imagine moving forms in the hedges, and when, about a mile beyond the Slaugham turning, her horse suddenly put forward his ears at a flutter of white seen fleetingly in the gloom of a thicket and shied violently across the road, she gave a sob of pure fright, and was nearly unseated. She pulled Rufus up, but his plunge had done all that was necessary to set the troublesome bandbox free. It slipped from the strap and went rolling away over the snow, and came to rest finally quite close to the thicket at the side of the road.
Eustacie, patting Rufus’s neck with a hand which, though meant to convey reassurance, was actually trembling more than he was, looked after her property with dismay. She did not feel that she could abandon it (which she would have liked to have done), for in spite of being afraid of nothing, she was extremely loth to dismount and pick it up. She sat still for a few minutes, intently staring at the thicket. Rufus stared, too, with his head up and his ears forward. Nothing seemed to be stirring, however, and Eustacie, telling herself that the Headless Horseman was only a legend, and that the monstrous Serpent (or Dragon) had flourished nearly two hundred years ago and must surely be dead by now, gritted her teeth, and dismounted. She was disgusted to find that her knees were shaking, so to give herself more courage she pulled the duelling pistol out of the holster and grasped it firmly in her right hand.
Rufus, though suspicious of the thicket, allowed her to lead him up to the bandbox. She had just stooped to pick it up when the shrill neigh of a pony not five yards distant startled her almost out of her wits. She gave a scream of terror, saw something move in the shadow, and the next minute was struggling dementedly in the hold of a man who had seemed to pounce upon her from nowhere. She could not scream again because a hand was clamped over her mouth, and when she pulled the trigger of her pistol nothing happened. A sinewy arm was round her; she was half lifted, half dragged into the cover of the thicket; and heard a rough voice behind her growl: “Hit her over the head, blast the wench!”
Her terrified eyes, piercing the gloom, saw the dim outline of a face above her. Her captor said: “I’ll be damned if I do!” in the unmistakable accents of a gentleman, and bent over her, and added softly: “I’m sorry, but you mustn’t screech. If I take my hand away, will you be quiet—quite quiet?”
She nodded. At the first sound of his voice, which was oddly attractive, a large measure of her fright had left her. Now, as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she saw that he was quite a young man, and, judging from the outline of his profile against the moonlit sky, a very personable young man.
The voice of the man behind her spoke again. “Adone do! She’ll be the ruin o’ we! Let me shut her mouth for her!”
Eustacie made a strangled sound in her throat and tried to bring her hands up to clutch at the young man’s arm. The barrel of her pistol, which she was still clutching, gleamed in the moonlight, and caught the attention of her captor, who said under his breath: “If you let that pistol off I’ll murder you! Ned, take the gun away from her!”
A heavy hand wrenched it out of her grasp; the rough voice said: “It ain’t loaded. If you won’t do more, tie her up with a gag in her mouth!”
“No, no, she’s much too pretty,” said the young man, taking the pistol and slipping it into the pocket of his frieze coat “You won’t squeak, will you, darling?”
As well as she could Eustacie shook her head. The hand left her mouth and patted her cheek. “Good girl! Don’t be frightened: I swear I won’t hurt you!”
Eustacie, who had been almost suffocated, gasped thankfully: “I thought you were the Headless Horseman!”
“You thought I was what?”
“The Headless Horseman.”
He laughed. “Well, I’m not.”
“No. I can see you are not. But why did you seize me like that? What are you doing here?”
“If it comes to that, what are
“I am going to London,” replied Eustacie.
“Oh!” said the young man, rather doubtfully. “It’s no concern of mine, of course, but it’s a plaguey queer time to be going to London, isn’t it?”
“No, because I am going to catch the night mail at Hand Cross. You must instantly let me go, or I shall be too late.”
The other man, who had been listening in scowling silence, muttered: “She’ll have the pack of them down on us!”
“Be damned to you, don’t croak so!” said the young man. “Tether that nag of hers!”
“If you let her go—”
“I’m not going to let her go. You keep a look-out for Abel, and stop spoiling sport!”
“But certainly you are going to let me go!” interposed Eustacie in an urgent undertone. “I must go!”
The young man said apologetically: “The devil’s in it that I can’t let you go. I would if I could, but to tell you the truth—”
“There’s no call to do that!” growled his companion. “Dang me, master, if I don’t think you’re unaccountable crazed!”
Eustacie, who had had time by now to take stock of her surroundings, discovered that the darker shadows a little way off were not shadows at all, but ponies. There seemed to be about a dozen of them, and as she peered at them she was gradually able to descry what they were carrying. She had been living in Sussex for two years, and she was perfectly familiar with the appearance of a keg of brandy. She exclaimed: “You are smugglers, then!”
“Free traders, my dear, free traders!” replied the young man cheerfully. “At least, I am. Ned here is only what we call a land smuggler. You need not heed him.”
Eustacie was so intrigued that for the moment she forgot all about the mail coach. She had heard a great deal about smugglers, but although she knew that they were in general a desperate, cut-throat set of outlaws, she was so accustomed to her grandfather and most of his neighbours having dealings with them that she did not think their illicit trade in the least shocking. She said: “Well, you need not be afraid of me, I assure you. I do not at all mind that you are smug—free traders.”
“Are you French?” asked the young man.
“Yes. But tell me, why are you hiding here?”
“Excisemen,” he replied. “They’re on the watch. You know, the more I think of it the more it seems a very odd thing to me that you should be riding about by yourself in the middle of the night.”
“I have told you: I am going to London.”
“Well, it still seems very odd to me.”
“Yes, but, you see, I am running away,” explained Eustacie. “That is why I have to catch the night mail. I am going to London to be a governess.”
She had the impression that he was laughing, but he said quite gravely: “You’ll never do for a governess. You don’t look like one. Besides, you’re not old enough.”
“Yes, I am, and I shall look just like a governess.”
“You can’t know anything about governesses if that’s what you think.”
“Well, I don’t, but I thought it would be a very good thing to become.”
“I dare say you know best, but to my mind you’re making a mistake. From all I’ve heard, they have a devilish poor time of it.”
“I wish I could be a smuggler,” said Eustacie wistfully. “I think I should like that.”
“You wouldn’t do for a smuggler,” he replied, shaking his head. “We don’t encourage females in the trade. It’s too dangerous.”
“Well, I do not think it is fair that just because one is a female one should never be allowed to have any adventures!”
“You seem to me to be having a deal of adventure,” he pointed out. “I might easily have choked the life out of you—in fact, I may still if you don’t behave yourself. You’re in a mighty tight corner.”
“Yes, I know I am having an adventure now,” agreed Eustacie, “and, of course, I am enjoying it, but I should like to continue having adventures, which is a thing not at all easy to arrange.”
“No, I suppose it’s not,” said the free trader thoughtfully.
“You see, if I were a man I could be a highwayman, or a smuggler like you. I expect you have had many, many adventures.”
