The captain shook his head again.
Jerningham felt that time was passing rapidly. "If you are for disobedience, you are no longer for my service," he said. "Take yourself from my house and my land forthwith."
Ravenshaw laughed; and stood motionless, which was what Jerningham wished, in case the captain was determined against an immediate start for Dover, for it would not do to have him free in the neighbourhood, perchance to learn of the treachery concerning the maid in time to give trouble. It hadoccurred to Jerningham that a threatening step on the captain's part, by affording excuse for a deed of blood, would lessen its horror and create in Meg, with less fear of retribution upon the house, less mood for turning accuser. So he resumed, with studied offensiveness of tone:
"Begone from my house, I bid you!" With which, he drew the captain's dagger as if he forgot it was not his own.
Jerningham's back was to the table; Ravenshaw faced him, three or four paces away; by the front door stood Meadows, with a long knife in his girdle; Goodcole, before the fireplace, was similarly armed. Meg and Jeremy, wondering spectators, were near the kitchen door. Ravenshaw noted all this in a single glance right and left; noted in the looks of the two men the habit of instant readiness to support their master.
"Pray, consider the hour," said Ravenshaw, feeling it was a time for temporising.
"'Tis for you to consider; I command," said Jerningham, taking the captain's sword from the table behind him.
"You should give me my weapons before you bid me depart," said the captain, in as light a tone as he could assume.
"When you are gone, I will throw them after you."
Ravenshaw dashed forward with a growl; but stopped short in time, with the point of his own sword at his breast. He had an impulse to grasp the blade; but he knew, if he were quick enough for that, there was yet the dagger to be reckoned with, besides the two men, who drew their knives at that moment. Jerningham seemed to brace himself for a spring; he held the captain's sword and dagger as in sockets of iron; a dark gleam shone in his eyes. Ravenshaw knew the look; time and again he had worn it himself; he knew also when, as player in a game, he was within a move of being checkmated.
"Well," quoth he, with a grin of resignation, "you hold all the good cards. I will carry your letter." He suddenly bethought him of a friend or two in Rochester, which he would pass through early in the morning if he made the journey, by whom he might send Cutting Tom's money to the parson. Contemplating the life of ease he had promised himself in his new service, he was not sorry a good pretext had occurred for withdrawing his refusal.
"You will set out immediately?" asked Jerningham.
"The sooner the better, now."
Jerningham sent the old man out with a lantern to saddle the captain's horse and bring it to the door. He then handed the letter to the captain, and gave particular instructions, such as would be necessary ina genuine errand. Jeremy reappeared, at the front door, and announced that the horse was ready. Jerningham surrendered the captain's rapier and dagger with grace, and gave him money for the journey. Ravenshaw then examined the lantern which Jeremy brought him, waved a farewell to Jerningham and Meg, and strode to the door.
Jerningham breathed softly, lest even a sigh of satisfaction might betray his sense of triumph. "She is mine!" sang his heart.
The door, left slightly ajar by the old man, opened wide as if by a will of its own, just as the captain was about to grasp it. A white-bearded, ruddy-faced man, dressed in rags and upheld by one leg and a crutch, stood grinning at the threshold.
"God save your worship!" said he to the captain. "We come late; but first our affairs hindered us, and then we mistook the way. By good chance, we find you awake; else had we passed the night under some penthouse or such, hereabouts, and come to drink your health in the morning."
Ravenshaw having mechanically stepped back, the old beggar hobbled in, followed by several other maimed ragamuffins, with whom came the two women Ravenshaw had seen in the afternoon, and a pair of handsome frowsy young hussies who had not appeared in the road. The legless dwarf still rode upon a comrade's shoulders. As the motleygang trooped in, there was a great clatter and thud of crutches, wooden legs, and staves.
"God's death! who are these?" cried Jerningham, in petulant astonishment.
"Some poor friends of mine I met on the way hither," said Ravenshaw, apologetically. "I asked them to sup with me here. I had well-nigh forgot."
"Sup with you! By what right—well, no matter for that. Where did you think to find provender for all those mouths?"
"I was to find drink only; they were to find meat."
"Ay," said the chief beggar, "chickens; and here they be, young and plump." He thrust his hand into a sack another fellow carried, and drew out a cold roast pullet. The captain gazed at this specimen with admiring eyes, and unconsciously licked his lips.
"By your leave," said he to Jerningham, "I'll tarry but a half-hour to play the host to my invited guests; and then away. I can make up the time; a half-hour, more or less—"
"'Tis not to be thought of!" cried Jerningham. "There has been too much time lost already."
"Nay, I'll make it up, I tell you. I am bound to these people by my invitation; they have come far out of their way."
"Oh, as for that, they need not go away thirsty.Jeremy, take these—good people—to the kitchen, and broach a cask." Master Jerningham, in his desire for Ravenshaw's departure, could force himself to any concession; he considered that, left to themselves, these beggars would be no obstacle to his design; they could be kept at their ale in the kitchen.
"Why, to tell the truth," interposed the captain, "'tis not so much their thirst troubles me; 'tis my hunger." And he leaned a little toward the fowl, sniffing, and feasting on it with his eyes.
"Take it with you, man, and eat as you ride," said Jerningham, still restraining his impatience.
"Why, that's fair enough," replied Ravenshaw. "I'll just drink one cup with these my guests, and then leave 'em to your hospitality." Without more ado, he walked to the kitchen door, where Jeremy was standing, and motioned the beggars to follow. They filed into the kitchen, seven men and four women, not a whole body in the gang save the two robust wenches.
"A bare minute or so, sir," said Ravenshaw to Jerningham, and went after them, taking the lantern with him. Soon there came from the kitchen the noise of loosened tongues chattering in the gibberish of the mendicant profession.
"THERE ... WAS THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE, PALE ANDBEWILDERED."
"THERE ... WAS THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE, PALE ANDBEWILDERED."
Master Jerningham, knowing that opposition would only cause further delay, controlled himself as best he could, and waited in silence, pacing the hall, while the captain had his humour. Meg, with housewifely instinct, betook herself to the kitchen to keep an eye on matters there. Presently the captain reappeared, with a pullet in one hand, his lantern in the other, Meg having meanwhile lighted candles in the kitchen.
"And now to horse!" cried he, closing the kitchen door after him.
"And God save us from any more delays!" said Jerningham, with a pretence of jocularity.
"So say I," quoth Ravenshaw, stalking forward.
