“However,” she thought, “if they belong to any London gangs, I have only to speak to them in the thieves’ patter, and they will not dare to touch me. If, on the contrary, they are yokels, they will be content with robbing me, and I have not much to lose.”
They passed from the field into a small gorse common, across another high road, past a couple of lights which, shining in the windows of the cottages, showed that their inmates were already retiring to bed, and over a stile into a shaw or small copse, which skirted the side of the road.
Laura Stanbridge had addressed several questions to her conductress without receiving a reply. She had spoken once to the young man who followed like a phantom on her steps, and he had not chosen to make any answer.
Laura, who possessed the courage of a man or rather of a demon, began to be afraid. The night was miserably dark and cheerless, the way was lonely, the rain descended with much violence and the thunder seemed to shake the earth as it rolled from horizon to horizon.
Sometimes the lightning flashed through the trees and showed her three outstretched branches and their ghastly trunks.
But they could not show her the features of that grey-haired woman, who strode so swiftly before her, nor the face of that young man, who followed with equal speed, and who watched all her movements with glistening eyes.
She was trying to shake off her fears, which appeared to her idle and reasonless, when the woman stopped and pointed to the trunk of a tree, which had been stripped of its bark, and which lay like a naked giant across her path.
“Sit down there, madam,” said she, in a voice which she seemed to remember, “sit down, you must be tired.”
Laura hesitated. “Tut,” said she, “after all, what can be more natural? One meets every day with people who will not answer questions, and who will yet show every consideration for your comfort.”
So she did as she was requested. As soon as she was seated a rope was flung over her head, and her arms were closely pinioned to her side. She struggled violently to free herself, but in vain. She therefore became calm, and said some words in the secret language of thieves.