The stolid, elderly red-headed porter came forth from a deep embrasure,—where he had been philosophically, it seemed, listening to the progress of the attack,—and with a hand on each arm drew them in their turn into the shelter out of reach of stone and shots.
“Will the door hold, think you, Bindon?” asked his reverend mistress, briskly.
“Aye,” quoth Bindon, “good iron, stout oak!—So they lay not gunpowder.”
“And so they do, what then?”
Bindon lifted his hand in slight but expressive gesture. Then his small eye rolled from the old face to the young.
“Eh, but ye be two brave women—not a blanch, not a squeak!”
“Sho!” said the Abbess, with a tolerant smile. “And why should I fear death? Have I not been dead these forty years?”
“And why should I fear death,” said Diana’s young voice, “since life has naught left for me?”
“I hope you’ll not be taken at your word, ladies,” said Bindon, with the familiarity of long service. “Nay, look you, I’m none so ready myself! But,” he went on, “I like not this pause without: there may be gunpowder in it. And by your leave, I’ll creep round to the lookout. Eh, ’tis time the guards should arrive, in faith!”