In the centre of the hall he stopped, with a cry of astonishment, which made Jerningham turn swiftly toward the open front door.
There in the porch, which was suddenly lighted up with rays of torch and lantern, was the maid of Cheapside, pale and bewildered, held on either side by Cutting Tom and one of his comrades.
KNAVE AGAINST GENTLEMAN.
"Who shall take your word?A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trustSo much as for a feather."—The Alchemist.
Cutting Tom was struck motionless at sight of the captain; but, after a moment, reassuring himself by a look at Jerningham, he led his captive into the hall. His men followed. The group came to a halt ere any one found voice.
Ravenshaw, recovering a little from his surprise, was about to hurl a question at Cutting Tom, when his tongue was stayed by his seeing the maid's eyes turn with blazing indignation upon himself, and her lips open to speak.
"So, then, it is your work!" she said.
"My work?" quoth the captain, in a maze, dropping his chicken.
"No doubt you spied upon poor Master Holyday, and corrupted these rogues he trusted in," she went on; and then, giving way, she wept: "Oh, God! into whose hands have I fallen!"
Ravenshaw quailed at her tears; but suddenlystiffened himself, set down his lantern, and said wrathfully to Cutting Tom:
"What means this, knave? Why came you here? Where is—the gentleman you serve? Speak, thou slave, or by—"
But Millicent, coming swiftly out of her tears, cried, scornfully:
"Think not to blind me, thou villain! The gentleman is where you bade these wretches leave him,—in the woods, robbed,—mayhap slain! Alas, having seen his fate, what may I expect for myself!" And again she fell into lamentations.
"I understand this not," said Ravenshaw. "Cutting Tom, thou blundering hound, why bring you this maid to this place, and to me?"
"Oh, out upon pretense!" cried Millicent. "Thinkst thou I am so great a fool as not to see? God send I were Sir Peregrine's wife rather than such a villain's captive!"
"Mistress, I know not why you are here, nor what hath befallen Master Holyday. There is some mistake or falseness, which I shall worm out of this tongue-tied knave; but first assure yourself you are not my captive."
"Oh, peace! As if this fellow, whom you call by name, and who cringes before you, had not turned treacherous!"
"Ten to one he hath turned treacherous, and dearhe shall pay for it; but he hath not turned so at my instigation."
"Oh, no more, I pray. Even this fellow is not bold-faced enough to deny it is for you he has betrayed us. God knows what is to become of me, a prisoner in your hands, without a soul that knows my whereabouts to protect me!"
At this, Master Jerningham, who had kept still while an inspiration perfected itself in his mind, stepped courteously forward, and said, with grave sympathy:
"Not so, mistress. I, the master of this house, will protect you in it."
She looked at him in surprise. His was a face she recalled vaguely as having seen, or faces more or less resembling it, in the streets of London, or in churches, or other public places; but it was not a face she had ever had reason to note carefully. Whatever were the forgotten occasions upon which she may have observed it, as she had observed ten thousand faces worth a careless second glance, the night of her adventure in February was not one of them; for on that night, besides keeping himself in shadow, and leaving all talk to Sir Clement Ermsby, Jerningham had hidden his countenance under the brim of a great Spanish hat. So his face at this moment, appearing as that of a stranger, awakened in her mind no association either pleasantor unpleasant; in itself, it wore so serious and sweet a smile, and the manner of its owner was so quietly chivalrous, that Millicent's feelings promptly declared in its favour. A sudden sense of safety came over her, depriving her for a moment of speech. Then she murmured, unsteadily:
"Master of this house, say you?"
"Ay, mistress, but no conspirator in your being brought here. I am not often at the place; this man hath newly arrived as steward; I came to-night without warning, no more expecting to see strangers in my house than he expected to see me. I know not what hath been afoot; but Heaven must have sent me here, if my coming has saved you from a mischief."
He offered her his hand. Cutting Tom had already released her arm. After a moment, she took the hand, and allowed Jerningham to lead her to a seat by the table. As she scanned his features, an increasing trustfulness appeared in her own.
"Sir," she faltered, deeply relieved and grateful, "I must thank Heaven for my deliverance. To find a gentleman—after these rascals—"
She cast a glance at Ravenshaw, and trembled to think what manner of man she had escaped; for indeed at that instant the captain looked like the very devil.
"He deliver you!" exclaimed Ravenshaw, as soon as his feelings permitted him to speak calmly. "Why, he is of all men the one you most need deliverance from!"
Jerningham smiled with tolerant contempt. "I scarce think you will believe that, mistress," said he, lightly, "seeing how completely I am a stranger to you."
"Believe him?" she replied, scornfully. "He is the prince of cozeners; he is all made of lies and shifts. I know not how he hath come to be steward to a gentleman; belike you know not of him; perchance he hath passed upon you by another name, as he did upon us; he is Captain Ravenshaw."
"To say truth, mistress, I knew him; but I little thought—"
"Knew me?" said Ravenshaw, with a laugh. "Ay, indeed. Well enough for me in turn to know his designs against yourself, mistress; from which, as from marriage with that old dotard, I had hoped to see you saved. As for your being brought here, ask these men. Find your tongue, Cutting Tom, and explain this."
"Why, of a truth," said Cutting Tom, slowly, finding courage in a significant glance from Jerningham, "I know not what you would have me explain. I am but a dull-witted man; if you had only told me beforehand what to say—"
"'Tis too clear these knaves acted by your orders, captain," interrupted Jerningham.
"Why, yes, so we did, and that's the hell of it," said Cutting Tom.
"Liar and slave!" cried Ravenshaw, half drawing his sword; but he controlled himself, and said: "'Tis plain that you, Master Jerningham, have bought this knave, though 'tis beyond my ken how you learned what he was to be about to-night. Mistress, I swear to you, the man who intends you harm is he that you put your trust in; the man who would save you is he that you revile and disbelieve."
"Mistress," said Jerningham, ignoring this speech, "wherever you have come from, wherever you would go, 'tis now too late in the night to leave this house. Shall I conduct you to a chamber where you will be safe and alone? Your ears need not then be assailed by the rude talk of this man. Surely you will not doubt me upon his wild words?"
"Nay," said she, rising compliantly, "I heed not his words."
"For proof of them," said the captain, "let me tell you that this gentleman employed me to be his go-between with you."
