Then came a long ride along a very shelf of a road, where it seemed as if a false step on the part of his horse would send both rolling down the declivity to the edge of the sheer rocks, where they would fall headlong to the fine shingle below. But drunken men seem favourites with their horses, for when Captain Armstrong lurched to starboard his nag gave a hitch to keep him in the saddle, and when he gave another lurch to larboard the horse was ready for him again--all of which amused the captain more and more, and he chuckled aloud, and sang, and swore at his cousin for a cold, fishy, sneaking hound. "He'd like to see me die, and get the estate," he said; "but I'll live to a hundred, and leave half a score of boys to inherit, and he sha'n't get a groat, a miserable, sanctified dog-fish. Steady, mare, steady! Bah, how thirsty I am! Wish I'd had another drop." He kicked his horse's ribs, and the docile creature broke into a gentle amble, but only to be checked sharply. "Wo-ho, mare!" cried the captain, shaking his head, for he was dizzy now, and the dimly-seen trees sailed slowly round. "Wind's changing," he said; "steady, old lass! Walk." The mare walked, and the captain grew more confused in his intellect; while the night became darker, soft clouds rolling slowly over the star-spangled sky. The ride was certainly not sobering James Armstrong, and he knew it, for he suddenly burst into a chuckling laugh. "I know what she'll say," he said. "Ladyship will ride the high horse. Let her. I can ride the high horse, too--steady, mare! What's the matter with you?" He had been descending into a narrow pass where the road had been cut down in the hill side, leaving a high, well-wooded bank on either hand, and here it was far more dark than out in the open, and the mare, after walking steadily on for some distance with her well-shod hoofs clinking upon the loose stones, suddenly shied, stopped short, and snorted. "What's the matter with you, stupid? Can't you stand straight?" cried the captain, striking the beast angrily with his heels. "Go on." The horse, however, backed and swerved from side to side, making as if to turn sharply and gallop back to Dartmouth; but just at that moment there was a rustling sound heard overhead, where the rough bushes fringed the bank, and directly after a rush and the sound of someone leaping down into the lane between the captain and the town. This had the effect of startling the horse more and more, but instead of making now for the way by which they had come, it willingly obeyed the touch of the rider's spur, and continued its journey for half a dozen yards. Then it stopped short once again, for a dark figure leaped down into the lane just in front, and the captain found himself hemmed in.