“I am Delia Killigrew, and this is my father, Sir Deakin.”
“Now on his way to visit his estates in Cornwall?”
She nodded.
“Then I have to warn you that your lives are in danger.” And, gently as possible, I told her what I had seen and heard downstairs. In the middle of my tale, the servant stepp’d to the door, and return’d quietly. There was no lock on the inside. After a minute he went across, and drew the red curtains. The window had a grating within, of iron bars as thick as a man’s thumb, strongly clamp’d in the stonework, and not four inches apart. Clearly, he was a man of few words; for, returning, he merely pull’d out his sword, and waited for the end of my tale.
The girl, also, did not interrupt me, but listen’d in silence. As I ceas’d, she said——
“Is this all you know?”
“No,” answer’d I, “it is not. But the rest I promise to tell you if we escape from this place alive. Will this content you?”
She turn’d to the servant, who nodded. Whereupon she held out her hand very cordially.
“Sir, listen: we are travelers bound for Cornwall, as you know, and have some small possessions, that will poorly reward the greed of these violent men. Nevertheless, we should be hurrying on our journey did we not await my brother Anthony, who was to have ridden from Oxford to join us here, but has been delayed, doubtless on the King’s business——”
She broke off, as I started: for below I heard the main door open, and Captain Settle’s voice in the passage. The arch villain had return’d.