me, the more so as she had just spoken of Medwyn Glen, and had sent my
memory back to fragrant hours of youth. We scrambled out of the thicket
and put our weary beasts to a gallop. Happily it was harder ground,
albeit much studded with clumps of fern, and though we all slipped and
stumbled often, the horses kept their feet. I was growing so dizzy in
the head that I feared every moment I would fall off. The mist had now
come low down the hill, and lay before us, a line, of grey vapour drawn
from edge to edge of the vale. It seemed an infinite long way off.

Shalah on foot kept in the rear, and I gathered from him that the
danger he feared was behind. Suddenly as I stared ahead something fell
ten yards in advance of us in a long curve, and stuck, quivering in the
soil.

It was an Indian arrow.

We would have reined up if Shalah had not cried on us to keep on. I do
not think the arrow was meant to strike us. 'Twas a warning, a grim
jest of the savages in the wood.

Then another fell, at the same distance before our first rider.

Still Shalah cried us on. I fell back to the rear, for if we were to
escape I thought there might be need of fighting there. I felt in my
belt for my loaded pistols.

We were now in a coppice again, where the trees were short and sparse.
Beyond that lay another meadow, and, then, not a quarter-mile distant,
the welcome line of the mist, every second drawing down on us.