She blushed. Jerningham said: "Oh, villain! You have the devil's invention, I think. You would make yourself out a worse knave, that you mightmake her distrust me. Mistress, if you have the smallest fear—"
"Sir, God forbid I should doubt a gentleman on the word of a known rascal!"
Jerningham led her by the hand toward the corridor at the right. But the captain, not delayed by his momentary reflection upon the occasional inconvenience of a bad reputation, sprang ahead of them, and took his place at the corridor entrance, grasping his sword. Master Jerningham instantly drew back with the maid, in a manner implying that the captain's threatening action was as much directed against her as him. He hastened with her toward the opposite passage, but Ravenshaw was again beforehand. Jerningham thereupon conducted her to the front part of the hall. It was not his desire to release her hand, as he must needs do if he himself fought Ravenshaw at this juncture. He did not wish to call in Ermsby yet, fearing the effect her recognition of that gallant might have upon her confidence in himself. His own two followers in the hall were armed only with knives. Cutting Tom, the disguised Gregory, and their three companions, were his men in reality; but he must seemingly win them over before using them, lest she perceive they indeed acted for him in giving this direful turn to her elopement.
"Thou whom he calls Cutting Tom," said Jerningham, "thou and thy fellows,—ye have done a dangerous thing for your necks in conveying this lady hither against her will."
"Sir, I know it," replied Tom. "But I was led by my needs, and these my followers knew nothing of the business. I take you to be a gentleman that has power in the world. I beg of you, now that the villainy has failed, deal not too hardly with us."
"It lies with yourselves. If you be minded to undo the villainy, to serve me in my protection of this maid—"
"We will, we will! and thank your good worship!" said Tom, quickly, and turned to his men with a look which elicited from them a chorus of confirmatory "ayes," supported by a variety of oaths.
"Then seize that man, till I pass with this lady," said Jerningham, in a decided tone. "To him, all of ye,—Meadows and Goodcole, too!"
Cutting Tom and his men drew their swords; having first attached their lanterns and torch to wall-sconces, and dropped the bundle of Holyday's clothes. The party advanced upon Ravenshaw, being joined by Meadows and Goodcole, which twain preferred wisely that the bearers of longer weapons should precede them into the captain's immediate neighbourhood. Tom himself went rather shufflingly, doubtless willing to give opportunity for any more impetuous comrade to be more forward in thematter. But the other men were no more eager than he to be first; and so the movement, beginning with some show of a fearless rush, deteriorated in a trice to a hesitating shamble. At two steps from the captain, the party came to a stop.
"Ho, dogs, will ye come dancing up to me so gaily?" cried Ravenshaw. "Dance back again as fast!" His rapier leaped out, and sang against three of their own blades in the time of a breath.
All seven of the men, appalled at his sudden onslaught, stepped hastily back. The captain strode forward. The fellows increased their backward pace. He followed. They turned in a kind of panic, and ran pell-mell for the front door. Laughing loudly at their retreat, Ravenshaw stopped, as he was in no mind to be drawn outside while Millicent remained within. At sound of his laugh, the fellows turned and stood about the doorway with their weapons in defence.
"Sir," said Ravenshaw, turning to Master Jerningham, "I pray you, look upon this maid; consider her youth and her innocence. Will you mar such an one a lifetime, to pleasure yourself an hour? As you are a gentleman, I ask you, give her up."
"Do not give me up to him!" she said, affrightedly, clinging closer to Jerningham.
Ravenshaw shook his head in sorrow. "Ah, mistress, that you should think I would harm you!If you but knew—but for what you think of me, no matter. 'Tis a cruel twist of circumstance that you should oppose him that would save you, and cleave to him that would destroy you. You would know how the affair stands, if there were a spark of truth to be found among these knaves and traitors. Oh, for a gleam of honesty! How foul falsehood looks when it has the whole place to itself!"
A whinny of impatience was heard from the horse waiting outside.
"'Tis high time you were in the saddle, captain," said Jerningham. "Come, man; I will forget your attempt upon this maid, since no harm has followed. And she, too, will forget it, if she take my counsel. Will you trust your welfare in this matter to me, mistress?"
"Entirely," answered Millicent, in a low voice.
"Oh, mistress, how you are deceived!" said Ravenshaw. "What can I do to save you?"
She shrank back from his look.
"Fear not, mistress," said Jerningham, softly. "Come, come, captain, an end, an end! Time is hastening. I pray you, be off upon your ride to Dover."
"Dover!" echoed the captain, with a strange laugh. "Ride to Dover! By God's death, things have changed in the past ten minutes! I shall notride to Dover, thank your worship! not this night! I shall stay here to save this lady in spite of herself!—in spite of herself and of you all, good gentlemen!"
"Is this your promise, you rascal?" exclaimed Jerningham. "You gave your word to ride forthwith."
"And being a rascal, I claim a rascal's privilege to break his word!" cried Ravenshaw. "Away from that lady, or by this hand—"
He did not finish his threat, but made straightway for Jerningham. The latter ran with the maid to the farther side of the table, and whipped out his sword. Ravenshaw, in pursuing, turned his back to the fellows at the doorway. "Upon him, men!" shouted Jerningham, and then, raising his voice still higher, called out: "Ho, Ermsby, to the rescue!"
Ravenshaw, trusting his ears to warn him of what threatened in the rear, kept Jerningham's sword in play rather cautiously, for fear of too much endangering or frightening Millicent, who was pale as death. The girl, clinging to Jerningham, was thus rather a protection than an encumbrance to that gentleman. Very soon the captain heard the bustle of newcomers entering at the front door, and then a general movement, led by a more resolute tread than he had noticed before. He turned and faced Sir Clement Ermsby, whom he recognised but vaguely as a person with whom he had been in collision sometime in the past. He parried the knight's thrust, and guarded himself with his dagger from a lunge of Cutting Tom's. He then spun around on his heel, lest Jerningham might either pierce his back, or profit by the opportunity to take the maid away.
Jerningham had chosen the latter course, but he was hindered by the rush of some of his own men, who had run around the table in order that the captain might be surrounded. Thus checked for an instant, and in some way made sensible of Ravenshaw's last movement, Jerningham turned back, and again engaged the captain. Ravenshaw was thus between two forces, one headed by Jerningham, the other by Sir Clement. He leaped upon the table, jumped to the floor on the other side, while half a dozen blades darted after him; dragged the table to a corner, and turned to face his enemies from the little triangular space behind it. Led by Ermsby, they rushed upon him, thinking to find the table of short use as a bulwark against such numbers.
