So saying he spurred onwards himself. The voice, breathing out the harsh accents of the trader,--the refugee, the man to capture whom she had launched so boldly among the billows of stratagem, and almost of war,--froze the blood of the maiden, and the sight of his grim features, revealed in the glare of distant lamps, completed the overthrow of a courage which had supported her in a struggle with one so little to be feared as Hyland. Her brain whirled, her senses became bewildered, as she felt the steed bounding beneath her, and knew that every leap, while it separated her still further from her friends, placed her yet more completely in the power of the refugee. But it formed no part of his schemes to add her to the number of his captives. He checked his steed at the park-gate, dropped her gently on the grass, and uttering a yell, to draw the attention of another horseman, approaching from the house, galloped through the gate and was soon buried in the darkness. The second horseman, who was no other than the captain of cavalry, rode up to the spot, dismounted, and uttering many ejaculations of surprise, took the lady in his arms, and with her returned to the mansion. He found its inmates still in extreme agitation, the women weeping and screaming, the men swearing, and bustling, and vociferating for arms and horses, with which they designed to do they knew not what, and Captain Loring roaring like a bedlamite. "Mount horses, gentlemen," he cried, "and by the eternal Jupiter, we'll recover the prisoners. A rum one, that Mr. Gentleman-volunteer! Come, mount, mount, and keep the chase warm, till a better force can follow us. There's a regiment of foot billeted in the village below--let some one gallop down for a reinforcement; the rest follow me. If we can't fight the vagabonds, why, by the eternal Jupiter, we can dog them." The proposal of captain Caliver was responded to by such as could think without alarm of following the fierce marauders, by midnight, into their native forests; and in a surprisingly short space of time, they set out, six in number, to pursue on the course of the fugitives, and keep them within striking distance, until assistance should arrive. A messenger was immediately despatched to the village, and some two or three of those gaping supernumeraries, whose intrusion into the house has been already mentioned, volunteered to carry the alarm among the neighbouring settlements, and thus rouse the whole country to pursuit and vengeance.