The blow had torn my scalp; the blood was wet upon my brows; my head was racked with the movement of the horse beneath us; my body cruelly galled. All this was nothing to the ever-increasing terror of the thought—what would they do to me, now that they had me captive? Once I cried out, “What’s your purpose with me, in God’s name?” but the sole answer was the tightening of the grip upon me. Bending back my head, I tried to make out in the dark what manner of man was holding me; save for the shoulders, the thick neck, and the great head, I could discern nothing; I heard his jeering laughter above me. How long, how far we rode, I could not conjecture; the time seemed endless for my pains and terrors. Ever the thought tormented me—what would they do with me? Put me aboard some ship to carry me overseas? No, for it seemed that they were bearing me away from the coast, and mounting slowly to wild and rugged country; would they hold me prisoner there, or murder me out of the ken of folk? And, if Mr. Bradbury lived, how would he endure defeat by Charles Craike, through whose agency surely I came to be in this plight?
We were riding at last over more level country from the increasing swiftness of our flight; we slackened speed going among trees; I heard the rushing of the wind through their complaining boughs. We mounted a low hill, and swiftly descended. Again the moon was clear; I believed that we were going down into a cup in the moors; that rocks and woods were all about us. And ahead at last I saw a light flicker like a will-o’-the-wisp,—a spark of light that increased to the square shining of a window—a greenish light; the moon breaking again from the clouds I saw that we rode down to a house alone in this lonely hollow of the moors. We rode soon over level ground; we reached a high stone wall; the rider ahead of us had leaped down and was unlocking an iron gate; we passed through, and the gate crashed to behind us. At a walk now we clattered over cobbles up to the front of the house; I saw the green shining off the curtained window from the grey front of moonlit stone. It was a house of two stories in height, a drear grey house, grey-roofed and over-topped by chimney stacks; looking up I believed that I saw iron bars before the unshuttered windows. My captor roared out, “Hallo, there!” as we pulled up before the door; and gripping me by my collar lowered me to the ground, dropping down after me, and lugging me with him into the porch. The door opened with a clash and clatter like the iron-bound door of a prison. And blinking for the light from a lantern, I saw peering out a crone, bent nigh double, one skinny claw holding up the lantern, so that it shone upon her shrivelled livid face, her red-lidded, pale green eyes, on her grey hair wind-blown, and the blue shawl she clutched at her throat. I saw her looking malevolently at me, and heard her tittering laughter, as my captor thrust me past her into the house.