But Jerningham stood back out of the rush, still holding Millicent by the hand, and shouted:
"Some keep him busy above the table; some thrust under at his legs. Let the knave die, 'tis good time! I'll look to the comfort of the lady." And he started again toward the right-hand passage.
Ravenshaw bent forward across the table, andswept aside the points of steel with sword and dagger; but they threatened him anew, and he heard men scrambling under the table to stab his legs; he saw, between two heads of his foes, Jerningham's movement toward the passage, and he shouted:
"Ho, rufflers, maunderers, upright men! a rescue! a rescue!"
Jerningham halted, somewhat wondering. The kitchen door flew open, and, with a hasty thumping of crutches, the beggars hobbled in, men and women, most of them with pewter cans, from which they had been regaling themselves. At sight of these maimed creatures, with their frowsy hair, their gaunt looks, the red blotches and bandages of some, the white eyeballs of others, Millicent started back in horror. As the door by which they came in was near the passage toward which Jerningham was leading her, and as they spread into a wide group in entering, they blocked the way of her departure.
"Stop the gentry cove!" cried Ravenshaw. "In the name of the salamon, stand by a brother!"
The captain's assailants had drawn away a little to see who the newcomers were. Having satisfied himself at a glance, Sir Clement Ermsby laughed, and said: "A rescue, sooth! A bunch of refuse,—rotten pieces of men. Come, back to your work!" And he renewed the attack on Ravenshaw; while Jerningham, calling out, "Ay, to him! these behelpless cripples," started again for the passage, his sword-point forward.
But with a wild whoop the beggars straightened out of their lame attitudes, swung their crutches and staves in the air, lost all regard of sores and patches, found arms for empty sleeves, showed keen eyes where white balls had plead for pity, threw off all the shams of their profession, and swept upon the captain's foes. A sturdy blow of a staff bore down Jerningham's rapier, a filching hook tore his dagger from his other hand. Iron-shod crutches and staves rained upon the heads of Sir Clement and the other men; hooks caught their clothing, and dragged some to the floor. When at close quarters, the beggars drew their knives; the women fought like men. Millicent, separated from Jerningham in the fray, ran shrieking in the one direction open to her; this was toward the corner at the right of the front door. Ravenshaw, dashing through the confusion, placed himself triumphantly at her side. She essayed to run from him; but he gently swept her with a powerful arm into the corner behind him.
"Oh, God, I am lost!" she cried, seeing Jerningham and his men brought to pause by the sturdy wielders of staff, crutch, and knife.
Across the captain's mind flashed a wild project of bearing her away in search of her uncle's house, which he knew was somewhere in the neighbourhood; but he heard a sudden fierce dash of the long-expected rain against the rear windows, saw how faint and exhausted she was, thought of the opposition she would offer, and considered the up-hill fight he would have to wage against an enemy desperate with the fear of losing his prey. He had a better idea,—one in which prowess might be supplemented with craft.
Quite near him, in the wall at his right hand, was the open door to the porter's room which he had noticed upon arriving at the house; it had no other means of entrance or exit, its high-placed window being a mere slit. He purposely moved a little to the left. Millicent, seeing an opening, glided along the wall to escape him. He sprang forward, and confronted her just at the door of the porter's room. Recoiling from him, she instinctively darted through the door. "Good!" cried the captain, taking his place in the doorway, his face to the hall.
Millicent, in the little room, sank upon a pallet, which was its only furniture, and put out her hands to keep the captain from approaching her. But she saw that he had stopped at the threshold, with his back to her. It was, indeed, no part of his plan to follow her into the room.
Jerningham, startled at the maid's sudden disappearance, ran forward with a cry of rage; but Ravenshaw met sword and dagger with sword and dagger,and Jerningham was fain to draw back to save his body. Matters thereupon resumed a state of abeyance, during which men recovered breath, regained their feet, and took account of bleeding heads and flesh wounds.
"Hark you!" spoke the captain, in a tone meant for her as well as for Jerningham. "It is now for us to prove which of us means this lady no harm. Let her abide where she is, till the storm and the night are past; then, together, we'll conduct her to her friends. And meanwhile, the man who attempts to enter this room declares himself her enemy."
Jerningham's face showed the rage of temporary defeat. "Then come from the door there," he said, sullenly, for want of a better speech.
"Nay, for this night I am the door here,—though she may close this wooden door an she please. These"—his sword and dagger—"she'll find true bolts and bars. She may e'en sleep, if she will,—there's a pallet to lie on."
Sitting weak and perplexed on the pallet in the dark little apartment, she wondered what purpose the captain might be about.
At the suggestion of sleep, Jerningham had an idea. Pretending to confer in whispers with Sir Clement, he secretly beckoned Gregory, who was still in his false beard. The servant approaching without appearance of intent, Jerningham, still undercover of talking to Ermsby, asked in undertone for the sleeping potion which Gregory was to have obtained. The lackey transferred a phial in an unperceived manner to his master's hand. Pocketing it in triumph, Jerningham turned to the captain:
"We shall see how honestly you mean, then. And that the lady may rest freer of annoyance, send these knaves of yours out of her hearing, back to their ale."
"With all my heart—when you send away your knaves also."
"I will do so; but fear not, mistress," he called out. "I will not leave this hall. 'Tis all for the avoiding of bloodshed, and your better comfort in the end."
"'Tis well, sir; I am not afraid," she answered, in a tired, trembling voice.
It was agreed that Jerningham's men should go into the room on the left-hand side of the hall, diagonally opposite that in which the maid was; that the beggars should return to the kitchen; that the signal for both parties to withdraw should be given by Jerningham. He was about to speak the word forthwith, when the captain interposed:
"By your leave, I'll first have private speech with my friends. You have already had with yours, and may have again ere they depart."
Jerningham saw no way of refusing, or, indeed,much reason therefor; doubtless the captain wished but to counsel his rascals to be vigilant for a possible second call. So Jerningham gave consent by silence. Ravenshaw had a conference with the beggars, in which chief parts were taken by the white-bearded rogue and the ancient cripple who had guided the maunderers to the Grange.
Presently Ravenshaw signified that he had done; whereupon Jerningham said "Begone," and the two parties filed out, each narrowly watching the other, Jerningham's men taking a torch with them, the beggars clumping with their iron-tipped wooden implements. Only Ravenshaw took note that one of the lanterns disappeared with the beggars. The captain, Jerningham, Mistress Meg, who had watched recent occurrences from the kitchen door, and Sir Clement Ermsby were left in the hall.
