A mission- pt 3 attacked?

We were walking down the path that ran from the road to the inn, when I had an inkling to turn and look behind me, but before I could do so, a bag smelling of wheat was thrust over my head.  I don't know how I could have managed it, but right at that moment I fell into such a fit of sneezing that I was incapable of any defense.  Luckily though, my sneezes brought Coale, who was some five paces ahead of me, to attention, and enabled him to look round and dodge a blow from a heavy frying pan which was aimed at his head!  I had recovered from my sneezing, and not knowing what to do, ran straight ahead as fast as I could without tripping or blundering into a fence.  Meanwhile, Coale, always remaining cool even in the darkest night and attacked by a pan flailing maniac, ran also, not because of fear, but because of the perfectly logical conclusion that if he could not see his attacker, his attacker could not see him.  Now I should make it clear at this point of the story, that the night was very dark, the sky being covered by thick clouds.  And though the street lamp at the end of the path shed enough light to see by, the fight (or rather flight,) took place in the lee of a high wall where it was pitch dark.  I, blind though I was, ran on, until feeling the hard packed earth of the road, and, turned slightly so as to be in line with it.  I must have made a fine spectacle, running along half hunched down as I was, feeling ahead of me with my hands.  It was smooth sailing until I heard pounding steps coming nearer and nearer, I abandoned all caution and ran at full speed until I crashed straight into a tree, and as it says in some of the books I read as a child, I "knew no more."