woman, as she at once began to lead the way back through the village at a smart pace. [51] [51] The brigadier turned his horse, and commanded his men to follow, and in a few minutes every horseman was again lost to sight at the bend of the road. Lieutenant Tregenna, who had heard this colloquy, had been inclined to think, from the woman’s manner, that in her indeed they had got hold of a decent-minded person who had no sympathy with the thieves. But happening to glance up at the latticed window under the eaves of the nearest cottage he caught sight of two faces, a man’s and a woman’s, in convulsions of laughter. A cursory examination of such other windows as were near enough for him to see revealed similar phenomena. And the question darted into his mind: Was the respectable-looking woman a friend of the smugglers? And was it her intention to lead the soldiers into an ambuscade? [52] [52] CHAPTER IV. FRESH OUTRAGES. Tregenna debated with himself whether he should run after the brigadier and put him on his guard. But a moment’s reflection convinced him that a word of warning from a young man like himself would be received with resentment rather than with gratitude by the old soldier. After all, the soldiers were well armed, and were presumably prepared for emergencies. Tregenna So he turned his back on the village, and made his way over the cliffs to the creek where the gig was lying to take him to the cutter. It was at the mouth of the little ravine down which Parson Langney and his daughter had gone on the preceding evening. It was dark in this cleft between the sandstone hills, dark and cool, with a breeze that rushed through from the sea and whistled in the scrubby pines and through the arching[53] briers of the blackberry bushes. The stream which flowed swiftly down, making little trickling waterfalls from rock to rock, was swollen by recent rains, and made little patches of morass and mire at every few steps. The lieutenant found the water over his ankles half a dozen times on his way down. He had just come in sight of the opening where the gig
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