Side by side they dashed out into the courtyard. They found it full of men who shouted and cast up their caps. The day was theirs! The day was theirs! they cried on all sides. In the nick of time Captain Brooke had led a charge that had silenced the great guns from Ryeborough. God and our right! Long live the king! Long live his loyal garrison of Monksfield!
In the midst of the shouting and the rejoicing, the sallying party came riding back, with the captured guns. Among horses' heels and dismounting men Merrylips went shouting with the loudest: "Long live the king! Down wi' the Parliament! Death to all rebels!" till she found herself in the thickest of the crowd.
A young man stood there, staggering, held up by the grasp that one of the troopers had laid upon his shoulder. His helmet was off. His chestnut hair was clotted with blood, and there was a long smear of it upon his cheek. He wore no sword, and his officer's sash was of orange, the color of the Parliament.
Scarcely had Merrylips grasped the fact that he was a rebel officer and a prisoner in the hands of her friends, when Miles Digby came smashing his way through the crowd. He was coatless and powder-blackened, and his face was the face that he had shown on the day when he had beaten Rupert.
"So 'tis thou, Dick Fowell?" said he, with such words as Merrylips knew not the meaning of, and full and fair he struck the rebel officer a blow in the face.
The young man reeled and fell heavily, full length, upon the cobbles of the courtyard. A savage shout broke from those that stood near. One of the horseboys kicked him as he lay. But Merrylips stood with the outcry against the rebels struck dumb upon her lips. For this rebel Dick Fowell had chestnut hair, like Munn, and if any one had struck Munn like that, when he was a prisoner—Merrylips caught her breath.
Suddenly Miles Digby's eye had lighted on her. He seized her by the shoulder.
"Here, you, Tibbott Venner!" he shouted madly. "'Tis time you were blooded, little whelp! Kick this dog—d'ye hear me? He won't strike back. They've got your brother prisoner amongst 'em. Serve him as they'll serve your brother! Kick the fellow—or 'twill be the worse for you!"
"I will not!" screamed Merrylips.
She saw the savage faces about her, the savage face of Miles Digby bending over her, and at her feet she saw the limp figure of the helpless man that might have been Munn. In that moment it seemed to her that she smelled blood, that she tasted it, bitter upon her tongue, and should not lose the taste for all her days. Maddened with fear, she struggled in Digby's grasp.