Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/328

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA "Surely! A barge might come up or down the river, you see, and it wouldn't do for the men on board to see anybody but Vassip and me, who are to be the lock-keepers."

He and Peter Vassip rode off with their party of four, and the rest waited in a field a couple of hundred yards from the barn—a dip in the ground afforded fair cover. Some of the men began to dismount, but Dunstanbury stopped them. "It's just that one never knows," he said; "and it's better to be on your horse than off it in case any trouble does come, you know."

"There oughtn't to be much trouble with the lockkeeper and his wife—or even with the servant-girl," said Basil Williamson.

"Girls can make a difference sometimes," Sophy said, with a smile. "I did once, in the Street of the Fountain over in Slavna there!"

Dunstanbury's precaution was amply justified, for, to their astonishment, the next instant a shot rang through the air, and, the moment after, a loud cry. A riderless horse galloped wildly past them; the sheepskin rug across the saddle marked it as belonging to a Volsenian.

"By Heaven, have they got there before us?" whispered Dunstanbury.

"I hope so; we sha'n't have to wait," said Sophy.

But they did wait there a moment. Then came a confused noise from the long, low barn. Then a clatter of hoofs, and Lukovitch was with them again; but his comrades were four men now, not five.

"Hush! Silence! Keep cover!" he panted breathlessly. "Stafnitz is here already; at least, there are men in the barn, and horses tethered outside, and the barges are on the river, just above the lock. The 310