“Dog!” he yelled, and sprang upon me.
But I had my pistol out—it was his life or mine—and fired straight into that savage countenance. I saw the gaping hole the bullet left; I saw the blood spurt from it as he pitched forward at my feet. Then a score of savage hands seized me, and I thought for an instant that I should be torn asunder. But a mounted patrol, summoned by the shot, cantered up, cut their way through the crowd, and jerked me out of its clutches.
“What is all this?” demanded their officer.
In two words they told him the story, pointing to the body on the floor and to the girl cowering in one corner, her hands before her face. They ended by demanding that I be hanged forthwith.
“Oh, he shall hang!” my new captor assured them. “Rest content. But he may be a spy; and first we’ll see what he knows. Tie his hands.”
They were secured behind my back in a twinkling.
“Bring the woman too,” he said; and one of them brought her forth and threw her across a horse. I saw with a sigh of relief that she had fainted. “Give me your rope, Couthon,” he added to one of his men.
The rope was a strong yet slender line. Already in one end of it there was a running noose, and I shuddered as I guessed its meaning. He threw the noose over my head, drew it tight about my neck and made the other end fast to a ring in his saddle.
“Release him,” he commanded, with an evil laugh. “He can’t get away. Forward!”
For an instant the thought flashed through my brain that I would end it here, that I would let myself be dragged under the hoofs of the horses. Then, as a trooper cantered by me bearing a limp form before him, I realized my cowardice. So long as a breath of life remained I must fight to save her from the hideous fate which threatened her.