In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the hog's-
back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They had decided
on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the man of the baleful
trade was no longer in their company, they seemed quite unable to form
any such plan now. They descended in all directions down the hill, and
straightway several of the party fell into the snare set by Nature for
all misguided midnight ramblers over this part of the cretaceous
formation. The 'lanchets,' or flint slopes, which belted the escarpment
at intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones unawares, and
losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply downwards, the
lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying on their
sides till the horn was scorched through.

When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as the
man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round these
treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle their
eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in the exploration, were
extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this more rational order
they plunged into the vale. It was a grassy, briery, moist defile,
affording some shelter to any person who had sought it; but the party
perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the other side. Here they
wandered apart, and after an interval closed together again to report
progress.

At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely ash,
the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there by a
passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to one
side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself; appeared the man
they were in quest of; his outline being well defined against the sky