when
the sound of horses' feet galloping was heard behind them.
Peregrine looked back.

"Ah!" he said. "Ride on as fast as you can towards the castle. You
will be all right. I will keep them back. Go, I say."

And as some figures were seen at the end of the road, he pricked the
pony with the point of his sword so effectually that it bolted
forward, quite beyond Anne's power of checking it, and in a second
or two its speed was quickened by shouts and shots behind. Anne
felt, but scarcely understood at the moment, a sharp pang and thrill
in her left arm, as the steed whirled her round the corner of the
lane and full into the midst of a party of gentlemen on horseback
coming down from the castle.

"Help! help!" she cried. "Down there."

Attacks by highwaymen were not uncommon experiences, though scarcely
at eight o'clock in the morning, or so near a garrison, but the
horsemen, having already heard the shots, galloped forward. Perhaps
Anne could hardly have turned her pony, but it chose to follow the
lead of its fellows, and in a few seconds they were in the midst of
a scene of utter confusion. Peregrine was grappling with Burford
trying to drag him from his horse. Both fell together, and as the
auxiliaries came in sight there was another shot and two more men
rode off headlong.

"Follow them!" said a commanding voice. "What have we here?"

The two struggling figures both lay still for a moment or two, but
as some of the riders drew them apart Peregrine sat up, though blood
was streaming down his breast and arm. "Sir," he said, "I am
Peregrine Oakshott, on whose account young Archfield lies under
sentence of death. If a magistrate will take my affidavit while I
can make it, he will be safe."

Then Anne heard a voice exclaiming: "Oakshott! Nay--why, this is
Mistress Woodford! How came she here?" and she knew Sir Edmund
Nutley. Still it was Peregrine who answered--

"I captured her, in the hope of marrying her, but that cannot be--I
have brought her back in all safety and honour."

"Sir! Sir, indeed he has been very good to me. Pray let him be
looked to."

"Let him be carried to the castle," said the commander of the party,
a tall man sunburnt to a fiery red. "Is the other alive?"

"Only stunned, my lord, I think and not much hurt," was the answer
of an attendant officer; "but here is a poor blackamoor dead."

"Poor Hans! Best so perhaps," murmured Peregrine, as he was lifted.
Then in a vo