Miss Fisher, with all the courage of the red-headed Fisher family, albeit she had become pale and breathless, settled herself firmly in the saddle, held the reins in close, now and then essaying a sharp jerk, first with the right then quickly with the left hand--and it was as much as she could do to keep the saddle at these moments--to displace the grasp of his teeth on the bit. For a time these manoeuvres failed, but at last the road became rougher, brambles appeared in its midst, the intention of repair had evidently ceased, and running at full tilt was no longer any great fun. The horse voluntarily slowed his pace, and the sudden jerk right and left snatched the bit from his teeth. He might still have pranced and curvetted, for the spirit of speed was not satiated, but his foot slipped on the uneven gullied ground, he stumbled, and being a town horse and seeing nowhere any promise of a good road, he resigned himself to the guidance of his rider, thinking perhaps she knew more of the country than he. While she breathed him for a time, she looked about her along the curves of the road, seeing nothing of her companions, and realizing that she was quite alone. This gave her a sentiment of uneasiness for a moment; then she reflected that her friends were doubtless riding forward to overtake her. She drew up the reins, intending to turn, and, retracing her way, to meet them. The place was all unfamiliar. So swift had been her transit that she had not had a moment's contemplation of the surroundings. She stood at the summit of a gentle slope and could look off toward stretches of forest, here and there interspersed with considerable acreage of cleared ground, evidently formerly farm land, now abandoned in the stress of war and the presence of contending armies. The correctness of this conclusion was confirmed by the sight of two gaunt chimneys at no great distance, between which lay a mass of charred timbers,--once the dwelling, now burned to the ground. The scene was an epitome of desolation, despite the sunshine, which indeed here was but a lonely splendor; despite the brilliance of the trumpet vine, tangled in remnants of the fence, in many a bush, and swaying in long lengths, its scarlet bugles flaring, from the boughs of overshadowing trees; despite the appeal of the elder blossoms of creamy, lacelike delicacy, catching her eye in the thickets, which were so lush, so green, so favored by the rich earth and the prodigal season. She was sensible of a clutch of dread on that merry spirit of hers before she heard a sound--a significant sound that stilled the pulsations of her heart and sent her blood cold. It was the unmistakable sinister sibilance of a shell. She saw the tiny white puff rise up above the forest, skim through the air, drop among the thickets, and then she heard the detonation of an explosion. Before she could draw her breath there came a sudden volley of musketry at a distance,--she