Between Snow and Fire — page 228: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

wah — ‘TWEEN SNOW AND FIRE, Instinctively Eustace recognised that this was no time for parieying. Quick as thought he drew his revolver and fired, The assailant relaxed his hold, staggered, spun round, then fell heavily to the earth. TT he horses, thus released, tore wildly onward, mad with terror. A roar and a red, sheeting flash split the darkness behind. The missiles hummed overhead, one of them tearing a hole in the wide brim of Eanswyth’s hat. This aroused all the demon in the bloodof her companion, Standing up in his seat, regardless of prudence, he pointed his revolver at the black onrushing mass discernible in the starlight, and fired three shots in rapid succession. A horrible, shrill, piercing scream, showed that they had told with widespread and deadly effect. “Ha! Bulala abehingu !” * howled the exasperated bar- barians. And dropping flat on the ground they poured another volley into the retiring vehicle. But the latter had gained some distance now, The horses, panic-stricken and well-nigh unmanageable, were tearing up the hill on the other side of the drift, and it was all their driver could do in the darkness to keep them in the track. The buggy swayed fearfully, and twice catching a wheel in an ant-heap was within an ace of turning over. -Suddenly one of the horses stumbled heavily, then fell. All his driver’s efforts to raise him were useless, The poor beast had been struck by a bullet, and lay, feebly struggling, the blood pouring from a jagged wound in his flank, The black bolt of despair shot through Eustace’s heart. There was a feeble chance of escape for Eanswyth, buta very feeble one. Of himself he did not think. Quickly he set to work to cut loose the other horse. But the traditional sagacity of that quadruped, as is almost invariably the case, failed in an emergency. He plunged and kicked in such wise as to hinder seriously, if not defeat, every effort to disengage him from the harness. Eustace, his listening powers at their utmost tension, caught the light pit-pat of the pursuers’ footsteps racing up the hill in the darkness. They would be upon him before—— Ha! The horse was loose. “ Quick, Eanswyth. Mount! It is your only chance !”’ he said, shortening the reinsinto a bridle and holding them for her. “T will not.” * Death to the whites. (E(e)