s branching colonnade that the two
fugitives fled, almost concealed from their pursuers by the twilight,
the mist and the leaping zoetrope of shadows. Their feet, though beating
the ground furiously, made but a faint noise; for they had kicked away
their boots in the wood; their long, antiquated weapons made no jingle
or clatter, for they had strapped them across their backs like guitars.
They had all the advantages that invisibility and silence can add to
speed.

A hundred and fifty yards behind them down the centre of the empty
road the first of their pursuers came pounding and panting--a fat but
powerful policeman who had distanced all the rest. He came on at a
splendid pace for so portly a figure; but, like all heavy bodies in
motion, he gave the impression that it would be easier for him to
increase his pace than to slacken it suddenly. Nothing short of a
brick wall could have abruptly brought him up. Turnbull turned his head
slightly and found breath to say something to MacIan. MacIan nodded.

Pursuer and pursued were fixed in their distance as they fled, for some
quarter of a mile, when they came to a place where two or three of the
trees grew twistedly together, making a special obscurity. Past
this place the pursuing policeman went thundering without thought or
hesitation. But he was pursuing his shadow or the wind; for Turnbull had
put one foot in a crack of the tree and gone up it as quickly and softly
as a cat. Somewhat more laboriously but in equal silence the long legs
of the Highlander had followed; and crouching in crucial silence in the
cloud of leaves, they saw the whole posse of their pursuers go by and
die into the dust and mists of the distance.

The white vapour lay, as it often does, in lean and palpable layers;
and even the head of the tree was above it in the half-daylight, like
a green ship swinging on a sea of foam. But higher yet behind them, and
readier to catch the first coming of the sun, ran the rampart of the
top of the wall, which in their excitement of escape looked at once
indispensable and unattainable, like the wall of heaven. Here,
however, it was MacIan's turn to have the advantage; for, though less
light-limbed and feline, he was longer and stronger in the arms. In two
seconds he had tugged up his chin over the wall like a horizontal
bar; the next he sat astride of it, like a horse of stone. With his
assistance Turnbull vaulted to the same perch, and the two began
cautiously t