The post-boy had just tied up the lame horse, and was on the point of mounting the other, when, not more than a dozen yards from the chaise, and as if he had sprung that moment out of the ground, a masked horseman leaped the rough wall that divided the high-road from the fells. "Stand, or you are a dead man!" he exclaimed in commanding tones, as he presented a pistol at the postboys head. Then, turning to the chaise window, which was open, and at the same moment flashing a bull's-eye lantern on the travellers: "Good people your money or your lives!" he said. The maid gave utterance to a scream; but the young lady only clung in terrified silence to her lover's arm. A network of filmy clouds covered the sky; but the moon, which had now risen, gave enough light to enable the postilion to see that the highwayman was mounted on a powerful black horse with a white stocking on its near fore-leg, and a white star on its forehead; that he wore a bell-shaped beaver hat; that his mask just reached to the tip of his nose, and that his outer garment was a dark horseman's cloak with several capes to it. "I durst wager a thousand pounds to a farden it's Captain Nightshade," he muttered under his breath. "Sir," said the young captain, bending forward so that his face was in a line with the open window, speaking with much dignity and a ceremonious politeness more common in those days than now, "here is my watch, together with that of this lady, and here are our purses; but if the feelings of a gentleman are still cherished by you--and by your accent I judge you to be one--and if the sentiments of our common humanity have still power to appeal to your heart, I beg and entreat that you do not leave us wholly destitute of the means wherewith to prosecute our journey. I and this lady are on our way to Gretna Green. She has escaped from the custody of a most tyrannical uncle, who is also her guardian, and who would fain force her into marriage with a man whom she detests. That he is in pursuit of us, and no great distance behind, we have every reason to believe. Now, sir, should you be sufficiently hard-hearted to deprive us of the whole of our funds, even should we by some miracle be enabled to reach the end of our journey, the needful gold would still be lacking wherewith to forge that link of Hymen which would give me a husband's right to protect this dear girl from all the tyrannical uncles in existence." The highwayman had listened attentively. The reins lay on his horse's neck; his left hand held the lantern, the light from which shone full into the body of the chaise; his right grasped a pistol the barrel of which gleamed coldly in the moonlight. "Sir, not another word, I entreat," he said when the captain had done speaking, bowing low and withdrawing the light of his lantern at the same moment. "Never shall it be said of me that I took toll of lovers in distress. Rather would I do all that in me lies to aid them as far as my poor powers might avail."