I have very little doubt they will come here though, sooner or later." "There they are!" said Alice.

"Surely there are a large party of horsemen on the plain, but they are seven or eight miles off." "Ay, ten," said Sam.

"I am not sure they are horsemen." Then he said suddenly in a whisper, "Lie down, my love, in God's name! Here they are, close to us!" There burst on his ear a confused sound of talking and laughing, and out of one of the rocky gullies leading towards the river, came the men they had been flying from, in number about fourteen.

They had crossed the river, for some unknown reason, and to the fear-struck riders it seemed as though they were making straight towards their lair.
He had got Widderin's head in his breast, blindfolding him with his coat, for should he neigh now, they were undone, indeed! As the bushrangers approached, the horse began to get uneasy, and paw the ground, putting Sam in such an agony of terror that the sweat rolled down his face.

In the midst of this he felt a hand on his arm, and Alice's voice, which he scarcely recognised, said, in a fierce whisper,-- "Give me one of your pistols, sir!" "Leave that to me!" he replied in the same tone.
"As you please," she said; "but I must not fall alive into their hands.
Never look your mother in the face again if I do." He gave one more glance round, and saw that the enemy would come within a hundred yards of their hiding-place.