"How?" quoth the captain, staring at the knight. "Do you break faith? Why go you not with the other men?"
"Troth, sir, I am nobody's man," replied Sir Clement. "I am this gentleman's friend, and, when I choose, I fight for him; but my comings and goings are not to be stipulated for by any man."
Ravenshaw perceived that a minor point had been scored against him; but he was not much discomfited. He had merely to play for time, to guard the doorway of that room for an unknown number ofhours. As long as he could temporise, two antagonists were no worse than one; if it came to fighting, two were a little worse, but, as both must attack in front, the odds were nothing out of his experience.
"Have we not met before this, sir?" asked Ravenshaw, scrutinising Ermsby.
"My memory is but so-so," replied Sir Clement, quizzically.
"Before God, I think we have," said the captain, "and upon opposite sides, too, as we are now. Would I could remember! I have had so many quarrels, so many foes. I could swear you and I had clashed once upon a time."
Sir Clement, who remembered the meeting well enough, merely smiled as if amused at the captain's puzzlement. Ravenshaw drew a stool to the doorway, and sat down, weapons still in hand. Sir Clement was leaning back against the table, at the opposite side of the hall, with folded arms. He made mirth for himself by suggesting various impossible places where the captain might have met him; while Jerningham, ever keeping the corner of his eye on his enemy, went back and held a whispered conversation with Meg.
"Fear not," said Jerningham, heeding the peremptory question in her eyes. "The maid is in yonder room. This captain, by a strange chance, knows heras one he hath designs against. He would neither have her go free, nor taken back to her father. He thinks to find her at his mercy. But we shall outwit him, and no more fighting. 'Tis for you to—"
"One would think he was her friend," said Meg, glancing toward the captain.
"Poh! she fears him as he were the devil."
"Does he, then, desire her?" queried Meg, with a curious feigned unconcernedness of tone and look.
Jerningham regarded her with the silence of sudden discovery; then, restraining a smile, said, watchfully: "He is another's instrument, I think. Such a man's fancy would ne'er light upon a child; she is little more. A woman of your figure were more to his liking, I'll wager." He paused, to observe Meg's blush, which was not resentful; then he added, significantly: "If a woman were minded to make a fresh trial of life, with a brave husband now—"
"Well, and what then?" said she, looking him frankly in the eyes. "How if a woman were? The man is not seeking a wife, ten to one."
"A few drops of this, mixed with a man's wine," said Jerningham, producing the phial in such manner that his body concealed it from Ravenshaw's view, "have been known to work a wonder."
"What is it?" she whispered, gazing at it.
"A love potion," he answered. "The surest in the world, too. 'Tis the one with which—" Buthe broke off, shook his head, and replaced the phial in his pocket.
"Let me have it," she whispered, excitedly.
"If you will swear to one thing."
"What?"
"That you will find means to use it this night."
"Why this night?"
He invented a reason. "So that, when it hath effect, you may use your power to draw him from that maid."
"I swear," she replied. He passed the phial to her, directed her in detail what to do, and returned to the front of the hall as if from a mere conference upon household matters. Meg went back to the kitchen. She failed to notice there that one of the beggars, a very old man, was missing; or that the window-seat was wet, as if the casement had been recently opened and closed again. Nor could old Jeremy have called her attention to these matters, for upon their return the other beggars had so crowded around him at the ale-cask that he had seen and heard only them and their clamours.
Ravenshaw and Sir Clement, having exhausted their topic of conversation, were regarding each other in silence. Jerningham, as his eyes fell upon the front door, suddenly exclaimed:
"The horse! Zounds, in this pelting rain—" He seized one of the lanterns and ran to the porch."How now? The beast is not here!" He came back into the hall, looking puzzled.
"Perhaps the old man hath put him under roof," suggested Ermsby.
Jerningham went to the kitchen door and called Jeremy, who averred he had not been near the horse since he had tied it outside the porch.
"'Twas ill tied, no doubt," said Jerningham, "and hath got loose and sought shelter. Belike you left the stable door open. Go and see; and look in all the penthouses, too."
Jeremy went out. His return was awaited in silence, Jerningham pacing the hall, Sir Clement staying motionless at the table's edge, Ravenshaw sitting upon the stool before Millicent's room. She had not closed the door; she remained upon the pallet, able to see a little of the hall, but herself out of the light that came in through the doorway. Her thoughts were in confusion; at last they became so clouded that, obeying the impulse of fatigue, she lay down on the pallet, without heed of the act; soon she was in a state between anxious waking and a troubled dream.
Jeremy came back, dripping, and said the horse was not to be found.
Berating him for stupidity, his master sent him back to the kitchen. Jerningham presently sat down upon a chair near the table against which Sir Clement stood. Slowly the minutes passed, while the heavy beat of the rain against the casements was the only sound. Once Jerningham called out: "Is all well with you, mistress?"
Millicent, brought to a sense of her whereabouts after a moment's bewilderment, answered: "Yes, I thank you." The silence fell again.
At last Jerningham said to Sir Clement: "Those rascals yonder need not have all the good cheer to themselves. There's better drink than ale left in the house." He rose, and summoned Meg from the kitchen.
"Fetch wine," said he. Meg, returning to the kitchen, presently reappeared therefrom with a flagon and a pewter drinking cup.
"First fill a cup, I pray you," said Jerningham, "and carry it to the lady in yonder room."
She poured out a cupful, set the flagon on the table, and approached the door at which Ravenshaw sat.
"Nay, you shall not pass here," quoth the captain.
"What, will you deny the unhappy lady that small comfort?" said Jerningham, while Meg paused.
"No; I will convey it to her; but I'll first see you drink a cup of the same wine."
Jerningham shrugged his shoulders, took the cup from Meg, drained it, and turned it upside down. He then refilled it. Meg carried it to the captain,and held it close to his nostrils in handing it. He breathed its perfume, eyed it yearningly, then thrust his left hand with it into the room.
"A cup of wine for you, mistress," called Jerningham.
Millicent, again roused from half-slumber, was too gracious to refuse; she took the cup, sipped, and passed it back to the captain's waiting hand. He noticed that the cup was nearly full, but gave it back to Meg, though a little reluctantly. Jerningham emptied it down his own throat, and filled it for Sir Clement, who made one long grateful draught of the contents.
