“I suppose the owners of such beasts grow accustomed to their noise in time,” thought the lad. “And in that I am fortunate, too; for if Abdallah and his friends had taken it into their heads to make a search, they must have surely found me.”
About a hundred yards beyond the house he ventured into the road. As this was soft and he walked the horse, no sound of hoofs was heard. It was a good half mile farther on that he got into the saddle, and gathered up the reins with a breath of satisfaction.
“Now for the hamlet with the church tower,” he said, and he touched the bay with the spur and went loping down the dark wagonway.
There were stars in the sky, but no moon; a faint sheen filtered through to the earth, and as the road was of a light-colored soil, the boy could trace it faintly as it stretched on ahead of him. From among the trees that still continued to line the way, there came the mysterious shadows and sounds of the night; but Ezra Prentiss was not a lad to give such things much heed, but went plodding steadily on, his eyes bent keenly ahead, his whole attention given to making his destination in as short a time as possible.
A number of times he fancied that he caught dull, indefinite sounds in his rear; indeed, he once drew in his horse and listened. But as nothing more followed, he credited the noises to the whispering voice of the night, and so rode on.
At length he came to a place where the timber had been cleared away; fences were erected and the ground broken by the plow. Off to the left was a small group of houses, and above them, strongly marked against the background of stars, was the church tower that he had pointed out to Ben.
“Plowed ground is slow traveling,” he said to himself as he slipped from the saddle, “but as I don’t know the roads hereabouts, it’s the best I can do.”
But as luck would have it, he found a place in the fence where the rails could be slipped.
“A gate,” said the boy, well pleased. “Well, that can mean only one thing; there’s a path hereabouts, somewhere.”
He mounted once more and gave the horse its head. In a moment it had picked out the path, invisible to Ezra, and went plodding along with lowered head. This led across some half dozen fields; at each fence Ezra was forced to get down and lower the bars. At length he found himself in the midst of what seemed a level green. There were scattered houses all about, their windows cheerfully lighted; the doors of some of them stood open, for the night was not unpleasant.