She heard some one call to Noah: "Drive on if
you value a whole skin!" and Noah, awaiting no second command, lashed the
horses with his whip until they plunged forward at a clumsy gallop.
Hamilton and Churchill, being perhaps two hundred yards down the road,
knew nothing of the trouble ahead till they heard the pistol shot, when
they ran forward, supposing their drunken friends were fighting among
themselves. They had not taken many steps when a coach passed them,
moving rapidly. As it passed, George heard a woman scream faintly, but
immediately the coach dashed out of sight. The light from Noah's lanthorn
had fallen on Hamilton's face, and Frances had recognized the man of whom
she had been thinking and dreaming all day.
I did not know, however, till long afterwards that she had seen him, nor
did he suspect that she was in the coach.
When Hamilton and Churchill came up to the robbers, Hamilton asked:--
"What was the trouble?"
"The damned old fool in the coach shot at me," answered Crofts.
"How came he to do it?" asked Churchill, suspecting the truth.
"I do not know," returned Wentworth. "He must have taken us for
highwaymen, for he thrust his head out of the door and fired a pistol at
Crofts, who was nearest the coach."
"Yes," said Crofts. "And he was about to fire again, point blank at my
head, when I drew my sword and quieted him. Matters have come to a pretty
pass when gentlemen can't walk out on the public road without becoming a
target for every frightened fool that travels in a coach.
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