re he again hoped to be successful, and, feeling assured at last that
he had avoided the the sentries, he was about to make for a narrow
coombe on ahead, when once more a man stood in his path, and asked for
his pass.

"Haven't got it here," said Samson, gruffly.

"Then go back."

"Go back yourself," growled Samson; and, putting in effect a
west-country wrestling trick, he threw the sentry on his back, and
dashed down the slope toward the coombe. "He daren't go and tell,"
muttered the fugitive, "for he'd get into trouble for letting me go by."

_Bang_!

Samson leaped off the ground a couple of feet, and on coming down upon
the steep slope, staggered and nearly fell. Not that he was hit, but
the bullet sent to stop him cut up the turf close to his legs, and
startled him nearly out of his wits.

"I'll serve you out for that, my lad," he muttered, "I shall know you
again."

He ran on the faster though, and then to his disgust, found that another
sentry was at the bottom of the coombe, and well on the alert, running
to intercept him, for the shot fired had spread the alarm.

Seeing this, Samson dodged into the wood that clothed the western side
of the coombe, and by a little scheming crept out a couple of hundred
yards from where the sentry was on the watch.

"Tricked him this time," said Samson, chuckling, and once more starting,
for a bullet whistled by his ear, and directly after there was the
report.

But he ran on feeling that he had passed two of the chains of sentries,
and that now all he had to do was to clear the mounted patrols.

This he set himself to do with the more confidence that there was no
horseman in sight; and, with his hopes rising, he kept on now at a
steady trot, which he changed for a walk as he reached the irregular
surface of the moor, scored into hundreds of little valleys running into
one another, and the larger toward the sea.

"Nothing like a bow, after all," muttered Samson, as he ran. "Shoot
four or five arrows while you're loading one of those clumsy great guns.
Got away from you this time, my lad. Ay, you may shout," he muttered
as he heard a hail. "Likely! You'd have to holloa louder to bring me
back, and--Well, now, look at that!" he grumbled, as he got about five
hundred yards away, and suddenly found that he was the quarry of two of
the mounted men, who had caught sight of him, and were coming from
opposite directions, bent on cutting him off. "Well, I think I know