theatrical bow, and then, drawing his cutlass, hacked hard at
the taut reins of the horses, so that they scrambled to their feet
and stood in the grass trembling. When he had done so,
a most remarkable thing occurred. A very quiet man, very poorly dressed
and extremely sunburnt, came out of the bushes and took hold of
the horses' heads. He had a queer-shaped knife, very broad and crooked,
buckled on his belt; there was nothing else remarkable about him,
except his sudden and silent appearance. The poet asked him who he was,
and he did not answer.

Looking around him at the confused and startled group in the hollow,
Muscari then perceived that another tanned and tattered man,
with a short gun under his arm, was looking at them from
the ledge just below, leaning his elbows on the edge of the turf.
Then he looked up at the road from which they had fallen and saw,
looking down on them, the muzzles of four other carbines and
four other brown faces with bright but quite motionless eyes.

"The brigands!" cried Muscari, with a kind of monstrous gaiety.
"This was a trap. Ezza, if you will oblige me by shooting the
coachman first, we can cut our way out yet. There are only six of them."

"The coachman," said Ezza, who was standing grimly with his hands
in his pockets, "happens to be a servant of Mr Harrogate's."

"Then shoot him all the more," cried the poet impatiently;
"he was bribed to upset his master. Then put the lady in the middle,
and we will break the line up there--with a rush."

And, wading in wild grass and flowers, he advanced fearlessly