She knew the voice well, arose, unsteadily, to her feet, and staggered, in a blind way, across the scaffold, with her arms held out. The changeable mob began to pity her then, for the sight of her face might have moved the very stones to compassion. More kindly murmurs reached her; you could see it by the quiver of her features and the pathetic helplessness with which she looked toward the spot whence the voices came.
David Rice could bear the scene no longer; he rushed by the sheriff, sprang upon the scaffold, and took the unhappy girl in his arms, crying out:
"Katy, Katy! God forgive them, for they are killing you! My sister, my little sister!"
She may have heard his voice, and the name by which he called her; if so, it smote the remaining strength from her frame, for she fell away in his arms, limp and dead, like a lily broken at the stalk.
The sheriff would have taken her from those strong arms, but Rice waved him back.
"Don't be afeared, don't be afeared," he said, hoarse with grief; "I shan't run away with the poor lamb; but she's dead, and no one but her brother shall touch her. Keep as close as you like. Show me the way to her prison. I aint a going to break any law; but she's my sister, and that poor old soul there is my mother. Help her along, if you've got a heart, and leave this poor lamb to me."
The sheriff had no heart to separate the prisoner from her newly-found brother; he would even have aided old Mrs. Allen, as Rice had desired, but Mr. Thrasher and his good wife were by her side, supporting her with such kindly help that any offers of assistance would have been intrusive. Thus surrounded by constables, the little group gathered in a close knot, carrying Katharine Allen from her place of shame.
The crowd fell back reverently before Rice, who followed the sheriff with the tread of a lion, while that white face rested on his shoulder. This last anguish had left her like a corpse before the crowd had changed all its impatient revilings into compassion. The children looked frightened or began to cry when they saw terror or tears upon their mother's cheeks. The men grew pale, and looked at each other upbraidingly, as the Jews must have done when the great sacrifice was urged forward by their hands.
Thus the little group passed away from the crowd and into the dark shadows of a prison, which seemed like heaven to this poor girl when she came to life, with the remembrance of all those glaring eyes and scowling faces turning their hate upon her.