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 CHAPTER XXXI

THE RUINED HUT

The two soldiers mistook me vastly if they thought I was going to allow myself to be caught in this way like a rat in a trap, when the trap was a mile long, and the door of it guarded so loosely.

I had backed my horse to prevent the man on foot catching hold of the bridle-rein, and, wheeling round swiftly, I plunged my hand into my pocket, drew out my revolver, and, before the second soldier could guess my intention, I sent a bullet into his horse's head.

He dropped like a stone, sending his rider flying on to the road, his carbine, which he had levelled at me, going off in the air as he fell. The other made a rush at me, but I covered him with the pistol.

"How dare you try to stop me on State business?" I cried in a voice of thunder. "Another step and I'll blow your brains out."

He pulled up short enough at that, and I clapped my heels into the horse's flanks, and was off like the wind. He was a good beast, in excellent condition and very fresh, and more than fit to carry me the six miles which I reckoned lay between me and the frontier. The distance was so short that I had no need to spare him, and, as I had over three-quarters of a mile start, I did not doubt that I could win a race in which my safety and probably my life were the stakes.

I was in luck, too, for the soldier before dismounting