A hurried, noiseless footfall came after him; Rake’s voice came breathless on his ear, while the man’s hand went up in the unforgotten soldier’s salute—­

“Sir! no words.  Follow me, and I’ll save you.”

The one well-known voice was to him like water in a desert land; he would have trusted the speaker’s fidelity with his life.  He asked nothing, said nothing, but followed rapidly and in silence; turning and doubling down a score of crooked passages, and burrowing at the last like a mole in a still, deserted place on the outskirts of the town, where some close-set trees grew at the back of stables and out-buildings.

In a streak of the white moonlight stood two hunters, saddled; one was Forest King.  With a cry, Cecil threw his arms round the animal’s neck; he had no thought then except that he and the horse must part.

“Into saddle, sir! quick as your life!” whispered Rake.  “We’ll be far away from this d——­d den by morning.”

Cecil looked at him like a man in stupor—­his arm still over the gray’s neck.

“He can have no stay in him!  He was dead-beat on the course.”

“I know he was, sir; but he ain’t now; he was pisined; but I’ve a trick with a ‘oss that’ll set that sort o’ thing—­if it ain’t gone too far, that is to say—­right in a brace of shakes.  I doctored him; he’s hisself agen; he’ll take you till he drops.”

The King thrust his noble head closer in his master’s bosom, and made a little murmuring noise, as though he said, “Try me!”

“God bless you, Rake!” Cecil said huskily.  “But I cannot take him, he will starve with me.  And—­how did you know of this?”

“Begging your pardon, your honor, he’ll eat chopped furze with you better than he’ll eat oats and hay along of a new master,” retorted Rake rapidly, tightening the girths.  “I don’t know nothing, sir, save that I heard you was in a strait; I don’t want to know nothing; but I sees them cursed cads a-runnin’ of you to earth, and thinks I to myself, ’Come what will, the King will be the ticket for him.’  So I ran to your room unbeknown, packed a little valise, and got out the passports; then back again to the stables, and saddled him like lightning, and got ’em off—­nobody knowing but Bill there.  I seed you go by into the Kursaal, and laid in wait for you, sir.  I made bold to bring Mother o’ Pearl for myself.”

And Rake stopped, breathless and hoarse with passion and grief that he would not utter.  He had heard more than he said.

“For yourself?” echoed Cecil.  “What do you mean?  My good fellow, I am ruined.  I shall be beggared from to-night—­utterly.  I cannot even help you or keep you; but Lord Rockingham will do both for my sake.”

The ci-devant soldier struck his heel into the earth with a fiery oath.

“Sir, there ain’t time for no words.  Where you goes I go.  I’ll follow you while there’s a drop o’ blood in me.  You was good to me when I was a poor devil that everyone scouted; you shall have me with you to the last, if I die for it.  There!”