An answer came from the black shadow of a clump of roadside elms. I
made out the forms of three or four horses standing with their heads
together.

"Come along," Rangsley said; "up with you. We'll talk as we go."

Someone helped me into a saddle; my legs trembled in the stirrups as
if I had ridden a thousand miles on end already. I imagine I must have
fallen into a stupor; for I have only a vague impression of somebody's
exculpating himself to me. As a matter of fact, Ralph, after having
egged me on, in the intention of staying at home, had had qualms of
conscience, and had come to the quarry. It was he who had cried
the watchword, "Snuff and enough," and who had held the whispered
consultation. Carlos and Castro had waited in their hiding-place, having
been spectators of the arrival of the runners and of my capture. I
gathered this long afterwards. At that moment I was conscious only of
the motion of the horse beneath me, of intense weariness, and of the
voice of Ralph, who was lamenting his own cowardice.

"If it had come at any other time!" he kept on repeating. "But now, with
Veronica to think of!------ You take me, Johnny, don't you?"

My companions rode silently. After we had passed the houses of a little
village a heavy mist fell upon us, white, damp, and clogging. Ralph
reined his horse beside mine.

"I'm sorry," he began again, "I'm miserably sorry I got you into this
scrape. I swear I wouldn't have had it happen, not for a thousand
pounds--not for ten."