now through lower scrub, whose boughs, flying back,
more than once nearly swept me from the saddle. Listening intently, I
could just catch the faint click of hoofs away in front, and with a
sinking of heart I recognised that this sound seemed to be growing even
more faint. The consciousness maddened me, and I spurred my faithful
steed along that rugged way, plunging, floundering, but getting along
somehow, in a manner not to be contemplated in cold blood.

If the path was damnable, the ascent was easy, luckily, though rugged.
I gave no thought as to whether any of my comrades were following, or if
I did it was only a jealous misgiving lest I should not be, the first to
come up with the quarry. The thieves might escape, for all I cared; the
other horse might not be recovered, but recapture Beryl's I would. Then
I awoke to the unpleasing realisation that dusk was giving way to
darkness, the downright sheer darkness of night.

All the more reason for bringing the undertaking to a swift conclusion:
wherefore I pommelled and spurred my hapless steed along with a
ruthlessness of which at any other time I should be heartily ashamed.
But here the end justified the means, and soon I was rewarded, for I
heard the click of hoofs much nearer ahead now, and with it the
smothered tone of a voice or two.

Of course it should have occurred to me, had I not been transformed into
a born idiot for the time being, that I was acting the part of one. For
here I was, a man who had been little more than a month in the country,
about to rush into the midst of unknown odds, to attack single-handed
how many I knew not of fierce and savage d