as though she rode the wind, the hunters traveled as though borne by lightning, and every leap they took made shorter the short gap that stretched between them and their quarry. No hunting-dogs, these; no sleuths or boarhounds. The watching rider knew their cry. He had not hunted in the forests of the Languedoc for nothing.
"Lupins, by the Holy Child!" he exclaimed softly. "Wolves!"
The hunted woman stumbled to her knees, then caught herself and raced with tripping feet along the frost-paved pathway leading down the mountainside. The horse shied violently as she fell almost between his forelegs, struggled to her knees and held her hands up piteously.
"Succor!" she begged between retching sobs. "Help me, beau sir, or I perish!" Beneath her tippet of bright fur her bosom heaved tumultuously, her supplicating hands were trembling as with palsy. He could hear her fighting to regain her breath in hard gasps.
"Dom Dio, mistress, hast brought thy goods to the right market!" he replied as he swung a leg across his saddle-bow.
The horse gave a sharp neigh of terror as the gray pursuers swept down on them,
