for your squire, Captain
Percy?"

He held out his great hand, and after a moment I put my own in it.

We left the garden and struck into a lane. "The river, then, instead of
the forest?" he asked in a low voice.

"Ay," I answered. "Of the two evils it seems the lesser."

"How about a boat?"

"My own is fastened to the piles of the old deserted wharf."

"You have with you neither food nor water."

"Both are in the boat. I have kept her victualed for a week or more."

He laughed in the darkness, and I heard my wife beside me utter a
stifled exclamation.

The lane that we were now in ran parallel to the street to within fifty
yards of the guest house, when it bent sharply down to the river. We
moved silently and with caution, for some night bird might accost us
or the watch come upon us. In the guest house all was darkness save one
room,--the upper room,--from which came a very pale light. When we had
turned with the lane there were no houses to pass; only gaunt pines
and copses of sumach. I took my wife by the hand and hurried her on. A
hundred yards before us ran the river, dark and turbulent, and between
us and it rose an old, unsafe, and abandoned landing. Sparrow laid his
hand upon my arm. "Footsteps behind us," he whispered.

Without slackening pace I turned my head and looked. The clouds, high
around the horizon, were thinning overhead, and the moon, herself
invisible, yet lightened the darkness below. The sandy lane stretched
behind us like a ribbon of twilight,--nothing to be seen but it and the
ebony mass of bush and tree lining it on either side. We hastened on. A
minute later and we heard behind us a sound like the winding of a small
horn, clear, shrill, and sweet. Sparrow and I wheeled--and saw nothing.
The trees ran down to the very edge of the wharf, upon whose rotten,
loosened, and noisy boards we now trod. Suddenly the clouds above us
broke, and the moon shone forth, whitening the mountainous clouds,
the ridged and angry river, and the low, tree-fringed shore. Below us,
fastened to the piles and rocking with the waves, was the open boat in
which we were to embark. A few broken steps led from the boards above to
the water below. Descending these I sprang into the boat and held out my
arms for Mistress Percy. Sparrow gave her to me, and I lifted her down
beside me; then turned to give what aid I might to the minister, who was
halfway down the steps--and faced my Lord Carnal.

What devil had led