To add to his alarm, night was rapidly coming on, the sky was overcast with clouds of inky blackness, the lightning was playing about the mountain tops, and the hoarse mutterings of a storm could be heard in the distance. What was to be done under such circumstances? He could never retrace his steps and find his way back to the valley in the dark. He knew by the experience he had already had with Snowdrop that the animals White-horse Fred rode, having become accustomed to a particular line of duty, objected to having their usual manner of proceeding interrupted; and if the nag on which he was now mounted should show the same disinclination to turn back that Snowdrop had exhibited to leave Smirker’s cabin, what could he do? He would be obliged to depend entirely on himself, and he would become hopelessly bewildered before he had gone a hundred yards. To camp beside the path and wait for daylight would be equally hazardous, for the crash of fallen timbers in the distance told him that the swiftly approaching storm was sweeping every movable thing before it. He must go on—he had no alternative.
“There’s some consolation in knowing that I can’t get into a much worse scrape than that which I have just got out of,” thought Julian. “If I don’t succeed in passing myself off as White-horse Fred, I will reveal myself and trust to luck. In that event the robbers will only make a prisoner of me, for I am worth too much to them to be harmed. Smirker said so, although I haven’t the least idea what he meant by it.”
Having settled this point, Julian put spurs to his horse, which, having by this time gained the summit of the hill, set off at the top of his speed. The gloom of night settled rapidly over the mountains, growing more and more intense every instant, and finally even the nearest objects were shut out from his view, save when the occasional flashes of lightning burst from the thick blackness overhead. To increase his uneasiness, he became aware that the path over which he was being carried with all the speed his horse could command ran along the brink of a deep precipice. Trusting entirely to the white nag, and leaving the bay to take care of himself, Julian clung with a death-grip to the horn of his saddle, closing his eyes when the lightning illuminated the scene, that he might not see the dangers before him, and then when darkness once more settled over the mountains holding his breath in suspense, momentarily expecting to find himself whirling headlong to destruction. But the sure-footed animal, having carried the real White-horse Fred along that same chasm on many a night like this, was too familiar with the way to run into any dangers.