wheel had come off the carriage just by the turn of the road, and the
young lady and her servants had taken refuge in a small inn not many
yards down the lane. The man-servant had dismissed the post-boys after
they had baited their horses, saying they were to come again in the
morning and bring a blacksmith to repair the wheel.

"How came the wheel off?" asked Roland, sternly.

"Why, sir, the linch-pin was all rotted away, I suppose, and came out."

"Did the servant get off the dickey after you set out, and before the
accident happened?"

"Why, yes. He said the wheels were catching fire, that they had not the
patent axles, and he had forgot to have them oiled."

"And he looked at the wheels, and shortly afterwards the linch-pin came
out? Eh?"

"Anan, sir!" said the post-boy, staring; "why, and indeed so it was!"

"Come on, Pisistratus, we are in time; but pray God, pray God that--"
The Captain dashed his spurs into the horse's sides, and the rest of his
words were lost to me.

A few yards back from the causeway, a broad patch of green before it,
stood the inn,--a sullen, old-fashioned building of cold gray stone,
looking livid in the moonlight, with black firs at one side throwing
over half of it a dismal shadow. So solitary,--not a house, not a but
near it! If they who kept the inn were such that villany might reckon