The Talisman Ring

Eustacie, though she would have liked to have taken part in the council which was being held between the three men, thought it as well to obey. Her cousin Ludovic seemed to be of an autocratic disposition, reminding her strongly of his grandfather.

He came back to her side after a short colloquy with the Bundys and said in his quick authoritative way: ‘We shall have to try and lead these damned Excisemen off the trail. I don’t know what the devil to do with you, so you’d better come with me. After all, you wanted an adventure, and I can’t let you jaunt about the countryside alone at this hour of night.’

That a solitary journey to London might conceivably be attended by fewer dangers than a night spent hand-in-glove with a party of smugglers apparently did not occur to him. He dismounted from his pony, adding: ‘Besides, I want your horse.’

‘Am I to ride the pony, then?’ asked Eustacie, willing but dubious.

‘No, I’m going to take you up before me,’ he replied. ‘I can look after you better that way. Moreover, the pony couldn’t keep up.’ He gave the animal into the elder Bundy’s care as he spoke, and said: ‘Good luck to you, Abel. Don’t trouble your head on my account!’

‘You’d best be careful,’ said Mr Bundy gloomily. ‘You never had no sense and never will have.’

Ludovic had got up behind Eustacie by this time, and settled her in the crook of his arm. ‘It beats me how you can ride with a saddle like this,’ he remarked, wheeling Rufus about. ‘And what in thunder is this thing?’

‘It is a bandbox, of course!’

‘Well, it’s devilishly in the way,’ said Ludovic. ‘Do you mind if I cut it loose?’

‘No, certainly I do not mind. I, too, am quite tired of it,’ replied Eustacie blithely. ‘Besides, I have already lost the other one.’

The bandbox was soon got rid of. Eustacie watched it bounce to the ground, and remarked with a giggle that if Tristram found it he would be sure to think she had been murdered.

Ludovic had urged Rufus to a canter. He seemed to Eustacie to be heading straight in the direction of the pursuing Excisemen. She pointed this out to him, and he replied: ‘Of course I am. I told you I was going to lead them off the trail. If I can get them to chase me Abel will have time to reach a hiding-place he knows of. We’ll lead them into the Forest.’

‘And when we have done that what shall we do?’

‘Oh, give ’em the slip!’ said Ludovic carelessly. ‘I shall have to think what’s to be done with you after that, but there’s no time to waste on that now.’ He reined in as he spoke, and Eustacie saw that they had retraced their steps almost to the thicket where she had first encountered the train. She could hear movement somewhere near at hand, and the faint sound of voices. Ludovic rode softly forward, off the road into the shelter of the trees. ‘I thought as much,’ he said. ‘They’re searching the thicket. Mustn’t give ’em time to find the pony-tracks. Now keep quiet, and hold on to that pommel.’

His gyrations after that were bewildering, but apparently purposeful. It seemed to Eustacie, dutifully grasping the pommel, that they were circling round the thicket to the north. She could now hear plainly the sound of trampling hooves and snapping twigs.

‘We must give the poor devils something to think about,’ said Ludovic in her ear. ‘Don’t screech now!’

It was as we

ll that he uttered this warning, for the immediate explosion of his pistol made Eustacie jump nearly out of her skin. She managed by the exercise of heroic self-control not to scream, but when a shot almost at once answered Ludovic’s she could not forbear a gasp of fright.

‘I thought that would tickle them up,’ said Ludovic. ‘Now for it!’

He wheeled the snorting, trembling Rufus, and let him have his head. Rufus plunged forward, crashing through the undergrowth with the maximum amount of noise and alarm; a shout sounded somewhere in the rear; another shot was fired; and Eustacie had the satisfaction of knowing that she was now fairly embroiled with His Majesty’s Excise Office. She removed one hand from the pommel and took a firm grasp of Ludovic’s coat, which seemed to her to afford a safer hold. He glanced down at her, smiling. ‘Frightened?’

‘No!’

‘Well, we’re going to have a trifle of a gallop now, so cling tight!’

They came out from the cover of the trees as he spoke on to a tract of more open ground. The moon was momentarily obscured by a drifting cloud, but there was light enough for the flying horse to be seen by its pursuers. Two shots cracked almost simultaneously, and Eustacie felt the arm that cradled her give a queer jerk, and heard her cousin catch his breath sharply. ‘Winged, by Gad!’ he said. ‘Now, who’d have thought an Exciseman could shoot as straight as that?’

‘Are you hurt?’ Eustacie cried.

‘Devil a bit!’ was the cheerful response. He looked fleetingly back over his shoulder. ‘Four of ’em, I think. Riding hard, too. You can always trust an Exciseman to follow his nose…That’s better.’

They were under cover again, and he let Rufus slacken his pace to a trot, bending him easily this way and that through the outskirts of the Forest. Eustacie, after a very little of this erratic progress, began to feel quite lost, but it was evident that her cousin knew the Forest like the palm of his hand, for they steadily penetrated further into its darkness. Behind them the pursuit sounded as though it were in difficulties, but they had not yet outstripped it, and once Ludovic reined in altogether to give it time to come nearer, and since it showed signs of abandoning the chase, fired his second pistol invitingly. This had the required effect; the Forest reverberated with shots, and they moved forward again, heading northward.

It was fully half an hour later before they finally lost the Excisemen, and Ludovic was swaying in the saddle.

‘You are hurt!’ Eustacie said, alarmed.

‘Oh no, only a scratch!’ he murmured. ‘Anyway, we’ve led them in such circles they’ll be hunting one another till daylight.’

Eustacie put her hands over his, and pulled Rufus up. ‘Where are you hurt?’ she demanded.