After a headlong, rattling, bumping flight of about two miles, as it seemed to Grootz, he heard the horseman on his right shout an order to the postilion. The coach was pulled up; the horseman threw himself from the saddle, and wrenching open the door peered in. "I regret, Madame, the necessity——" He started back, for in the waning light he had just become aware that there was but one figure in the carriage, and that clearly the figure of a man. "Triché, morbleu!" he cried in fury. "Someone shall pay for this. Come out, or I will empty this pistol into you!" The only answer was the click of a pistol within the coach, and a flash from the corner. Grootz’s weapon had missed fire. Whipping his own pistol from his belt Polignac fired; and the Dutchman fell back, hit in the shoulder. With a cry to his companions Polignac sprang on his horse, and galloped furiously back along the road he had come, the other two horsemen hard at his heels. Immediately afterwards the postilion cut the traces and set off in haste after his employer, leaving Grootz, the coach, and one horse to themselves. Five minutes later, from the Eyndhoven direction, up rode two horsemen at speed. It was now almost totally dark; the coach could barely be discerned in the middle of the road, and Harry, who was foremost, pulled up only just in time to save his horse’s knees. In a moment he was out of the saddle; Sherebiah was by his side, and while the man held the horses, Harry, anxiety tearing at his heart, looked into the coach. There was a huddled heap upon the floor. "Steel and tinder!" he cried to Sherebiah. A light was struck. "Good heavens! it is Mynheer Grootz." He bent down and touched the wounded man’s hand, fearing he might be already dead. The touch revived Grootz from his swoon. "On to Lindendaal!" he said faintly and brokenly. "Leave me! Ladies in danger. Take care. Desperate men: four; at once!" Loth as Harry was to leave his friend in so ill a plight, the imminence of the peril to which the ladies were exposed was predominant. "I will send a man back to you, Mynheer," he said. "Sherebiah, we must hasten."