"Was there anything else?" he asked.

"Oh, do come away. I'm frightened," said the girl, imploring.

"So'm I--badly," said Dick, and rose to his feet.

The letters from Melchard's pocket were still in her hand. He took them,
and picked out a white envelope with no writing on it. The wax seal had
been broken.

He drew from it a sheet of paper, and unfolded it before her.

"That's the formula--it must be," said Amaryllis.

"Let's hook it, then," said Dick, buttoning the package and envelope
into his hip-pocket, and slipping the rest of Melchard's papers into the
side pocket of his own jacket, hanging loosely on Amaryllis.

As they crossed the hall he missed Ockley.

"My God!" he cried. "The black bloke's gone. Did you see him go--or hear
him?"

Amaryllis shook her head.

"I thought I'd given him a five-minute dose at least," said Dick on the
threshold, and taking her left elbow in his hand, began to run. "We've
got to grease like hell. It's a mile and a half to my car."

They were half-way to the pretentious gate, and Amaryllis was already
distressed by the pace, when they heard behind them the thud of a
revolver. A twig with two leaves, cut from a branch above and beyond
them, fell into the road. Dick increased his pace, so that Amaryllis was
only kept from falling by his firm hold of her arm.

A second shot hit the drive behind them, spraying their backs with
gravel.

"High. Low, to left--jump!" yelled Dick, swinging the girl leftward past
his body with a force so sudden that she fell on the grass at the
roadside, in the shelter of an artificial knoll covered with shrubs; and
this time Dick heard the bullet close on his right.

He threw himself on the grass, sharing her cover.

"All right?" he asked.

Speechless for lack of breath, Amaryllis nodded, trying to smile.

"You can't run to the gate," he said, rather as if speaking to himself
than to her. "Wind's gone already, and it's a hundred yards without
cover. To the bank of the road's only about twenty-five. Breathe deep.
Is my cap in that pocket still?"

Amaryllis found and gave it to him. Dick, unrolling it, rose slowly to
his knees, facing the rhododendron bush.

"Oh, don't!" exclaimed the girl.

"Wouldn't, if I'd got a stick. Listen; he's using an Army Webley, I
think. Six shots. He's fired three. If I can draw the second three
before he fills up, it gives us a start while he reloads."

On his knees, he peered through the bush.

"Still