d. "Go back, Hope," he cried, "go back!"

But the carriage did not swerve on its way toward them. They all saw
her now distinctly. She was on the driver's box and alone, leaning
forward and lashing the horses' backs with the whip and reins, and
bending over to avoid the bullets that passed above her head. As she
came down upon them, she stood up, her woman's figure outlined clearly
in the riding habit she still wore. "Jump in when I turn," she cried.
"I'm going to turn slowly, run and jump in."

She bent forward again and pulled the horses to the right, and as they
obeyed her, plunging and tugging at their bits, as though they knew the
danger they were in, the men threw themselves at the carriage. Clay
caught the hood at the back, swung himself up, and scrambled over the
cushions and up to the box seat. He dropped down behind Hope, and
reaching his arms around her took the reins in one hand, and with the
other forced her down to her knees upon the footboard, so that, as she
knelt, his arms and body protected her from the bullets sent after
them. Langham followed Clay, and tumbled into the carriage over the
hood at the back, but MacWilliams endeavored to vault in from the step,
and missing his footing fell under the hind wheel, so that the weight
of the carriage passed over him, and his head was buried for an instant
in the sand. But he was on his feet again before they had noticed that
he was down, and as he jumped for the hood, Langham caught him by the
collar of his coat and dragged him into the seat, panting and gasping,
and rubbing the sand from his mouth and nostrils. Clay turned the
carriage at a right angle through the heavy sand, and still standing
with Hope crouched at his knees, he raced back to the woods into the
face of the firing, with the boys behind him answering it from each
side of the carriage, so that the horses leaped forward in a frenzy of
terror, and dashing through the woods, passed into the first road that
opened before them.

The road into which they had turned was narrow, but level, and ran
through a forest of banana palms that bent and swayed above them.
Langham and MacWilliams still knelt in the rear seat of the carriage,
watching the road on the chance of possible pursuit.

"Give me some cartridges," said Langham. "My belt is empty. What road
is this?"

"It is a private road, I should say, through somebody's banana
plantation. But it must cross the main road somewhere. It do