as lobbing
after his comrades at a painful canter. They had traversed the heavy
shingle, reached the harder stones at the cove's head and were
sailing away at stretched gallop when a volley rang out from the
shadow of the cliff there, and the scream of more than one mingled
with fresh shouting. At that moment, and just before the flame above
me sank and died almost as swiftly as it had first shot up, a
soldier--not a dragoon, but a man in red coat and white breeches--ran
forward and sprang at the girth of the wounded horse, which had
stumbled again. He did the wise thing--for a single girth was these
horses' only harness: but whether he caught it or not I could not
tell. Ten or a dozen soldiers followed, to help him. And, the next
instant, total darkness came down on the scene like a shutter.

It did not last long. The red-coats, it turned out, had brought
lanterns, and now, at a shouted order from their commanding officer
answering the call of the dragoon officer below, began to light them.
They meant, I doubted not, to make a strict search of the cliffs;
and, if they did--my cave being but a shallow one--there was no hope
for me. But just then a dismounted trooper came running up the
beach, his scabbard scraping the shingle as he went by: and his first
words explained the mystery of the crowd's disappearance.

"Where's your officer commanding?" he panted. "The devils have got
away into the next cove through a kind of hole in the cliff--a kind
of archway so far as we make out. They've blocked it with stones and
posted three-four men there, threatening sudden death. By their own
account they're armed. Major Dilke's holding them to parley, and
wants the loan of a lantern while you, sir, march your men round and
take the gang in the rear. They reckon they've none but us to deal
with."

The infantry officer grunted that he understood, sent the trooper
back with a lantern, and quietly formed up and marched off his
company. From my hiding-place I caught scraps of the parley at the
lower end of the beach--or rather of Major Dilke's share in it; for
the smugglers answered him through a tunnel, and I could only hear
their voices mumbling in response to the threats which he flung forth
on the wide night. He was in no sweet temper, having been cheated of
a rich haul: for the flare had, of course, warned away the expected
boat, and I supposed that some of the red-coats had been dispatched
at once to search the he