CHAPTER XXIXMASTER CROSS-EYES
Theinstant that Betty Carew recognized Sir Barton’s dark face, she recoiled with a cry of terror. Her first thought was of the door by which she had entered, but when she ran to it she found it fastened on the outside. There was another entrance, but that was behind Henge, and he stepped back, and locking it, put the key in his pocket with a grim smile. She was a prisoner; but after the first moment of dismay, she collected herself and confronted him with spirit. She was angry at his insolent daring, and her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled.
“Sir,” she said proudly, “what means this? How dare you so insult me? Undo the door and let me go or you will answer for it to my uncle!”
Henge laughed and sneered.
“You take a high tone, mistress,” he said tauntingly, “but it will be long ere Carew finds you; you are safe enough at last!”
Betty’s anger for the time conquered her womanly fears; her hatred of the man, her contempt for an act that seemed to her one of cowardly wickedness, made her forgetful of her peril.
“You villain!” she cried, her form quivering with passion, “have you no better employment than to make war on a defenceless woman? It is like you! He who would strike a man from ambush is capable of any shamelessness. Undo the door, sir, or I will call the watch and make your name a byword in London!”
“Scream your loudest; it will not aid you,” he retorted coolly. “Come, come, my pretty shrew; I have you now, and you shall rue the day you struck my face with your whip.”
In spite of her anger, a feeling of dismay was beginning to shake Mistress Betty’s resolution. She remembered that there was a little dagger in her belt that she had thrust there in the morning when she set out to the Tower. The thought of it was some small comfort; she had, at least, a weapon. She would not let him see any wavering; she held her head high and faced him like a beautiful fury.
“If you dare to harm me,” she said haughtily,“Sir William Carew will leave no stone unturned until you are brought to justice.”
Henge laughed again his unpleasant laugh, that rang in her ears with the sound of triumph in it.
“Look you, fair mistress, is it well to flaunt your influence in my face?” he asked her. “You and your precious lover defied me. Where is Simon Raby now? Safe, where he can neither save you nor himself. A traitor in the Tower! Beware, lest Carew falls in a like trap.”
“Ah, now I know!” cried Betty; “a fool I was, and blind. ’Tis you who ensnared Lord Raby! ’tis you who would ruin my uncle. Villain! liar! coward! I defy you!”
“You young she-devil, you!” exclaimed Henge, advancing toward her, “I would wring that white neck of yours for your insults, did I not know I could invent a slower, surer punishment. I have you, my shrew, and you shall not escape me.”
At his first step toward her, Betty retreated to a window, and now she tried to unfasten the shutter, crying out for help at the top of her strong, young voice.
“Scream away!” said Henge bitterly, his face full of dark enjoyment of her despair, “noone will help you; a screaming woman in this quarter of the town is no novelty. Do you look for your lover from the Tower to rescue you? You pretty fool!” he added contemptuously, “you are mine, mine as sure as death!”
Betty was no coward; she put her hand to her girdle and felt the little knife there safe. She meant to kill him—or herself. She had a firm, strong wrist and she could strike; he was a powerful man, but he did not know that she was armed, and an unlooked-for blow might end the matter. She saw the evil triumph in his face and set her teeth; she would kill him. He, unconscious of her purpose, looked at her and smiled, as a devil might, who saw his prey before him.
At this moment there was a strange interruption; the door that Henge had not fastened, the one that had been secured from without, opened, and the cross-eyed man entered, and closing it behind him, stood, with his arms folded on his breast, staring at Sir Barton, who, in turn, glared at him in furious surprise.
“What are you here for, Master Cross-Eyes?” he exclaimed. “Get out, you rogue, or I will break a rod on your bare back and slit your ears, to boot.”
The groom pointed at Betty.
“She screamed,” he said sullenly; “if you hurt a hair of her head, I’ll cut your throat, my master!”
“You accursed villain, you!” cried Henge, in furious anger, “how dare you threaten me? Is it for this that I dragged you from the gutter?”
“Nay,” retorted Master Cross-Eyes, unmoved; “you picked me up from the slums because you wanted desperate men to do your bidding; and so I would, if the case were different, but Mistress Carew you shall not hurt.”
So amazed was Henge at the varlet’s courage, that he did not spurn him from the room at once, but stared at him as if he doubted his own senses.
“And wherefore?” he asked harshly; “what is Mistress Carew to you, you hound?”
“One good turn deserves another, Sir Barton,” the groom answered curtly; “this young mistress saved my neck from the halter at Deptford when old Lady Crabtree would have hung me as a valiant beggar. The young lady saved me, and, by Saint Michael and his angels, you shall not harm one black hair of her pretty head!”
“The devil take your insolence!” retortedHenge violently, drawing his sword and raising his arm to strike the man on the head with the flat of it, intending to administer a lesson.
But Master Cross-Eyes was more than his match in strength; he caught his arm, and twisting it back, sent the sword flying across the room, pushing Henge toward the wall as he did so. Sir Barton, now fully roused to his peril, grappled with his powerful adversary, calling loudly for help as he did so.
“What ho!” he shouted, “John! Andrew! Here, you villains, take this fellow to the gallows!”
Master Cross-Eyes laughed, much as Sir Barton had at Betty’s cries for aid.
“I sent them all below,” he said grimly; “you may scream as loud as my young lady now, and get no aid.”
The two men swayed and struggled, the vagrant having the advantage, yet closely pressed by Henge, who was no mean opponent and had the strength of wrath. They overturned the table, and the taper being extinguished, the struggle continued in darkness. Sir Barton was striving to reach the door and Cross-Eyes was pressing him away.
At first Betty was so wholly fascinated by the contest, so amazed, that she stood gazing,completely unnerved, her courage deserting her now that a champion was so suddenly raised up for her. But in a moment the full peril of her own situation returned to her mind, and she looked for a way to escape while the two were fighting. However, this was not easy; one door was still locked, and before the other the men were struggling; she could not pass them and get out, for they swayed to and fro before the entrance, and when the taper was extinguished, she could not see to move. In her extremity, she put out all her strength, and undoing the shutters at last, threw them open, and leaning from the window, screamed for the watch. In spite of the noise that the two men made fighting, she heard an answering shout, and cried out again that there was murder being done. As she did so, there was a groan of pain from Master Cross-Eyes and he fell heavily to the floor; Henge had wrenched his hand free from his adversary’s grip, and drawing his dagger, stabbed him. With an oath, Sir Barton threw open the door and snatched a taper from its socket in the hall and brought it into the room; the sudden light revealed to Betty the prostrate figure of her defender and the furious aspect of her enemy. He kicked the groom ashe passed him and then picked up his sword. Seeing her last hope of escape cut off, Betty again leaned from the window and called for help. This time the reply came from the court below, and there was a noise at the door. Expecting the watch, Sir Barton turned with a curse to confront him, his naked sword in his hand. The scene was one of wild confusion; the taper he had brought, and the light from the hall showed the scene of the struggle, the overturned table and chairs, the unconscious body of the vagrant, and in the window Betty’s tall figure and white face. Henge himself stood waiting defiantly, his dress wildly disordered, and his breast heaving from his recent struggle. Footsteps came up the stairs, paused as if a stranger were looking about for the room from which the screams had issued, and then came across the hall. The next moment a man stood on the threshold, and at the sight of him Betty uttered a wild cry of amazement and joy, while Henge swore a deep oath, but recoiled a step as if he saw a ghost.
It was Simon Raby.