Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/215

 did when the men placed the temporary bridge over the dykes for the transit of the pack-ponies—the Scarecrow would suddenly appear in their midst, giving sharp orders, whose prompt obedience meant an instant end to the difficulty, whatever it chanced to be. But it was the laying of this same temporary bridge that caused most of the delays, for it was a cumbersome thing to move about, and it had to be built strong enough to support the weight of the packponies. These ponies, too, caused considerable bother at some periods of the march, as their packs of wool would sometimes shake loose from the harness, and the cavalcade would have to stop while this was being remedied. But although the packponies stopped often, the demon riders were never allowed that luxury. Beelzebub untiringly flagged the horse round and round, now in large circuits, now in small circles, always ringing in the packponies from any prying eyes. It would have meant death to any one who got a view within that sweeping scythe of cavalry. And as murders on the Marsh were all put down to Marsh devils, except in the case of Sennacherib Pepper—for there was then a likely assassin known to be at large upon the Marsh to lay the deed to—and because of the dreaded superstition that had grown in the minds of Kentish folk, the smugglers were utterly callous as to what crimes they perpetrated, for they were as safe from the law as the most law-abiding citizen, for those who didn't credit the existence of