They left Kingston village in a whirl of dust. Soon Iford was past, and the stunted spire of Rodmell showed white amid the trees. They went through the village at a brisk trot, under dusty elms and glittering poplars, with the sun-tanned Sussex women staring at them from doorways. A number of children were playing before the inn where roses climbed over the trellises. The youngsters ran beside the coach, cheering and waving their hands. Bess leaned forward and waved to them in turn, her eyes full of laughing light as she threw the children pence and watched them scramble. Everything was instinct with life for her that day, and her heart went out in blitheness to the world. They were about a mile from Rodmell, with the road running through lonely marsh-lands and diked meadows, when the Pevensel folk made a last snatch at the thread of Bess’s fate. A rough shed stood at the edge of the field with a brick bridge before it closed by a gate. There was no one in sight upon the road, and nothing moved athwart the green background of the landscape, save the cattle browsing in the meadows. The coach was within ten lengths of the cow-shed when two men came running out with a glinting of pistol-barrels in the sunlight. The younger of the two set himself in the middle of the road, and waved his arm to signal the coach to stop. It was then that Peter Gladden did one of the few bold things of his life, more from sudden impulse perhaps than from any superabundance of courage. Picking up the blunderbuss, he leaned forward over the baggage on the roof, and, chancing the singeing of his companion’s wigs, let fly straight at the man in the road. The roar of the bell-mouthed old musket set the horses plunging into a gallop. Gladden had winged his man, for the fellow had been badly hit in the thighs and body by the leaden slugs with which the blunderbuss had been loaded. He fell heavily, and tried to crawl across the road to escape the coach that was thundering down upon him. Gladden’s shot from the top of the coach was the first hint that Jeffray had of the adventure. He felt the coach sway and creak as the horses broke into a gallop, and heard the shouting of the servants. Instinctively he caught at Bess, and drew her down as a face flashed up at the window, a white, withered face, with snarling teeth and silvery hair blown by the wind. There was the crack of a pistol, and the splintering of a bullet through the off panel of the coach. Jeffray, with eyes ablaze, snatched up one of his own “flintlocks,” leaned out of the window, and fired at Isaac, who was running along behind the coach and pulling a second pistol from his belt. At the moment that Jeffray fired, the fore wheel smashed the man’s legs who was lying wounded in the road. The fellow’s yell of anguish spoiled Jeffray’s aim. The bullet tore a shred of cloth from the shoulder of Isaac’s coat, but did not stop the old wolf’s rush.