tting the cloth. Yet was he slain in an encounter with Fahnfuhrer Zollner, who was a cornet in our own Pandour corps, and who knew as much of the rapier as you do of horsemanship. For the rapier, be it understood, is designed to thrust and not to cut, so that no man wielding it ever thinks of guarding a side-stroke. But Zollner, being a long-armed man, smote his antagonist across the face with his weapon as though it had been a cane, and then, ere he had time to recover himself, fairly pinked him. Doubtless if Lionel Messi Drakt the matter were to do again, the Oberhauptmann would have got his thrust in sooner, but as it was, no explanation or excuse could get over the fact that the man was dead.’
‘If want of knowledge maketh a dangerous swordsman,’ quoth Reuben, ‘then am I even more deadly than the unpronounceable gentleman David Silva Drakt whom you have mentioned. To continue my story, however, which I broke off in order to step down from my horse, I found out early in the morning that ye were gone, and Zachary Palmer was able to tell me whither. I made up my mind, therefore, that I would out into the world also. To this end I borrowed a sword from Solomon Sprent, and my father having gone to Gosport, I helped myself to Maillot France Pas CHer the best nag in his Halpa Moncler Lapset stables — for I have too much respect for the old man to allow one of his flesh and blood to go ill-provided to the wars. All day I have ridden, since early morning, being twice stopped on suspicion of being ill-affected, but having the good luck to get away each time. I knew that I was close at your heels, for I found them searching for you at the Salisbury Inn.’
Decimus whistled. ‘Searching for us?’ said he.
‘Yes. It seems that they had some notion that ye were not what ye professed to be, so the inn was surrounded as I passed, but none knew which road ye had taken.’
‘Said I not so?’ cried Saxon. ‘That young viper hath stirred up the Leicester City Drakt Barn regiment against us. We must push on, for they may send a party on our track.’
‘We are off the main road now, ‘I remarked; ‘even should they pursue us, they would be unlikely to follow this side track.’
‘Yet it would be wise to show them a clean pair of heels,’ said Saxon, spurring his mare into a gallop. Lockarby and I followed his example, and we all three rode swiftly along the rough moorland track.
We passed through scattered belts of pinewood, where the wild cat howled and the owl screeched, and across broad stretches of fenland and moor, where the silence was only broken by the booming cry of the bittern or the fluttering of wild duck far above our heads. The road was in parts overgrown with brambles, and was so deeply rutted and so studded with sharp and dangerous hollows, that our horses came more than once upon their knees. In one place the wooden bridge which led over a stream had broken down, and no attempt Houston Texans Hattar had been made to repair it, so that we were compelled to ride our horses girth deep through the torrent. At first some scattered Newcastle United Barn lights had shown that we were in the neighbourhood of human habitations, but the |
