‘O, if it were possible!’ she cried.  ‘But not by violence.’

‘Not in the least, ma’am,’ I replied.  ’The simplest thing in life.  We are in a civilised country; the man’s a malefactor—­’

‘O, never!’ she cried.  ’Do not even dream it!  With all his faults, I know he is not that.’

’Anyway, he’s in the wrong in this affair—­on the wrong side of the law, call it what you please,’ said I; and with that, our four horsemen having for the moment headed us by a considerable interval, I hailed my post-boy and inquired who was the nearest magistrate and where he lived.  Archdeacon Clitheroe, he told me, a prodigious dignitary, and one who lived but a lane or two back, and at the distance of only a mile or two out of the direct road.  I showed him the king’s medallion.

‘Take the lady there, and at full gallop,’ I cried.

‘Right, sir!  Mind yourself,’ says the postillion.

And before I could have thought it possible, he had turned the carriage to the rightabout and we were galloping south.

Our outriders were quick to remark and imitate the manoeuvre, and came flying after us with a vast deal of indiscriminate shouting; so that the fine, sober picture of a carriage and escort, that we had presented but a moment back, was transformed in the twinkling of an eye into the image of a noisy fox-chase.  The two postillions and my own saucy rogue were, of course, disinterested actors in the comedy; they rode for the mere sport, keeping in a body, their mouths full of laughter, waving their hats as they came on, and crying (as the fancy struck them) Tally-ho!’ ‘Stop, thief!’ ’A highwayman!  A highwayman!’ It was otherguess work with Bellamy.  That gentleman no sooner observed our change of direction than he turned his horse with so much violence that the poor animal was almost cast upon its side, and launched her in immediate and desperate pursuit.  As he approached I saw that his face was deadly white and that he carried a drawn pistol in his hand.  I turned at once to the poor little bride that was to have been, and now was not to be; she, upon her side, deserting the other window, turned as if to meet me.

‘O, O, don’t let him kill me!’ she screamed.

‘Never fear,’ I replied.

Her face was distorted with terror.  Her hands took hold upon me with the instinctive clutch of an infant.  The chaise gave a flying lurch, which took the feet from under me and tumbled us anyhow upon the seat.  And almost in the same moment the head of Bellamy appeared in the window which Missy had left free for him.