The highroad gained, he turned, not to the left, but to the
right, ran up the bank and threw himself flatly down upon it,
lying close to the hedge and watching the entrance to the lane.
Nothing appeared; nothing stirred. He knew the silence to be
illusive; he blamed himself for having ventured upon such a quest
without acquainting himself with the geography of the
neighbourhood.
Great issues often rest upon a needle point. He had no idea of
the direction or extent of the park land adjoining the highroad.
Nevertheless, further inaction being out of the question,
creeping along the grassy bank, he began to retreat from the
entrance to the lane. Some ten yards he had progressed in this
fashion when his hidden watchers made their first mistake.
A faint sound, so faint that only a man in deadly peril could
have detected it, brought him up sharply. He crouched back
against the hedge, looking behind him. For a long time he failed
to observe anything. Then, against the comparatively high tone of
the dusty road, he saw a silhouette--the head and shoulders of
someone who peered out cautiously.
Still as the trees above him he crouched, watching, and
presently, bent forward, questing to right and left, questing in
a horribly suggestive animal fashion, the entire figure of the
man appeared in the roadway.
As Paul Harley had prayed would be the case, his pursuers
evidently believed that he had turned in the direction of Lower
Claybury.
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