Out once more upon the Port Elizabeth Road it was a clear race between the pursuers and the pursued.  The former knew that the fugitives, were it daytime, would possibly be within sight of them, and the thought gave them additional ardour.  The sergeant having a fresh horse rode in front, his head down and his body forward, getting every possible inch of pace out of the animal.  At his heels came Ezra, on his gallant grey, the blood-stained handkerchief fluttering from his head.  He was sitting very straight in his saddle with a set stern smile upon his lips.  In his right hand he held a cocked revolver.  A hundred yards or so behind them the two remaining troopers came toiling along upon their weary nags, working hard with whip and spur to stimulate them to further exertions.  Away in the east a long rosy streak lay low upon the horizon, which showed that dawn was approaching, and a grey light stole over the landscape.  Suddenly the sergeant pulled his horse up.

“There’s some one coming towards us,” he cried.

Ezra and the troopers halted their panting steeds.  Through the uncertain light they saw a solitary horseman riding down the road.  At first they had thought that it might possibly be one of the fugitives who had turned, but as he came nearer they perceived that it was a stranger.  His clothes were so dusty and his horse so foam-flecked and weary that it was evident that he also had left many a long mile of road behind him.

“Have you seen three men on horseback?” cried Ezra as he approached.

“I spoke to them,” the traveller answered.  “They are about half a mile ahead.”

“Come on!  Come on!” Ezra shouted.

“I am bringing news from Jagersfontein—­” the man said.

“Come on!” Ezra interrupted furiously; and the horses stretched their stiff limbs into a feeble lumbering gallop.  Ezra and the sergeant shot to the front, and the others followed as best they might.  Suddenly in the stillness they heard far away a dull rattling sound like the clatter of distant castanets.  “It’s their horses’ hoofs!” cried Ezra; and the troopers behind raised a cheer to show that they too understood the significance of the sound.

It was a wild, lonely spot, where the plain was bare even of the scanty foliage which usually covered it.  Here and there great granite rocks protruded from the brown soil, as though Nature’s covering had in bygone days been rent until her gaunt bones protruded through the wound.  As Ezra and the sergeant swept round a sharp turn in the road they saw, some little way ahead of them, the three fugitives, enveloped in a cloud of dust.  Almost at the same moment they heard a shout and crash behind them, and, looking round, saw a confused heap upon the ground.  The horse of the leading trooper had fallen from pure fatigue, and had rolled over upon its rider.  The other trooper had dismounted, and was endeavouring to extricate his companion.