scended that way to the more remote bank
of the lake. It was a rugged path, steep and slippery, dropping
precipitously a couple of feet in places, and more than once following
the bed of the stream. But it was traceable even in the mist, and the
party from the sloop, once put on it, could follow it.

If no late-comer to the meeting encountered them, Colonel John, to whom
every foot of the ground was familiar, saw no reason, apart from the
chances of pursuit, why they should not get the prisoners, whom they
had so audaciously surprised, as far as the lower end of the lake.
There he and his party must fall again into the Skull road and risk the
more serious uncertainties of the open way. All, however, depended on
time. If Flavia's screams had not given the alarm, it would soon be
given by the absence of those whom the people had come to meet. The
missing leaders would be sought, pursuit would be organised. Yet, if
before that pursuit reached the foot of the lake, the fugitives had
passed into the road, the raiders would stand a fair chance. They
would at least have a start, the sloop in front of them, and their
enemies behind them.

But, with peril on every side of them, Flavia was still the main, the
real difficulty. Colonel Sullivan could not hope to carry her far, even
with the help of the man who fettered her feet, and bore part of her
weight. Twice she freed her mouth and uttered a stifled cry. The
Colonel only pressed her face more ruthlessly to him--his men's lives
depended on her silence. But the sweat stood on his brow; and, after
carrying her no more than three hundred yards, he staggered under the
unwilling burden. He was on the path now and descending, and he held
out a little farther. But presently, when he hoped that she had
swooned, she fell to struggling more desperately. He thought, on this,
that he might be smothering her; and he relaxed his hold to allow her
to breathe. For reward she struck him madly, furiously in the face, and
he had to stifle her again.

But his heart was sick. It was a horrible, a brutal business, a thing
he had not foreseen on board the _Cormorant_. He had supposed that she
would faint at the first alarm; and his courage, which would have faced
almost any event with coolness, quailed. He could not murder the girl,
and she would not be silent. No, she would not be silent! Short of
setting her down and binding her hand and foot, which would take time,
and was horrible to imagine,