eace, her
head against Mirza's neck, her eyes upon Haward's face, clear in the
flashing lightning. That gentleman heard the story with his usual
calmness; his companion first swore, and then laughed.

[Illustration: AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN]

"Here's a Canterbury tale!" he cried. "Egad, Haward, are we to take this
skipping rope, vault it as though we were courtiers of Lilliput? Neither
of us is armed. I conceive that the longest way around will prove our
shortest way home."

"My dear Colonel, I want to speak with these two gentlemen."

"But at your leisure, my friend, at your leisure, and not in dying tones!
I like not what I hear of Monsieur Jean Hugon's pistols. Flank an ambush;
don't ride into it open-eyed."

"Colonel Byrd is right," said the storekeeper earnestly. "Ride back, the
two of you, and take the bridle path that will carry you to Fair View by
way of the upper bridge. In the mean time, I will run through the woods to
Mr. Taberer's house, cross there, hurry to the quarters, rouse the
overseer, and with a man or two we will recross the creek by the lower
bridge, and coming upon these rogues unawares, give them a taste of their
own medicine! We'll hale them to the great house; you shall have speech of
them in your own hall."

Neither of the riders being able to suggest a better plan, the
storekeeper, with a wave of his hand, plunged into the forest, and was
soon lost to view amidst its serried trunks and waving branches. Haward
stooped from his saddle; Audrey set her bare foot upon his booted one, and
he swung her up behind him. "Put thine arm around me, child," he told her.
"We will ride swiftly through the storm. Now, Colonel, to turn our backs
upon the enemy!"

The lightning was about them, and they raced to the booming of the
thunder. Heavy raindrops began to fall, and the wind was a power to drive
the riders on. Its voice shrilled above the diapason of the thunder; the
forest swung to its long cry. When the horses turned from the wide into
the narrow road, they could no longer go abreast. Mirza took the lead, and
the bay fell a length behind. The branches now hid the sky; between the
flashes there was Stygian gloom, but when the lightning came it showed far
aisles of the forest. There was the smell of rain upon dusty earth, there
was the wine of coolness after heat, there was the sense of being borne
upon the wind, there was the leaping of life within the veins to meet the
aw