He held something which flashed in his right hand, and he stooped at the threshold to unloose the black hound.
"This way!" the woman whispered, in a low eager voice.

"Through the bushes to that forked ash.

Do not heed me; I can run as fast as you, I trow.

Now into the stream--right in, over ankles, to throw the dog off, though I think it is but a common cur, like its master." As she spoke, she sprang herself into the shallow stream and ran swiftly up the centre of it, with the brown water bubbling over her feet and her hand out-stretched toward the clinging branches of bramble or sapling.
Alleyne followed close at her heels, with his mind in a whirl at this black welcome and sudden shifting of all his plans and hopes.

Yet, grave as were his thoughts, they would still turn to wonder as he looked at the twinkling feet of his guide and saw her lithe figure bend this way and that, dipping under boughs, springing over stones, with a lightness and ease which made it no small task for him to keep up with her.