‘Ay!’ she answered. ‘And what is your secret worth to ye now? Listen!’
A sudden murmur in the air; a confused tramp of many feet; voices; sharp cries; a sense of contiguity to some great hostile presence—and silence. Swaying, as if drunk, he staggered to the window and looked out.
Fifty of them, if one—men such as those others—the same—rough fanatic seamen, the most of them—savages without reason or pity—wild cruel natures and inflamed with drink as with bigotry. They saw him, the white staring, horror-struck face, and a sudden roar went up from the crowd:—
‘There he be—the Papish devil! We have un at last! Throw un out to us, Mother—throw un out!’
And in a moment there was frenzied tumult where had been whispering and cautious footsteps. Some rushed for the window; some the door; others scattered to invest the house and cut off all chance of escape; fists beat on panels; arms stiffened through iron bars, tugging to snap them. Yet through all there grew apparent one deadly purpose, swiftly concentrating itself about a certain spot in the courtyard. Thither hurried forms in quick succession, bearing great masses of sticks and brushwood, heaps of straw, litter and fodder from the stables. They came and came again, never satisfied with the swelling sum, accumulating pile on pile, till a very hillock of fuel had risen before their eyes. Fuel! Great God! It was for the long-delayed holocaust; and the wretched man behind the window saw and understood.
The sill stood too far above their reach for easy gaining; the front door could offer a tough resistance to their battering strokes; he had yet some moments in which to think and act. Reeling back into the room, he felt thin arms, tense as wire, flung about him: and he was held.
‘You devil!’ he panted: ‘let me go!’
She clung on, and, her face half buried against his shoulder, shrieked: ‘He’s here. Come and take him!’
Fighting like a madman, he forced her inch by inch towards the table, freed, with a frantic wrench, his right arm, and, finding a knife, gripped it and struck at her. A thin shrill whine issued from her lips, her arms relaxed, and she fell from him with a thud upon the floor.
Now! To think—to collect himself—to fight down this choking in his throat! If he could only once gain the well-house—the wheel—unobserved! His—Bagott’s closet! He was there—rushing for the casement—and at the very moment blows came raining on it, and the glass crashed. Staggering back, a very extremity of horror paralysed his reason. No instinct remained to him but the last instinct of despair—to escape upwards, upwards, from the earth that had betrayed him. The stairs—on the stairs now—and always frantically mounting them. The roof at last might give him safety.