They seemed comparatively sober, so she tried entreaty. "Please, let me
pass," she said pleasantly. "I find I have taken the wrong road."
"No, you haven't, dearie," said one of the men, who from a superior
neatness of apparel might have been a clerk. "You've come the right
road, for you've met us. And now you're not going away." And he came
forward with a protecting arm.
Alice, genuinely frightened, tried to cross the stream and escape by the
other side. But the crossing was difficult, and she slipped at the
outset and wet her ankles. One of the three lurched into the water
after her, and withdrew with sundry oaths.
The poor girl was in sad perplexity. Before was an ugly rush of water
and a leap beyond her strength; behind, three drunken men, their mouths
full of endearment and scurrility. She looked despairingly to the level
white road for the Perseus who should deliver her.
And to her joy the deliverer was not wanting. In the thick of the idiot
shouting of the trio there came the clink-clank of a horse's feet and a
young man came over the bridge. He saw the picture at a glance and its
meaning; and it took him short time to be on his feet and then over the
broken stone wall to the waterside. Suddenly to the girl's delight
there appeared at the back of the roughs the inquiring, sunburnt face of
Lewis.
The men turned and stared with hanging jaws.
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