In the evening, when the court adjourned and the crowds broke up, Sevier's friends managed to get near him with a spare horse; he mounted and they all rode off at speed.

By daybreak they were out of danger.

[Footnote: Ramsey first copies Haywood and gives the account correctly.

He then adds a picturesque alternative account--followed by later writers,--in which Sevier escapes in open court on a celebrated race mare.

The basis for the last account, so far as it has any basis at all, lies on statements made nearly half a century after the event, and entirely unknown to Haywood.