"Hallo--there you are--father--" he gasped and fell down, prone
unconscious.
CHAPTER XXVII
FLIGHT AND PURSUIT
When he came to himself he was lying on his back, and bending over
him was his father's familiar face, wearing an expression of great
surprise and wonder, and still greater annoyance.
"What is the matter?" General Dunsmore asked as soon as he saw that
his son's senses were returning to him. "Have you all gone mad
together? You send me a mysterious note to meet you here at three,
you turn up racing and running like an escaped lunatic, and with a
disgusting growth of hair all over your face, so that I didn't know
you till you spoke, and then there's Walter dodging about in the
wood here like a poacher hiding from the keepers. Are you both
quite mad, Rupert?"
"Walter," Rupert repeated, lifting himself on one hand, "Walter
--have you seen him?"
"Over there," said the general, nodding towards the right. "He was
dodging and creeping about for all the world like some poaching
rascal. I waved, but he didn't see me, and when I tried to overtake
him I lost sight of him somehow in the trees, and found I had come
right out of my way for Brook Bourne Spring."
"Thank God for that," said Rupert fervently as a picture presented
itself to him of his unsuspecting father trying in that lonely wood
to find and overtake the man whose murderous purpose was aimed at
his life.
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