As the party passed out of view round the angle of the white road, Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen and to lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake's being the leader of it. But Wilding thought little of Blake, and cared little of what he might be the leader.
"We'll stay here," said he, "until they have passed the crest of the hill."
This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers who might happen to glance over his shoulder.
And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road. Wilding was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close upon their tails. Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.
"Ss!" he hissed. "Horses!"
And now that they halted they heard the hoofbeats clear and close at hand; the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through which they had thrust their passage had deafened their ears to other sounds until this moment. They checked and waited where they stood, barely screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between them and the open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat lest their movements should draw attention to themselves. They remained absolutely still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if these who came should chance to be enemies they might ride on without looking to right or left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked to the priming of his pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened his sword in its scabbard. Nearer came the riders.
"There are not more than three," whispered Trenchard, who had been listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.
Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a dark brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a blue one laced with gold. At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids flickered; he had recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana, whilst some twenty paces or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They were returning to Bridgwater.
They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three men had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's horse swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that he was hard put to it to keep his seat.