The girl looked up in his face and shivered. Then she glanced towards the house, where lights were flashing from room to room, and the doors were being opened and shut, and she wrung her hands. In the stillness every sound could be heard--the rush of footsteps down the stairs, the fierce commands, the creaking of the great stable door in the rear of the house. “They are getting out the horses,” she whispered. “Yes,” he replied, calmly. “He thought we were running away.” There was not a tremor in his voice. She was reared in a society where physical bravery is the first of virtues, and even in that terrible moment she could not help feeling a thrill of pride as she looked at him. She never thought of asking him to fly. She could hear the horses as they were led out of their stalls one by one, their hoofs echoing sharply on the stone flagging. Her excited imagination supplied all the details. Now they were putting on the bridles; now they were fastening the saddles; they were mounted; the gate was being opened; in another moment they would sweep down on them. Then she looked at her lover standing there so motionless, waiting--for what? The thought of it was maddening. “Quick! quick!” she cried, wildly, catching his arm; “I will go with you.” Without a word he lifted her up in his arms and seated her on one of the horses. He carefully tested the saddle, although the hoofs of their pursuers' horses were already ringing on the street behind the house. Then he swung himself easily into the saddle, and was hardly there before the General and his two sons swept around the neighboring corner, not fifty yards away. “Good-bye, Elias,” called the Colonel, cheerfully, as they shot out into the moonlit street; and Elias's “God bless you bofe, Marse Bill!” came to them above the rush of the horses. As they went clattering through the quiet streets and past the rows of darkened houses, the horses, with their sinewy necks straightened out speeding so swiftly that the balmy air blew a soft wind in their riders' faces, Colonel Bill, with a slight shade of disappointment in his voice, said: “I guess you didn't get a good look at the horses, or you would have recognized them. That's old Beau Brummel you're on, and this is Queen of Sheba. They're both fit, although they haven't been particularly trained for these free-for-all scrambles, owners' handicap, ten miles straightaway. But I don't believe there's a horse in Kentucky can catch us to-night,” he concluded, proudly patting the neck of his thoroughbred. He glanced over his shoulder as he spoke, and noted that the distance between them and their pursuers was constantly widening, until, turning a corner, they could neither see nor hear them. And now the Colonel's spirits fairly bubbled over. He was a superb rider, and swinging carelessly in his saddle, his hands hardly touching the reins, he kept up a running stream of jocular comment.