Thrusting the bit of paper into his waistcoat, Percy gasps and gazes. He beholds Sir Robin and his man lifting a limp and slender form, ill-defined, ’tis true, in its swathe of camlet cloak, into the coach; he beholds a head of dark short hair, a face of ashen pallor, and, in two seconds more, before he can rush back and leap into his saddle, motioning Grigson to do the same, the coach containing Sir Robin and his prize is dashing as fast as whip, spur, sixteen thoroughbred legs, and a backing-up of wholesome terror can urge it, over the bleak and gruesome waste of Farnham Heath! “’Slife! Grigson, man,” cries Percy, digging steel into the poor roan’s flanks till they spurt blood in a stream. “We must overtake ’em, unhorse ’em, spill out the wretch inside; I’ll into the coach then to protect the lady, you mount the leader and gallop us over the heath for your life!” “Trust me, Sir Percy,” answers Grigson from a length behind his master. “God grant, Sir, that the roan drop not out of the race and leave us but one saddle betwixt you and me, Sir.” “Poor beast,” says Percy, pricking her hard and striking her shoulder with the flat of his rapier. “She’ll die, and in a good cause if she gain me the goal.” And all the while they’re speaking, flash and crack go the whips of Sir Robin’s postilions, and Sir Robin’s splendid beasts cover the ground with a swing and a will that keeps the coach rocking, but yet awakens not Lady Peggy, whose dark cropped head reposes on the crooked shoulder of Sir Robin, while her white eyelids remain sealed and no quiver of returning consciousness thrills about her drawn and bloodless lips. “Gad!” exclaims Percy, as he beholds the vehicle swinging and spinning farther and farther from him, and as Grigson’s black now is up nose and nose with his own expiring mare. “Gad, girl,” bending his lips to the roan’s laid-back ear, “go on! help me to save her! to reach her; go on, I say, in God’s name!” As if the faithful creature comprehended her master’s entreaty, with that not uncommon last flash of superhuman strength that inheres in man and beast alike, the roan raised her fine head in the air, pricked her ears, stretched out her neck, gathered herself up with a twitch of her nerves that thrilled to her rider’s heart, and off! as in her best days, when she could distance the fleetest mount in the county; off, with the whirl and whirr of those coach-wheels beckoning to her; off, with that pair of straining eyes, those parted lips, blessing her as she began to gain on Sir Robin,—began to? nay, ’twas all a matter of beginning and ending in a breath. Before the postilions, amid their own clatter and calling, had caught hint of the pursuit, the roan was up with the windows out of which the apprehensive little Baronet was peering; his scream of terror: “Highwaymen! Faster! On! lads, on! A hundred pounds if we outrun ’em! On!” was their first advertisement of danger.