was achieved a flight still memorable in the annals of the elect, and
long quoted as one of the boldest and most daring exploits that illicit
enterprise ever accomplished.

Clifford and his equestrian comrade only remained in the field, or rather
the road. The former sprang at once on his horse; the latter was not
long in following the example. But the policeman, who, it has been said,
baffled in detaining the fugitives of the hedge, had leaped back into the
road, was not idle in the meanwhile. When he saw Clifford about to
mount, instead of attempting to seize the enemy, he recurred to his
pistol, which in the late struggle hand to hand he had been unable to
use, and taking sure aim at Clifford, whom he judged at once to be the
leader of the rescue, he lodged a ball in the right side of the robber at
the very moment he had set spurs in his horse and turned to fly.
Clifford's head drooped to the saddle-bow. Fiercely the horse sprang on.
The robber endeavoured, despite his reeling senses, to retain his seat;
once he raised his head, once he nerved his slackened and listless limbs,
and then, with a faint groan, he fell to the earth. The horse bounded
but one step more, and, true to the tutorship it had received, stopped
abruptly. Clifford raised himself with great difficulty on one arm; with
the other hand he drew forth a pistol. He pointed it deliberately
towards the officer that wounded him. The man stood motionless, cowering
and spellbound, beneath the dilating eye of the robber. It was but for a
moment that the man had cause for dread; for muttering between his ground
teeth, "Why waste it on _an enemy_?" Clifford turned the muzzle towards
the head of the unconscious steed, which seemed sorrowfully and wistfully
to incline towards him. "Thou," he said, "whom I have fed and loved,
shalt never know hardship from another!" and with a merciful cruelty he
dragged himself one pace nearer to his beloved steed, uttered a well-
known word, which brought the docile creature to his side, and placing