The hoof beats of the cavalry
had already died away and the mountains shadowed them in
lonely silence. They were the rear guard after the rear guard.
The dragoman muttered hastily his last dire rumours. Five
hundred Circassian cavalry were coming. The mountains were
now infested with the dread Albanian irregulars, Coleman had
thought in his daylight tramp that he had appreciated the noble
distances, but he found that he knew nothing of their nobility
until he tried this night stumbling. And the hoofs of the little
horse made on the hard road more noise than could be made by
men beating with hammers upon brazen cylinders. The
correspondent glanced continually up at the crags. From the
other side he could sometimes hear the metallic clink of water
deep down in a glen. For the first time in his life he seriously
opened the flap of his holster and let his fingers remain on the
handle of his revolver. From just in front of
him he could hear the chattering of the dragoman's teeth which
no attempt at more coolness could seem to prevent. In the
meantime the casual manner of the little grey horse struck
Coleman with maddening vividness. If the blank darkness was
simply filled with ferocious Albanians, the horse did not care a
button; he leisurely put his feet down with a resounding ring.
Coleman whispered hastily to the dragoman. " If they rush us,
jump down the bank, no matter how deep it is. That's our only
chance.
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