"Fill for yourself, mistress," said Jerningham, affably. Meg shook her head, but, nevertheless, proceeded to pour out another cupful. Her back was toward Ravenshaw as she did so, but there was nothing in that to strike attention. What Jerningham and Sir Clement saw, however, was this: she held the cup with her thumb and little finger, against her palm, so that her three other fingers lay across the top. Along the inside of her middle finger was placed the phial, a narrow tube, tied to the finger with fine thread; the open end of the phial was toward the palm, which she had hitherto kept tight against it. But now, opening her fingers out above the rim of the cup as she poured the wine, she released a part of the phial's contents into the cupat the same time. The sleight required but a moment.
She put down the flagon, transferred the cup to the other hand, and turned toward Ravenshaw.
"Eh? What?" exclaimed Jerningham, in feigned disapproval, reaching out for the cup.
"Nay," said Meg, holding it away from him; "hospitality ever, even to them you quarrel with!"
Whereupon she walked gravely over to the captain and offered him the cup.
Ravenshaw had thought he detected approbation of himself in this woman's looks at the time of his arrival; and now he thought he might flatter himself the approbation still existed. Attributing all to her good nature toward him, and not suspecting wine in the same vessel, and from the same flagon, as had supplied his enemies but a moment since, he grasped the cup with a hearty smile of gratitude, and emptied it swiftly down his throat.
Meg received back the cup, placed it on the table beside the flagon, and passed silently to the kitchen, followed by a faint smile of mirth on the part of Jerningham. The smile was supplanted by a look of expectant curiosity as Jerningham turned his eyes upon Ravenshaw. The captain sat as before, rapier in one hand, dagger in the other. Jerningham himself had resumed his chair near the table, and Sir Clement retained his old attitude. In the littleroom, Millicent relapsed into a dreamy half-consciousness, wherein she seemed borne by rough winds through black and red clouds; the room appeared a vast space wherein this occurred; and yet always she was vaguely aware of her actual surroundings.
Ravenshaw felt serenely comfortable; a delicious ease of mind and body came over him; the beat of the rain softened into a soothing lull; the hall grew dark before him. He opened his eyes with a start, amazed at himself for having let them close. A mist seemed to fill the place; through it appeared the faces of his two enemies, a curious smiling expression upon each.
"What is it?" cried the captain, sharply, and gave his head a shake to throw off the drowsiness that invaded him.
Jerningham's eyes shone with elation.
"God's death, the wine!" cried Ravenshaw, staggering madly to his feet. "Methought there was an aftertaste. Ye've played foul with me!"
He put his arms against the wall to keep himself from falling; his head swayed, and sank forward; the floor seemed to yield beneath him; darkness surged in upon him, and for an instant he knew not where he was or what he was about. But he flung himself back to life with a fierce effort, and began walking vigorously back and forth in front of hisdoorway. He knew that his sole hope of resisting the drug, if it was what he guessed, lay in constant action of body and mind.
Jerningham sat still; he had but to wait till the captain succumbed, delude Meg with the tale that the philtre sometimes began its operation by inducing a long sleep, find means to administer the rest of the potion to Millicent, and carry out his original design. The beggars were little to be feared without Ravenshaw; they would drink themselves stupid, and on the morrow, while they were snoring or bousing, the unconscious maid could be carried to the ship. As for Ravenshaw, once the drug overcame him he would be virtually out of the world for two days, at least. He could be locked in a chamber, and the beggars informed by Meg that he was gone. They would doubtless take themselves off when they had drunk the place dry. Meg would await with interest the termination of the captain's sleep. Thus all would pass without bloodshed and without any scandal reaching the bishop's ears too soon. Meanwhile, the slightest movement against Ravenshaw, or toward Millicent's room, was to be avoided; it would only stir the captain to action opposed to the effects of the drug. He was still striving against those effects, pacing with rapid steps the small stretch of floor he allowed himself, and thrusting in the air with his weapons.
He was continually losing his mental grasp and regaining it with effort. He wondered how they had contrived to drug his wine alone; doubtless the woman had the arts of a witch; a woman who talked so little was not natural.
How if, in spite of all his resolution, the drug should prove too potent for him? What of the maid then? He shuddered to think of her at the mercy of Jerningham, who had doubtless provided all means of dealing with her in safety from consequences. Should he, Ravenshaw, consign her to the protection of the beggars? Without his masterful and resourceful presence, they were like to prove fickle rogues. Should he remove Jerningham forthwith by killing him? If he did so, and then succumbed to the drug or to Jerningham's men, how might she fare at the hands of the survivors, rascals on both sides? This friend of Jerningham's was the only gentleman in the house, and he was without doubt a bird of Jerningham's feather. Where had the captain met him before? Ravenshaw, calling up anew his energies, stopped in his walk to stare at the man, and lurched toward him drunkenly. Suddenly the captain's face cleared, he stumbled back to the doorway, and cried:
"Mistress, look, look!"
So sudden and imperative a cry brought Millicent to the threshold, startled, white of face.
"Look!" went on Ravenshaw. "'Tis he—that night in the street—in February—they would not let you go—but I compelled them! And one gave me the slip—a man with a Spanish hat—a thick-bearded—Ah! 'twas you, you, you!" He had turned his gaze upon Jerningham. "That was the beginning, I trow! Ah, mistress, who were your enemies that night, and who was your friend?"
She stood bereft of speech, her hand against the door-post, recognising Sir Clement indeed, and dismayed at the frown—which to suddenly enlightened eyes was a betrayal of the truth—on Jerningham's face. And then she wondered at the wild, drunken movements of Ravenshaw, who had resumed his rapid pacing of the floor in a fresh struggle with the persistent opiate.
"The man will never sleep," said Ermsby, in a low tone, to Jerningham. "He will outwalk your medicine. You are not like to have him in a worse state than he is in now. Let me put an end to him while he is thus."
"But Meg—" objected Jerningham.
"If I give him a thrust in my own quarrel, she cannot blame you. Come; my weapons are itching."
"Why do you wish to slay him?"
"For the sport of it, i' faith." Sir Clement's face lighted up with cruelty. "'Tis your only sure way. He'll walk out of this cloud presently."
"As you will," said Jerningham, abruptly, after a moment's thought. "But 'tis between you and him."
Sir Clement, without moving, said aloud to the captain:
"I remember our meeting. You boasted you could be my teacher with the rapier. I knew not then you were Ravenshaw, the roaring captain; else I had not put off the lesson."
