y weather into a cup.

That is often the way with a South African _castrol_, and I knew it was
so with this. We were straining for it, but the snow clogged us, and
our enemies were very close behind.

Then I was awakened by a figure at my side. 'Get ready, my lord,' it
said; 'it is the hour to ride.'

Like sleep-walkers we moved into the sharp air. Hussin led us out of
an old postern and then through a place like an orchard to the shelter
of some tall evergreen trees. There horses stood, champing quietly
from their nosebags. 'Good,' I thought; 'a feed of oats before a big
effort.'

There were nine beasts for nine riders. We mounted without a word and
filed through a grove of trees to where a broken paling marked the
beginning of cultivated land. There for the matter of twenty minutes
Hussin chose to guide us through deep, clogging snow. He wanted to
avoid any sound till we were well beyond earshot of the house. Then we
struck a by-path which presently merged in a hard highway, running, as
I judged, south-west by west. There we delayed no longer, but galloped
furiously into the dark.

I had got back all my exhilaration. Indeed I was intoxicated with the
movement, and could have laughed out loud and sung. Under the black
canopy of the night perils are either forgotten or terribly alive.
Mine were forgotten. The darkness I galloped into led me to freedom
and friends. Yes, and success, which I had not dared to hope and
scarcely even to dream of.

Hussin rode first, with me at his side. I turned my head and saw
Blenkiron behind me, evidently mortally unhappy about the pace we set
and the mount he sat. He used to say that horse-exercise was good for
his liver, but it was a gentle amble and a short gallop that he liked,
and not this mad helter-skelter. His thighs were too round to fit a
saddle leather. We passed a fire in a hollow, the bivouac of some
Turkish unit, and all the horses shied violently. I knew by
Blenkiron's oaths that he had lost his stirrups and was sitting on his
horse's neck.

Beside him rode a tall figure swathed to the eyes in wrappings, and
wearing round his neck some kind of shawl whose ends floated behind
him. Sandy, of course, had no European ulster, for it was months since
he had worn proper clothes. I wanted to speak to him, but somehow I
did not dare. His stillness forbade me. He was a wonderful fine
horseman, with his firm English hunting seat, and it was as well,