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 moment later Almayne followed them—after tightening again with one deft and savage jerk the cord that Jolie had eased.

Outside it was pitch-dark. There were no stars. Away to the right a lantern flickered across the plantation yard, coming toward the house. From the porch they moved around the south end of the house, the girl walking between the two men, each of whom gripped one of her arms. She was like a blind woman in that utter blackness, but the men with her moved swiftly, unhesitatingly, and she went forward between them, stumbling seldom. For some minutes, glancing back, she could still see the lights of Stanwicke Hall, but shortly they entered the woods and the lights were blotted out.

Here the going was rough. Presently Almayne spoke briefly to Lachlan, handed his rifle to the younger man, then, with a "By your leave, lady," took Jolie in his arms. For perhaps two hundred yards the tall hunter carried her thus, placing her on her feet again when they had left the thickets behind them and had come to open pine forest where no underbrush grew beneath the trees and the ground was carpeted with pine straw. She went forward, as before, between the two men, speaking no word. The pace was fast and she needed her breath; and somehow she realized that, although these men apparently had eyes that could see in the dark, they needed all their faculties to guide them through that maze of pine trunks which to her eyes were all but invisible.