_Why_ they went on, they could not themselves have told. Often in after years, and when they had grown older and wiser, they asked themselves the question. It was not exactly fear, for as yet the man had not actually spoken roughly to them, nor was it altogether a feeling of shame at giving in--it was a mixture of both perhaps, and some strange sort of fascination that even very wise people might not find it easy to explain. For every time their steps lagged, and they felt as if they could go no farther, a glance over his shoulder of the man in front seemed to force them on again. And as the wood grew closer and darker this feeling increased. They felt as if they were miles and miles from home, in some strange and distant country they had never before seen or heard of; they seemed to be going on and on, as in a dream. And though poor little Pamela still, through all her stumbles and tumbles, held tightly up before her the corners of her apron, containing the bits of the unlucky bowl, and Duke, on his side, still firmly clutched his precious money-box, I do not believe either of them had by this time any very clear remembrance of why they were laden with these queer burdens, or what was the object of the strange and painful expedition. And still on strode the piercing-eyed gipsy, as sure of his prey now apparently as a fowler who watches unmoved the fruitless struggles of some poor little birds in the net from which they have no chance of escaping. It would be impossible to say how far they had gone--perhaps not so very far after all, though their panting breath and trembling little legs showed that the gipsy's purpose of tiring them out was pretty well accomplished--when at last a sharp cry from Pamela forced the pedlar to look round. She had caught her foot on a stone or a root, and fallen, and in falling one of the jagged bits of the broken crockery had cut her leg pretty deeply; the blood was already streaming from it, her little white sock was deeply stained, and she lay on the ground almost fainting with terror and pain. "Stop that screaming, will ye?" said the man, and then, with a half return to his former tone, "There's nothing to cry about, missy. It's just a scratch--I'll tie it up with a bit of rag," and he began fumbling about in his dirty pockets as he spoke. "There's the donkey and the others waiting for us just five minutes farther;" and for once the gipsy spoke the truth. The way he had brought the children was in reality a great round, chosen on purpose to bewilder them, so that the rest of his party had been able to reach the meeting-place he had appointed very much more quickly by the road. But Pamela, once thoroughly upset and frightened, was not to be so easily calmed down.