On this she backed a foot or two and seemed uneasy, then turned her muzzle and sniffed at my leg.  “I suppose,” thought I, “a Cornish horse won’t understand my language.”  But I whispered to her to be quiet, and quiet she was at once.  I found that the tubs, being slung high, made quite a little cradle between them.  “Just a moment,” I told myself, “and then I’ll slip off and run back to the boat”; and twining the fingers of my left hand in her mane, I took a spring and landed my small person prone between the two kegs, with no more damage than a barked shin-bone.

And at that very instant I heard a shrill whistle and many sudden cries of alarm; and a noise of shouting and galloping across the beach; and was raising my head to look when the mare rose too, upon her hind legs, and with the fling of her neck caught me a blow on the nose that made me see stars.  And then long jets of fire seemed to mingle with the stars, and I heard the pop-pop of pistol-shots and more shouting.

But before this we were off and away—­I still flat on the mare’s back, with a hand in her mane and my knees wedged against the tubs; away and galloping for the head of the beach, with the whole troop of laden horses pounding at our heels.  I could see nothing but the loom of the cliff ahead and the white shingle underfoot; and I thought of nothing but to hold on—­and well it was that I did, for else the horses behind had certainly trampled me flat in the darkness.  But all the while I heard shouting, louder and louder, and now came more pounding of hoofs alongside, or a little ahead, and a tall man on horseback sprang out of the night, and, cannoning against the mare’s shoulder, reached out a hand to catch her by rein, mane, or bridle.  I should say that we raced in this way, side by side, for ten seconds or so.  I could see the gilt buttons twinkling on his sleeve as he reached past my nose, and finding neither bit nor rein, laid his hand at length right on top of mine.  I believe that, till then, the riding-officer—­it was he, for the next time I saw a riding-officer I recognised the buttons—­had no guess of anyone’s being on the mare’s back.  But instead of the oath that I expected, he gave a shrill scream, and his arm dropped, for the mare had turned and caught it in her teeth, just above the elbow.  The next moment she picked up her stride again, and forged past him.  As he dropped back, a bullet or two sang over us, and one went ping! into the right-hand keg.  But I had no time to be afraid, for the mare’s neck rose again and caught me another sad knock on the nose as she heaved herself up the cliff-track, and now I had work to grip the edge of the keg, and twine my left hand tighter in her mane to prevent myself slipping back over her tail, and on to those deadly hoofs.  Up we went, the loose stones flying behind us into the bushes right and left.  Farther behind I heard the scrambling of many hoofs, but whether of the tub-carriers or the troopers’