Лучшие романы Томаса Майна Рида / The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid

Almost on the instant of his disappearance – and as if the latter had been taken for a cue – a second horseman spurred out from the suburbs of the village; and proceeded along the same path.

From the fact of his being habited in aВ fashion to defend him against the chill air of the night, he too might have been taken for aВ traveller.

A cloak clasped across his breast hung over his shoulders, its ample skirts draping backward to the hips of his horse.

Unlike the horseman who had preceded him, he showed signs of haste – plying both whip and spur as he pressed on.

He appeared intent on overtaking some one. It might be the individual whose form had just faded out of sight?

This was all the more probable from the style of his equitation – at short intervals bending forward in his saddle, and scanning the horizon before him, as if expecting to see some form outlined above the line of the sky.

Continuing to advance in this peculiar fashion, he also disappeared from view – exactly at the same point, where his precursor had ceased to be visible – to any one whose gaze might have been following him from the Fort or village.

An odd contingency – if such it were – that just at that very instant a third horseman rode forth from the outskirts of the little Texan town, and, like the other two, continued advancing in a direct line across the prairie.

He, also, was costumed as if for a journey. A “blanket-coat” of scarlet colour shrouded most of his person from sight – its ample skirts spread over his thighs, half concealing a short jäger rifle, strapped aslant along the flap of his saddle.

Like the foremost of the three, he exhibited no signs of a desire to move rapidly along the road. He was proceeding at a slow pace – even for a traveller. For all that, his manner betokened a state of mind far from tranquil; and in this respect he might be likened to the horseman who had more immediately preceded him.

But there was an essential difference between the actions of the two men.

At intervals he would slue himself round in the stirrups – sometimes half turn his horse – and scan the track over which he had passed; all the while listening, as though he expected to hear some one who should be coming after him.