But my mind was preoccupied, and the whole thing
seemed to happen in a minute. At the very moment that I had
declared to myself the vanity of my fears and determined to be
resolute in banishing them, I heard voices--a low, strained
whispering; I saw two or three figures in the shadow of the
poplars by the wayside. An instant later, a dart was made at me.
While I could fly I would not fight; with a sudden forward plunge
I eluded the men who rushed at me, and started at a run towards
the lights of the town and the shapes of the houses, now distant
about a quarter of a mile. Perhaps I ran twenty yards, perhaps
fifty; I do not know. I heard the steps behind me, quick as my
own. Then I fell headlong on the road--tripped up! I understood.
They had stretched a rope across my path; as I fell a man bounded
up from either side, and I found the rope slack under my body.
There I lay on my face; a man knelt on me, others held either
hand; my face was pressed into the mud of the road, and I was
like to have been stifled; my hand-bag had whizzed away from me.
Then a voice said:
"Turn him over."
I knew the voice; it was a confirmation of the fears which I had
lately been at such pains to banish.
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