Major Flinders watched it till it was out of sight, and, at first, experienced a feeling of despair at being thus deprived of the aid of Garry's boldness and promptitude, and left to his own resources. Presently, however, a gleam of comfort dawned upon him--perhaps Carlota would now abandon the enterprise, and he should thus, at any rate, be freed from the embarrassment her presence occasioned him. In this hope he was shortly undeceived. To have added the shame of failure and exposure to her present disappointment, while an opening to persevere still remained, did not suit that lady's ardent spirit; and whether it was that the unscrupulous Garry had really represented the Major as very much in love, or whether such an impression resulted from her own lively imagination, she certainly thought her companion would be as much chagrined at such a denouement as herself. She displayed a prompt decision in this emergency, being, indeed, as remarkable for presence as the Major was for absence of mind. Taking the Major's arm, she caused him swiftly to retrace his steps with her to the inn where he had slept. As they retreated, they heard the boom of a gun behind them, fired, doubtless, from the Point, at the Fair Unknown. At Carlota's orders, a couple of horses, one with a side-saddle, were speedily at the inn-door; they mounted, and, before the sun was yet risen, had issued forth from the gate of Tarifa, on the road to Gibraltar.
The Major rode beside her like a man in a dream--in fact, he was partly asleep, having been deprived of a large portion of his natural and accustomed rest, and partly bewildered. A few days before he had been the most methodical, unromantic, not to say humdrum, old bachelor in his Majesty's service; and here he was, how or why he did not well know, galloping away at daybreak with a foreign lady, of whose existence he had been ignorant a week before, with the prospect of being apprehended by her relatives for her abduction, and incarcerated by the Government for assisting in the escape of a smuggler. When at length roused to complete consciousness by the rapidity of their motion, he positively groaned in anguish of spirit, and vowed internally that, once within the shelter of his own quiet quarters, nothing on earth should again tempt him forth on such harum-scarum expeditions.