I lifted my head to the sound, and in
that instant my ears caught a slight creak from the footbridge on my
left. I faced about, and stood rigid, at gaze. A woman was stepping
across the bridge, there in the moonlight; a slight figure, cloaked
and hooded and hurrying fast; a woman, with a gun slung behind her
and the barrel of it glimmering. It was the Princess.
I let her pass, and as she turned the bend of the road I stole out to
the footbridge and across it in pursuit. I knew now that the two
wayfarers had not been phantoms of my dreaming; that she was
following, tracking them, and that I must track and follow her.
Beyond the bend the road twisted over a low-lying spur of the
mountain between outcrops of reddish-coloured rock, and then ran
straight for almost three hundred yards, with olive orchards on
either hand; so that presently I could follow and hold her in sight,
myself keeping well within the trees' line of shadow.
Twice she turned to look behind her, but rapidly and as if in no
great apprehension of pursuit; or perhaps her own quest had made her
reckless.
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