indirectly, our composition
gave enormous literary pleasure. Buck up, old man, this story of ours is
a switchback. I have begun to understand the pulse and the time of it;
now we are up in a cathedral and then we are down in a theatre, where
they only play farces. Come, I am quite reconciled--let us enjoy the
farce."

But MacIan said nothing, and an instant afterwards Turnbull himself
called out in an entirely changed voice: "Oh, this is damnable! This is
not to be borne!"

MacIan followed his eye along the sand-hills. He saw what looked like
the momentary and waving figure of the nigger minstrel, and then he saw
a heavy running policeman take the turn of the sand-hill with the smooth
solemnity of a railway train.

XIII. THE GARDEN OF PEACE

Up to this instant Evan MacIan had really understood nothing; but when
he saw the policeman he saw everything. He saw his enemies, all the
powers and princes of the earth. He suddenly altered from a staring
statue to a leaping man of the mountains.

"We must break away from him here," he cried, briefly, and went like
a whirlwind over the sand ridge in a straight line and at a particular
angle. When the policeman had finished his admirable railway curve, he
found a wall of failing sand between him and the pursued. By the time
he had scaled it thrice, slid down twice, and crested it in the third
effort, the two flying figures were far in front. They found the sand
harder farther on; it began to be crusted with scraps of turf and in
a few moments they were flying easily over an open common of rank
sea-grass. They had no easy business, however; for the bottle which they
had so innocently sent into the chief gate of Thanet had called to life
the police of half a county on their trail. From every side across the
grey-green common figures could be seen running and closing in; and it
was only when MacIan with his big body broke down the tangled barrier of
a little wood, as men break down a door with the shoulder; it was only
when they vanished crashing into the underworld of the black wood, that
their hunters were even instantaneously thrown off the scent.

At the risk of struggling a little longer like flies in that black web
of twigs and trunks, Evan (who had an instinct of the hunter or the
hunted) took an incalculable course through the forest, which let them
out at last by a forest opening--quite forgotten by the leaders of the
chase. They ran a mile or two farther along