"Do you know," said O'Neill, "that I have a mind to say to you that I might as well die right here as at any place else, and I do not think I shall go to that castle, after all. There are seven of us here--"
"Close in there!" sharply shouted Coventry to his soldiers, who obeyed him promptly. "Make ready!"
"Handle your pistols, men," cried the other, whipping out his own; but again Elizabeth interfered in the fray. She ran between the American seamen and the English soldiers with outstretched hands.
"Stop!" she cried. "There must be no further fighting here. This gentleman came to this spot to do me a favor, to set me free. My life is his--"
"I give it back to you," cried O'Neill.
"And yours, Major Coventry, was his also," she added reproachfully.
"I give it to him as well; and if any more lives are wanted, anybody can have mine for the taking," interrupted the sailor again.
"This must go no further," continued the girl.
"And it shall not, madam," cried a deep, clear voice, as one of the cutters of the Ranger, filled to the gunwales with heavily armed men, and with a swivel in the bow and a man standing over it with a lighted match in his hand, came sweeping around the headland and dashing in toward the shore. It was under the command of Jones himself, who had grown impatient at the delay.
"I am sorry to interrupt a tête-à-tête, gentlemen," he cried.