“In that case, yes. You do not seem to be so enraged against him as at first.”
“No, I was truly angry. I always fly off like that and regret it afterward. I have had time for reflection, and I needed it. I spoke too impulsively. Think what a dreadful dreadful state of affairs I have stirred up by my quick tongue!”
“It was natural that you should speak in the excitement of the moment. Where does this turning take us?”
“Around by the bay.”
“Shall we take it?”
“Yes, if you like. It is not quite so near a way.”
She had hardly spoken the words before three men sprang out from a fence corner. One snatched Lettice’s bridle; two more dragged Mr. Baldwin down from his horse. “I’ll take the girl, pretty creature that she is,” cried the first, “and you can have the Yankee.”
“Save me! Oh, save me! Let me go!” shrieked Lettice. But the captor only laughed, and catching her around the waist, he pulled her down beside him, while a terrible tussle went on between the other two men and their prisoner, who fought like a tiger, and finally managed to secure his pistol. A shot rang out on the air, and one man fell. The one by Lattice’s side sprang forward. “Poor old Jerry, are you done for?” he cried, as he leaned forward.
Like a flash Lettice sprang up. At her feet lay the man’s pistol which he had dropped. The girl picked it up. Providence had come to her rescue. She raised the pistol, but almost immediately her hand dropped to her side. She noted that the man had lifted the head of his former companion to a more comfortable position. To shoot him would be murder, she reflected. She could not, no, she could not. Yet her own life and Mr. Baldwin’s lay in the balance. Now her adversary was about to rise. The horror of what might come next rushed over her, and she hesitated no longer, but darted forward, and dealt the man a desperate blow on the head with the butt of the pistol. He dropped heavily by the side of his fallen comrade, and was very still. Had she killed or only stunned him? She shuddered and turned aside.
Meanwhile Mr. Baldwin and his opponent fought for their lives. Lettice’s friend had discharged the last load from his pistol, and now it was a question of which would prove the best man in a hand-to-hand fight? Lettice watched them breathlessly. The strength of one or the other must at last give out. Suppose it should be her one dependence, this desperate man who was giving his assailant no time for anything but to attend to the matter in hand. Breathlessly Lettice put into execution a plan. If Mr. Baldwin could only hold out long enough, she might save both herself and him. She quickly undid the long silken scarf she wore, tied one end tightly around the wrist of the man she had sent to the ground, and then tied the other end to a little tree under which they had been sitting. It was sufficiently small for her to be able to make her tether quite secure.