John Garnet had little time to demand an explanation, or indeed to make up his mind. Already he could distinguish Lord Bellinger's coach labouring slowly up a slight ascent, crowned by the clump of trees before mentioned. He withdrew himself into their shelter, and scanned, as well as the failing light permitted, the strength of the party he had determined to attack. It happened that the servant whose duty it was to ride ahead from stage to stage had fallen to the rear; and this accounted for his missing that fore-runner, on whom he had calculated to warn him that his prey was drawing near. This increased the defending force to five; including my lord, a coachman, and two footmen; of whom one carried a blunderbuss, and was impeded moreover by the charge of Mistress Rachel.
Of his own auxiliaries he knew nothing. Wherever the half-score mentioned by Fin Cooper were concealed, not a man but the tall gipsy had yet shown himself, and _he_ seemed unarmed by so much as a stick. Nevertheless, the coach was close upon them now. Lady Bellinger's peevish tones might already be heard from the inside.
Unseen in the black shadow of the trees, he took a pistol from his holsters--Katerfelto standing like a rock--and sighted the near wheeler. Simultaneously with the report of the weapon and two female shrieks, the animal fell dead, shot through the brain, bringing down its coach-fellow across its body, in a confused turmoil of snortings, plungings, and broken harness.
In an instant my lord had whipped out of the carriage, sword in hand, with his coat torn up the back from the vigour with which my lady pulled at it in her fright. Determined, nevertheless, to sell his life dearly, and ready, to do him justice, for a fight at any odds, right or wrong.
The mounted servant, crying "Thieves!" and "Murder!" turned his horse, and rode away at a gallop; while the footman who carried the blunderbuss, shaking himself clear of Mistress Rachel, dropped on his knees, and begged pitifully for life.
His fellow, however, being of a bolder nature, snatched the weapon out of his hand to point it full in John Garnet's face, and pulled the trigger like a hero.
It only flashed in the pan; somebody had been tampering with the firearms at the last stopping-place. The assailant was in no real danger but from Lord Bellinger's naked steel. That nobleman made at him fiercely enough; and though Katerfelto answered rein and spur, as if well-trained in such hand-to-hand conflicts, John Garnet might have been obliged to use fatal means in self-defence, but that half-a-dozen figures sprang like magic from amongst the trees; a cloak was thrown over my lord's head, while he was dragged to the earth; the servants were securely gagged and bound; my lady and Mistress Rachel compelled with hideous threats to keep silence; and the original aggressor found himself at liberty to rifle the carriage unmolested, and take what he required.