Presently the man cried imperiously ‘Halt!’ and stepping forward caught the bit and roughly arrested the horse. ‘I am certain we are followed.’ ‘What if we are?’ asked Barbara. ‘What if we are!’ echoed the man. ‘Why, everything to me.’ He put his hands against the injured man; Barbara was sure he meant to thrust him out of the saddle, leap into it himself, and make off. She said, ‘We are followed by the boy with our gig.’ Then he laughed. ‘Ah! I forgot that. When a man has money about him and no firearms, he is nervous in such a blast-blown desert as this, where girls who may be decoys pop out of every furze bush.’ ‘Lead on, Eve,’ said Barbara, affronted at his insolence. She was unable to resist the impulse to say, across the horse, ‘You are not ashamed to let two girls see that you are a coward.’ The man struck his arm across the crupper of the horse, caught her bonnet-string and tore it away. ‘I will beat your brains out against the saddle if you insult me.’ ‘A coward is always cruel,’ answered Barbara; as she said this she stood off, lest he should strike again, but he took no notice of her last words, perhaps had not caught them. She said no more, deeming it unwise to provoke such a man. Presently, turning his head, he asked, ‘Did you call that girl—Eve?’ ‘Yes; she is my sister.’ ‘That is odd,’ remarked the man. ‘Eve! Eve!’ ‘Did you call me?’ asked the young girl who was leading. ‘I was repeating your name, sweet as your face.’ ‘Go on, Eve,’ said Barbara. The path descended, and became rough with stones. ‘He is moving,’ said Barbara. ‘He said something.’ ‘Martin!’ spoke the injured man. ‘I am at your side, Jasper.’ ‘I am hurt—where am I?’ ‘I cannot tell you; heaven knows. In some God-forgotten waste.’ ‘Do not leave me!’ ‘Never, Jasper.’ ‘You promise me?’ ‘With all my heart.’ ‘I must trust you, Martin,—trust you.’ Then he said no more, and sank back into half-consciousness. ‘How much farther?’ asked the man who walked. ‘I call this a cursed long half-hour. To women time is nought; but every moment to me is of consequence. I must push on.’ ‘You have just promised not to desert your friend, your brother.’ ‘It pacified him, and sent him to sleep again.’ ‘It was a promise.’ ‘You promise a child the moon when it cries, but it never gets it. How much farther?’ ‘We are at Morwell.’ They issued from the lane, and were before the old gatehouse of Morwell; a light shone through the window over the entrance door. ‘Old Davy is up there, ill. He cannot come down. The gate is open; we will go in,’ said Barbara. ‘I am glad we are here,’ said the man called Martin; ‘now we must bestir ourselves.’ Thoughtlessly he struck the horse with his whip, and the beast started, nearly precipitating the rider to the ground. The man on it groaned. The injured man was lifted down. ‘Eve!’ said Barbara, ‘run in and tell Jane to come out, and see that a bed be got ready at once, in the lower room.’