The sight was the rush of three men from their lurking-places in the brushwood. Two of them were soldiers, and Brocton's dragoons at that, a sample of the town-sweepings Jack had complained of. One seized the reins, the other held a carbine point-blank at the horseman's head. These were plainly deserters or freebooters, acting after their kind, and they had picked up a strange partner during their foray. He wore a yokel's smock much too big for him, and yet not big enough to hide his bespurred riding-boots. On his head he had a dirty tapster's bonnet, and his face was completely hidden by a rudely-cut crape vizard. This singular person was evidently the leader of the gang. He threatened Master Freake with a glittering, long-barrelled pistol, and in gruff, curt tones ordered him to dismount on pain of instant death. Here was a strange overturn to be sure. Here again fate had rudely upset my plans, and no fat purse would there be for me in this coil. However, though I would have robbed Master Freake willingly enough, my blood being up and he a manifest Hanoverian, I was not going to see Brocton's ruffians rob him, much less kill him. The purse must wait, and when I took it--for take it I must--God would perchance balance one thing against the other. All that I had seen and thought took place in a mere fraction of time, and even before Master Freake had pulled up, I was creeping like a ferret from bush to bush to get nearer. Then, just as in his quiet, measured tones he was asking what they wanted, I burst out into the wood, shouting, "Forward, my men, here the villains are!" With the words, I fired my handful of swan-shot clean into the group, and then charged at them yelling, in boyish imitation of a knight of old, "Happy is he that escapeth me." The two dragoons instantly fled with yelps of pain and terror, and the horse, squealing with fright, began to rear and plunge madly about the road. Black Vizard turned on me, his pistol rang out, and the bullet hissed by my ear. I sprang at him with clubbed gun, and struck hard for his head, but caught him on the neck as he too turned to flee. He went down, spinning and sprawling, in the road, right under the plunging horse. With a squeal that curdled my blood, she rose in the air, kicking viciously. Her hoofs came down with sickening thuds on the squirming man's skull, cracking it like an egg-shell. His body twitched once or twice, and then settled into the stillness of death.