Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/169

bull, who snatched at every chance of cheap profanity. “As a matter of fact, MacIan, it isn’t the voice of God, but it’s something a jolly sight more important—it is the voice of man—or rather of woman. So I think we’d better scoot in its direction.”

MacIan snatched up his fallen weapon without a word, and the two raced away toward that part of the distant road from which the cry was now constantly renewed.

They had to run over a curve of country that looked smooth but was very rough; a neglected field which they soon found to be full of the tallest grasses and the deepest rabbit holes. Moreover, that great curve of the countryside which looked so slow and gentle when you glanced over it, proved to be highly precipitous when you scampered over it; and Turnbull was twice nearly flung on his face. MacIan, though much heavier, avoided such an overthrow only by having the quick and incalculable feet of the mountaineer; but both of them may be said to have leapt off a low cliff when they leapt into the road.

The moonlight lay on the white road with a more naked and electric glare than on the grey-green upland, and though the scene which it re-