"Lesson—put off lesson—what lesson?" murmured the captain, dreamily, swaying and plunging as he strode.
"I said a time might come when I should see your skill," Ermsby went on. "I am bound on a far journey to-morrow, and may never meet you again." He drew his rapier and dagger, and stepped forward. "Come, knave! Remember your insolence that night; for I shall make you swallow it!"
However vague an impression the previous words had made on the captain's mind, the sight of sword and dagger in threatening position roused and steadied him. Not fully sensible of how he had come to be opposed by these weapons at this stage, he met them with the promptitude of habit. The steel of his dagger clashed against the other's sword-point; his own rapier shot forth to be narrowly diverted in like manner. There was exchange of thrust and parry till the place sang with the ring ofsteel. The jocund heat of battle woke in the captain's blood, its fierce thrill gladdened his soul and invigorated his body. And yet he went as one in a dream, with the lurches of a drunken man. But dazed as he appeared in countenance, wild and uncontrolled as his movements looked, his eye was never false as to the swift dartings of his enemy's weapons, his hand never failed to meet steel with steel. Some spirit within him, offspring of nature and practice conjoined, seemed to clear his eye and guide his arm, however his body plunged or his legs went awry.
Meg ran in from the kitchen at the first sound of steel. Jerningham hastened back and drew her out of the way of the fighters, saying:
"They fell a-quarrelling; I could not part them. See what effect the potion hath upon him; he should sleep now, but for this fighting. I hope 'twill end without blood."
The beggars, now drunk, were looking over one another's heads from the kitchen, not daring to enter without the order; and Jerningham's men, drawn from their dice by the noise, were crowded together beyond the left-hand doorway. Jerningham hoped that Ravenshaw would yet, in a moment of exhaustion, yield to the opiate ere Sir Clement found opportunity for a home thrust. So he stood with Meg at the fireplace, while Millicent, held by theinterest and import of the scene, watched from her threshold. The fighters tramped up and down the hall.
"Never with that thrust, good teacher!" said Ermsby, blocking a peculiar deviation of his opponent's blade from its apparent mark—his right groin—toward his left breast.
"Nor you with that feint, boy!" retorted the captain, ignoring a half-thrust, and catching on his dagger the lightning-swift lunge that followed.
Furiously they gave and took, panting, dripping with sweat, their faces red and tense, their blazing eyes fixed. Now the captain threw himself forward when there seemed an opening in the other's guard; now he sprang back before a similar onslaught on his adversary's part. He swayed and staggered, and sometimes appeared to stop himself in the nick of time from falling headlong, but always his attack and guard were as true as those of Sir Clement, whose body and limbs moved as by springs of steel. It seemed as if neither's point could ever reach flesh, so sure and swift was the defence; the pair might have been clad in steel.
Ravenshaw had worked back to the front of the hall; suddenly he sprang forward, driving Sir Clement toward the fireplace. Ermsby made the usual feint, the usual swift-following lunge. Ravenshaw caught it, but with a sharp turn of the wrist thatloosened his grip so that his dagger was struck from his hand by the deflected sword-point. Sir Clement uttered a shout of triumph, and thereby put himself back in the game by the hundredth part of a second; in that infinitesimal time the captain drove his old thrust home. Sir Clement dropped, limp and heavy, his cry of victory scarce having ceased to resound.
Ravenshaw turned fiercely about, his sword ready for new foes. Startled at the movement, Jerningham called his men to seize the slayer. The captain shouted to the beggars. These came staggering in from the kitchen, but he saw they were helpless with drink. The white-bearded fellow was feebly brandishing a pistol which he had made ready for firing,—the weapon he had pointed at Ravenshaw in the road. The captain seized it, turned toward Jerningham's advancing adherents, and fired into the band. A man fell with a groan, but his comrades passed over him, and Millicent recognised, as his false beard became displaced in his struggles, the fellow who had denounced Ravenshaw in her father's garden. The captain hurled himself upon the other men; brought down Cutting Tom with the sting of his rapier; felled Goodcole with a blow of the pistol; dashed through the opening he had thus made in their ranks; pitched forward as if at last all sense had left him; spun around, and grasped at the air like one drowning, and fell heavily against the frontdoor, closing it with his weight. He stood leaning, his head hanging forward, his arms and jaw falling loose.
"No more, men!" cried Jerningham, though the half-dozen appalled survivors needed no command to refrain, any more than the beggars, who were stumbling over their staves. "The knave hath slain Sir Clement Ermsby, but he is done for, too. Now, mistress, for a better lodging!"
The captain, mistily, as if at a great distance, saw his enemy clasp the girl's waist. He tried to move, but could not even keep his feet save by bracing himself against the door. Suddenly, as the maid drew away from Jerningham's face of hot desire, Ravenshaw was thrown forward by a violent push of the door from without. Staggering to the table, he turned and looked. In stepped the old cripple, soaking wet; behind him was a portly, fat-faced gentleman, followed by several rustic varlets armed with pikes and broadswords. Lights flared in the porch, and with the sound of the rain came that of snorting, pawing horses.
"Well met, Master Etheridge," spoke Ravenshaw, thickly. "Look to your niece."
Jerningham stared in chagrin; Millicent ran with a cry of joy to her Uncle Bartlemy. Then the captain said, "Thank God, I may now go asleep!" and fell full length upon the floor.
HOLYDAY'S FURTHER ADVENTURES.
"O, when will this same year of night have end?"—The Two Angry Women of Abington.
Master Holyday at first thought himself lucky to be left alive, though naked to his shirt and bound to a tree by hempen cords which were tied around his wrists behind him, and around his ankles. But he soon began to doubt the pleasures of existence, and the possibility of its long continuance, in his situation. There was a smarting pain between his eyes, his face felt swollen all around those organs, his arms ached from their enforced position, the chill of the night assailed his naked skin.
