s and
drove us back headlong on the road. Nor did they stop here, but,
having us on the run, headed us right down the road to the bridge.

Here, at the bridge-head, finding it unguarded, I managed to wheel
about and beat off a couple of pursuers: and Israel Hutson and one of
the troopers joining me, we three blocked the passage and could not
be dislodged. For the bridge was extremely narrow; so narrow,
indeed, that in either parapet the builders had provided an embrasure
here and there, for the foot-traveller to step aside if he should
meet a passing wagon.

The cavaliers, confronted by this remnant of us, and still perhaps
believing that we counted on support, drew off some thirty yards, and
were plainly in two minds whether to attack us again or to drop the
business and ride back towards the trumpet-calls now sounding
confusedly along the crest of the downs; when, to their and our worse
dismay, was heard a pounding of hoofs on the road behind us, and over
the bridge at our backs came riding a rabble of mounted men with a
woman at their head--a woman dressed all in scarlet with a black
flapping hat and a scarlet feather. What manner of woman she was I
had no time to guess. But she rode with uplifted arm, grasping a
pistol and waving the others forward; and her followers--who in no
way resembled soldiers--poured after her, shouting, clearly bent on
our destruction.

I had managed to recharge my two pistols; and now, thrusting one into
my belt and grasping the other, with my sword dangling handy on a
wrist-knot, I dismounted and slipped into the nearest embrasure,
there to sell my life as dearly as might be. As I did so I heard,
above the pounding of hoofs, five or six shots fired, and saw Hutson
fling up his arms in the act of dismounting, fall his length across
the roadway, and lie still under the feet of my own terrified horse.
The trooper made a plunge forward as if to hurl himself through the
patrol; and they, no doubt, disposed of him. I never saw him again.

For me, I faced upon the new assailants, as the spitting of bullets
on the parapet directed me, and found little time to wonder what
manner of people these were who so plainly intended to murder me.
Some rode on cart-horses; one or two flourished pitchforks; and if
ever a man had a sense of taking his leave of life in a nightmare it
was I during that next minute. It seemed that a dozen were on me.
I cannot remember letting off my second pistol; but