ahead; but for several miles
Darby had been watching for the smoke of the burning bridge, and as they
neared the river his heart began to sink. There was one point on the
brow of a hill before descending to the bottom, where a sudden bend of
the road and curve of the river two or three miles below gave a sight
of the bridge. Darby waited for this, and when he reached it and saw the
bridge still standing his heart sank like lead. Other eyes saw it too,
and a score of glasses were levelled at it, and a cheer went up.

"Why don't you cheer too?" asked an officer. "You have more to make or
lose than anyone else."

"We ain't there yit," said Darby.

Once he thought he had seen a little smoke, but it had passed away, and
now they were within three miles of the bridge and there was nothing.
What if, after all, Vashti had failed and the bridge was still standing!
He would really have brought the raiders by the best way and have helped
them. His heart at the thought came up into his throat. He stopped and
began to look about as if he doubted the road. When the main body came
up, however, the commander was in no doubt, and a pistol stuck against
his head gave him to understand that no fooling would be stood. So he
had to go on.

As to Vashti, she had covered the fifteen miles which lay between the
district and the fork-road; and had found and sent a messenger to give
warning in the city; but not finding any of the homeguard where she
thought they were, she had borrowed some matches and had trudged on
herself to execute the rest of Darby's commands.

The branches were high from the backwater of the fork, and she often had
to wade up to her waist, but she kept on, and a little after daylight
she came to the river. Ordinarily, it was not a large stream; a boy
could chuck a stone across it, and there was a ford above the bridge
not very deep in dry weather, which people sometimes took to water their
horses, or because they preferred to ride through the water to crossing
the steep and somewhat rickety old bridge. Now, however, the water
was far out in the woods, and long before the girl got in sight of the
bridge she was wading up to her knees. When she reached the point where
she could see it, her heart for a moment failed her; the whole flat was
under water. She remembered Darby's command, however, and her courage
came back to her. She knew that it could not be as deep as it looked
between her and the bridge, for the messenger