"Still, Prince," he added, "as you observe, considering our encumbrances, perhaps it's been for the best letting them off." "Ay, if they let us off. Which they may not yet. Suppose some of the townsmen have followed, and told them of our passing through?" "No fear of that, Prince. If any one did follow it's not likely they could be overtaken. They were riding as in a race, and won't draw bridle till they see the blaze over Hollymead. Then they'll but gallop the faster--in the wrong direction." "The right one for us, if they do. But even so they would reach Hollymead in less than an hour; then turn short round to pursue, and in another hour be upon our heels. You forget that we can't say safety, till we're over the Severn." "I don't forget that, Prince. But they won't turn round to pursue us." "Why say you that, Sir Thomas? How know you they won't?" "Because they won't suspect our having come this way; never think of it. Before putting the torch to the old delinquent's house, I took the precaution to have all his domestics locked up in an out-building; that they shouldn't see which way we went off. As they and the Ruardean people knew we came up from Monmouth, they'll naturally conclude that we returned thither. So, your Highness, any pursuit of us will take the direction down Cat's Hill, instead of by Drybrook and down the Plump." "Egad! I hope so, Colonel. For, to speak truth I don't feel in the spirit for a fight just now." It was not often Rupert gave way to cowardice, and more seldom confessed it; even in confidence to his familiars, of whom Lunsford was one of the most intimate. But at that hour he felt it to very fear. Perhaps from the wine he had drunk at Hollymead, now cold in him; and it might be his conscience weighted with the crime he was in the act of committing. Whatever the cause, his nervousness became heightened rather than diminished, as they marched on; and anxiously longed he to be on the other side of the Severn. Not more so than his reprobate companion, whose bravado was all assumed; his words of confidence forced from him to gloss over the mistake he had made, in recommending the route taken. Sorry was he now, as his superior, they had not gone by Monmouth. Within its Castle walls they would at that moment have been safe; instead of hurrying along a road, with the obstruction of a river in front, and the possibility of pursuit behind. Ay, the probability of it, as Lunsford himself knew well, feigning to ignore it. "In any case, your Highness," he continued, in the same strain of encouragement, "we'll be out of their way in good time. From here it's but a step down to Westbury."