So might a veteran football halfback smash a path through the rushline of a vastly inferior team.
Hade cried out to his men, and drew his pistol.

But even as he did so, the momentarily glimpsed Gavin was lost to his view, amid the jostling and jostled sailors.
Past the loosely crowding men, Brice ripped his way, and out onto the veranda which he cleared at a bound.

Then, running low, but still at top speed, he sped around the bottom of the porch, past the angle of the house and straight for the far side.
He did not make for the road, but for the enclosure into which he had peeped that morning, and for the thick shade which shut off the moon's light.
Now, he ran with less caution.

For, he knew the arrival of so formidable a body of men must have been enough to send the Caesars scattering for cover.
Before he reached the enclosure he veered abruptly to one side, dashing across a patch of moonlit turf, and heading for the giant live oak that stood gauntly in its center.
Under the "Ghost Tree's" enormous shade he came to a stop, glancing back to see if the direction of his headlong flight had been noted.

Above him towered the mighty corpse of what had once been an ancestral tree.