When he saw that he was so near the village, he slackened his pace, and proceeded at a walk, wishing, like a wise and experienced equestrian, to bring his horse in cool. At the first trees of the road a deeper shade came into the twilight. About half a mile farther it became quite dark under the boughs, whatever it might be in the open fields; the darkness did not make him quicken his pace, but the minute after he heard some sounds before him which did. It is not very easy to explain what those sounds were, or by what process it was, that striking upon the tympanum of his ear, the two or three air-waves conveyed to his brain a notion that there were people in danger or distress at no great distance. There was a word spoken in a sudden and imperative tone, and that was the first sound he heard, and then there was a voice of remonstrance and entreaty, a woman's voice, and then something like a shriek, not loud and prolonged, but uttered as if the person from whose lips it came caught it as it was issuing forth, and strove to stifle it in the birth; some loud swearing and oaths were next heard, mingled with the noise of quick footfalls, as if some one were running fast towards the spot from the side of the village, and the next moment the horseman perceived, at the first indistinctly, and then clearly, a number of objects on the road before him, the largest, if not the most important of which was a carriage. At the head of the horses which had drawn it stood a man with something in his hand which might be a pistol. At the side of the vehicle were two more, with a saddled horse standing by, and they were apparently dragging out of the carriage a lady who seemed very unwilling to come forth, but from the other side was hurrying up, as hard as he could run, another personage of very different appearance from the three other men. By this time he was within ten yards of them, and our horseman, from his elevation on his beast's back, could see the head and shoulders of him who was approaching, and judged at once that he was a gentleman.