He bemoaned the inconveniences of a stationary condition, and for the first time in his life realised what it was to be a tree, rooted to one spot all its days. He no longer deemed it a happy fate that the gods bestowed on the old couple as a reward for their hospitality, in the Metamorphoses,—that of being turned, at their death, into oaks. And he became swiftly of opinion that the damsel who escaped the pursuit of Apollo by transforming herselfinto a laurel would have been wiser to endure the god's embraces. And yet, as an accession of dampness—mist, if one could have seen it in the blackness of the forest—set his bare legs trembling and shrinking, he envied the trees their bark; and as each arm felt its cramped state the more intolerably, he coveted their freedom of waving their limbs about in the wind. At this, he strained petulantly to move his wrists apart, and, to his amazement, the cord yielded a little. He exerted his muscles again, and the hemp eased yet more. A few further efforts enabled him to slip free his hands. In their haste his two despoilers had made their knots carelessly. They had been more thorough in fastening his ankles. But, bending his knees, and lowering his body, he set to work with his fingers, and after many a scrape of his skin against the bark, many a protest of discomfort on the part of his strained legs, he set himself at liberty. Surprised at having been capable of so much, he stepped forward with the joy of regained freedom, but struck his toe against a fallen bough, and went headlong into a brake of brambles.
Cursing the darkness, and his fate, with every one of the hundred scratches that gave him anguish of limb and body, he backed out of the thicket, and moved cautiously in the opposite direction, holding his hands before him, and feeling the earth with his toes before setting foot in a new place.
"This is what it is to be a blind man," quoth he. Often, despite his precautions, he hurt his feet with roots and sticks, and cut them upon sharp-edged stones. He began to think he was doomed to a perpetual labour of wandering through a pitch-dark forest; it seemed so long since he had known peace of body and mind that he fancied he should never again be restored to the knowledge. He knew not, in the darkness, which way he was going; he moved on mainly from a disinclination to remain in one place, lest he should experience again the feelings of a rooted plant.
He began to speculate upon his chances of falling in with dangerous beasts, and upon the probable outcome of such an encounter. He had known of a man upon whom a threatened buck had once wrought the vengeance so vastly overdue from its race to mankind; in his poaching expeditions with Sir Nicholas the vicar he had often shuddered with a transient fear of a similar fate. In those expeditions he had always had company, had been armed and clad; the strange sense of helplessness that besets an undressed man was a new feeling to him.
At last, to his temporary relief, he came out of the wood, as he knew by the less degree of darkness, the change of air, and the smooth turf which was delicious to his torn feet. But presently the turf became spongy; water oozed out as it gavebeneath his feet. He turned to the left, thinking to avoid the marsh without entering the wood again; but the ground became still softer; a few more steps brought him into sedgy pools several inches deep.
"This is worse than the wood," he groaned, and put his face in what he took to be the direction of the trees. But the farther he went, the deeper he sank in water. He now knew not which way to go in order to find the wood, or even the comparatively solid turf on which he had formerly been. So he stood, railing inwardly against the spiteful destiny that had selected him for the butt of its mirth. He had a sensation of being drawn downward; he remembered, with horror, the stories of people sucked under by the marshes, and he lifted first one foot and then the other. He kept up this alternate motion, trying each time to set his foot in a fresh place, and yet fearing to move backward or forward lest he find himself worse off. The dread of becoming a fixture in the earth came over him again, as a greater probability than before, and impelled him to move his legs faster.
"Would I were a morris-dancer now, with practice of this motion," he thought, as the muscles of his legs became more and more weary; and he marvelled understandingly at Will Kempe's famous dance to pipe and tabor from London to Norwich. "Better,after all, to be a tree," he sighed, "and not have to toil thus all night lest the earth swallow me."
His legs finally rebelling against this monotonous exercise, he resolved to go forward whatever befall; and just at that moment he saw, at what distance he could not determine, a faint light. He uttered a cry of satisfaction, supposing it to be a cottage window, or a lantern borne by some night-walking countryman. As it moved not at his cry, he decided it was a cottage window, and he hastened toward it, through the tall grass, careless how far he sank into the marsh. But, as he drew near, it started away from him; then he told himself it was a lantern, and he called out to its bearer not to be afraid, as he was but a poor scholar lost in the fen. The light fled all the faster. As he increased his pace, so did it. At last, out of breath, he stopped in despair. The lantern stopped, also. He started again; it started, too.
"Oh, churl, boor, clodpate, whatever thou art!" he shouted. "To treat a poor benighted traveller thus, that means thee no harm! These are country manners, sure enough. Go to the devil, an thou wilt. I'll no more follow thee."
But as the light now came to a stand, he ran toward it, thinking the rustic had taken heart. He was almost upon it, when suddenly it separated into three lights, which leaped in three different directions. Knowing not which to follow, he stood bewildered. After a moment, he made for the nearest light; it disappeared entirely. He turned to watch the others; they had vanished.
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" he said. "This cannot be real. I perceive what it is. It is a dream I am having; a foolish, bad dream. It has been a dream ever since—since when? I was writing a puppet play, and I must have fallen asleep; I wrought my mind into a poetic fever, and therefore my dream is so troubled and wild. My courtship of that maid,—but no, that was in bright day, 'tis certain, and 'tis never bright day in dreams. Well, when I wake, I shall see where I am, and learn where the dream began; perchance I am still at that horrible tree. No; alas! these aches and scratches, this wretched marsh, are too palpable. 'Tis no dream. Would it were. Perhaps those rascals killed me in the wood, and I am in hell. Well, I will on, then, till I meet the devil; he may condescend to discourse with a poor scholar; he should have much to tell worth a man's hearing; no doubt, if he cannot talk in English, he can in Latin. Ah, what? I am again onterra firma: butterra incognitastill. I'll go on till something stops me. Oh!" he ejaculated, as he bumped against a tree. "Here is another wood. Or is it the same wood? I know not; but I will on."
A brief uncovering of the moon—the same which revealed to Millicent the huddled roofs of MarshleighGrange—gave Holyday a view of his surroundings. Looking back across the fen, he saw what must be the wood from which he had come. He stood, therefore, on the border of a second wood. He knew the wind was from the west; hence, noting the direction in which the clouds were flying, he perceived that his course had been southward and from the river. He ought to be on familiar ground now, which he had often scoured with the parson and their fellow poachers; but ere he could assure himself, moon and earth were blotted out, and he was again in a world of the black unknown.
Turning his back to the marsh, he traversed the second wood. A swift, loud wind raced over the tree-tops, bringing greater dampness. He came into what might be a glade, or a space of heath, which he proceeded to cross. As he had been gradually ascending in the past few minutes, he had no fear of another bog at this place. He was by this time ready to drop with fatigue. Stumbling over a little mound, he fell upon soft grass. He lay there for some minutes, resting, till his body seemed to stiffen with cold. Then he rose, and plunged wearily on in despair. Suddenly, to the joy of his heart, he heard voices ahead.