A couple of the smugglers' horses had been hurled over by the dragoons' impact, and lay, hurt beyond recovery, lashing out across the shingle with their heels.

A third had gone down under a sabre-cut, but had staggered up and was lobbing after his comrades at a painful canter.

They had traversed the heavy shingle, reached the harder stones at the cove's head and were sailing away at stretched gallop when a volley rang out from the shadow of the cliff there, and the scream of more than one mingled with fresh shouting.

At that moment, and just before the flame above me sank and died almost as swiftly as it had first shot up, a soldier--not a dragoon, but a man in red coat and white breeches--ran forward and sprang at the girth of the wounded horse, which had stumbled again.

He did the wise thing--for a single girth was these horses' only harness: but whether he caught it or not I could not tell.