he could not see what to do. And the man
with him, who saw the rest of the party outstripping them, and as good
as disappearing in the fog, who fancied, with every step, that he heard
the feet of merciless pursuers overtaking them, was frantic with
impatience.

Then Colonel John, with the sweat standing on his brow, did a thing to
which he afterwards looked back with great astonishment.

"Give me your knife," he said, with a groan, "and hold her hands! We
must silence her, and there is only one way!"

The man, terrified as he was, and selfish as terrified men are,
recoiled from the deed. "My God!" he said. "No!"

"Yes!" Colonel John retorted fiercely. "The knife!--the knife, man! And
do you hold her hands!"

With a jerk he lifted her face from his breast--and this time she
neither struck him nor screamed. The man had half-heartedly drawn his
knife. The Colonel snatched it from him. "Now her hands!" he said.
"Hold her, fool! I know where to strike!"

She opened her mouth to shriek, but no sound came. She had heard, she
understood; and for a moment she could neither struggle nor cry. That
terror which rage and an almost indomitable spirit had kept at bay
seized her; the sight of the gleaming death poised above her paralysed
her throat. Her mouth gaped, her eyes glared at the steel; then, with a
queer sobbing sound, she fainted.

"Thank God!" the Colonel cried. And there was indeed thankfulness in
his voice. He thrust the knife back into the man's hands, and, raising
the girl again in his arms, "There is a house a little below," he said.
"We can leave her there! Hurry, man!--hurry!"

He had not traversed that road for twenty years, but his memory had not
tricked him. Less than fifty paces below they came on a cabin, close to
the foot of the waterfall. The door was not fastened--for what, in such
a place, was there to steal?--and Colonel John thrust it open with his
foot. The interior was dark, the place was almost windowless; but he
made out the form of an old crone who, nursing her knees, crouched with
a pipe in her mouth beside a handful of peat. Seeing him, the woman
tottered to her feet with a cry of alarm, and shaded her bleared eyes
from the inrush of daylight. She gabbled shrilly, but she knew only
Erse, and Colonel John attempted no explanation.

"The lady of the house," he said, in that tongue. And he laid Flavia,
not ungently, but very quickly, on the floor. He turned about without
another word, shut t