“On the following morn they started bravely, with earnest hope of arriving at their journey’s end by daylight.  But the roads were soft and very deep, and the sloughs were out in places; and the heavy coach broke down in the axle, and needed mending at Dulverton; and so they lost three hours or more, and would have been wiser to sleep there.  But her ladyship would not hear of it; she must be home that night, she said, and her husband would be waiting.  How could she keep him waiting now, after such a long, long time?

“Therefore, although it was afternoon, and the year now come to December, the horses were put to again, and the heavy coach went up the hill, with the lady and her two children, and Benita, sitting inside of it; the other maid, and two serving-men (each man with a great blunderbuss) mounted upon the outside; and upon the horses three Exeter postilions.  Much had been said at Dulverton, and even back at Bampton, about some great freebooters, to whom all Exmoor owed suit and service, and paid them very punctually.  Both the serving-men were scared, even over their ale, by this.  But the lady only said, ’Drive on; I know a little of highwaymen:  they never rob a lady.’”

“Through the fog and through the muck the coach went on, as best it might; sometimes foundered in a slough, with half of the horses splashing it, and some-times knuckled up on a bank, and straining across the middle, while all the horses kicked at it.  However, they went on till dark as well as might be expected.  But when they came, all thanking God, to the pitch and slope of the sea-bank, leading on towards Watchett town, and where my horse had shied so, there the little boy jumped up, and clapped his hands at the water; and there (as Benita said) they met their fate, and could not fly it.

“Although it was past the dusk of day, the silver light from the sea flowed in, and showed the cliffs, and the gray sand-line, and the drifts of wreck, and wrack-weed.  It showed them also a troop of horsemen, waiting under a rock hard by, and ready to dash upon them.  The postilions lashed towards the sea, and the horses strove in the depth of sand, and the serving-men cocked their blunder-busses, and cowered away behind them; but the lady stood up in the carriage bravely, and neither screamed nor spoke, but hid her son behind her.  Meanwhile the drivers drove into the sea, till the leading horses were swimming.

“But before the waves came into the coach, a score of fierce men were round it.  They cursed the postilions for mad cowards, and cut the traces, and seized the wheel-horses, all-wild with dismay in the wet and the dark.  Then, while the carriage was heeling over, and well-nigh upset in the water, the lady exclaimed, ’I know that man!  He is our ancient enemy;’ and Benita (foreseeing that all their boxes would be turned inside out, or carried away), snatched the most valuable of the jewels, a magnificent necklace of diamonds, and cast it over the little girl’s head, and buried it under her travelling-cloak, hoping to save it.  Then a great wave, crested with foam, rolled in, and the coach was thrown on its side, and the sea rushed in at the top and the windows, upon shrieking, and clashing, and fainting away.