For a few moments the very daring of the leap paralysed the hunters. The man had surely gone to his death, preferring an end of this sort to the one that most surely awaited him if he were captured. They had looked to see horse and rider crash downwards to destruction, or perchance fall backwards to be crushed and maimed past all healing; but when neither of these things happened a cry of astonishment, not unmingled with admiration, burst from a dozen throats.