“I'll take thee to my native place full thirty leagues from hence, and put thee under my own mother's wing, ere they shall hurt a hair o' thy head. But first Gerard. Stay thou here whilst I fetch him!”
As he was darting off, the girl seized him convulsively, and with all the iron strength excitement lends to women. “Stay me not! for pity's sake,” he cried; “'tis life or death.”
“Sh!—sh!” whispered the girl, shutting his mouth hard with her hand, and putting her pale lips close to him, and her eyes, that seemed to turn backwards, straining towards some indistinct sound.
He listened.
He heard footsteps, many footsteps, and no voices. She whispered in his ear, “They are come.” And trembled like a leaf.
Denys felt it was so. Travellers in that number would never have come in dead silence.
The feet were now at the very door.
“How many?” said he, in a hollow whisper.
“Hush!” and she put her mouth to his very ear. And who, that had seen this man and woman in that attitude, would have guessed what freezing hearts were theirs, and what terrible whispers passed between them?
“How armed?”