Setting spurs to his horse, he rode straight at the piquet, hoping that when the inevitable shot was fired it would miss him in the darkness. As the horse sprang forward there was a report and a blinding flash, and a choking sob behind. Harry closed with the Frenchman. There was no time to draw his sword, and he did not wish to raise a further alarm by discharging his pistols. Forcing his horse against the flank of the enemy’s, he struck the man with all the weight of his fist, and, taking him by surprise, knocked him from his saddle. He turned to look for his companion; he was prone on the ground, and his startled steed had taken flight. Dismounting in haste, Harry found in a moment that the man was dead, killed by the shot intended for himself. At the same instant he heard a sound of hoofs from behind on his right. Springing on to his horse he set him at the gallop across a flat grassy plain, bearing, as nearly as he could judge, due east. Suddenly he heard the thud of more hoofs, still on his right, but this time in front of him. Evidently he was being headed off by another party approaching from the south-east. He swerved to the left, intending to make a detour; as he did so, there was the report of a carbine from behind a hedge a few yards away. He felt his horse quiver, but it galloped on, the man who had fired plunging through the hedge in hot pursuit. Harry’s nerves were now at high tension. It was clear that he had stumbled upon a piquet or patrol, or even a more numerous party of the enemy, and the odds were in favour of his meeting the same fate as the poor fellow his guide. Unhappily his horse was beginning to flag. Bending forward to encourage it, and patting its neck, he felt that his hand was covered with blood. The horse had been struck. Harry remembered how it had quivered. The wound accounted for its laboured breathing; it was a good horse, and, not having as yet been seriously pressed, could have held its own with those of the troopers behind. But it was plain to Harry that, with the horse severely wounded, the race must now be short, and the result inevitable. The distance between himself and his pursuers was already lessening; a glance behind showed him four dark figures close upon his heels; a few seconds would decide his fate.