Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/228

 gladden my heart again, when the fleetness of my flight was suddenly stopt by a dead wall. My pursuers gave a loud shout when they saw me entrapt, and I had given over every hope of effecting my escape, when a sudden thought struck me, that the wall might be the city wall, and that perhaps I would regain my liberty through a window of one of the houses on the bottom of the street. The door of that on the left side was open, I jumped from my horse, and entered it with a pistol in each hand, bolting the door after me, and hastening up stairs without being seen by any one of the inhabitants. My pursuers were close at my heels, and thundered at the door when I was rushing into a room where nobody was but an old woman: Seeing a man with a brace of pistols, terror fettered her tongue, and she fell in a swoon. I opened the window, and, imagine my joy, when the open field hailed my anxious looks; I bolted the door,