"This way, Signorina," he said "It is useless to struggle. We shall not harm you."
She shook her head violently, and with a sudden effort thrust his hand away from her mouth.
"What do you want?" she cried. "Who are you? You can have my jewels, but I will never step inside that carriage. Help! help!"
He wound his arms around her, and, without a word, commenced dragging her across the road.
"You may shout as much as you like," he muttered. "There will only be echoes to answer you."
A sudden warning cry rang out from his companion, and, with a start, he released his victim. The Englishman had stepped into the middle of the group, and, before he could spring back, a swinging left-hander sent him down into the dust with a dull, heavy thud.
"You blackguard!" he thundered out Then turning quickly round he faced the other man, who had sprung across the road with bent body, and with his right hand in his breast. There was a gleam of cold steel, but before he could use the knife which he had drawn, his arm was grasped and held as though by a vice, and slowly bent backward. He dropped the weapon, with a shriek of pain, upon the road, and fell on his knees before his captor.
The Englishman's grasp relaxed, and taking advantage of it, the man suddenly jumped up, leaped over the wall, and disappeared in the plantation. Pursuit would have been impossible, but none of them thought of it.
The two ladies looked at their preserver standing in the middle of the road—fair and straight and tall, like a Greek god, but with a terrible fury blazing in his dark blue eyes.
"You are not hurt, I trust?" he asked, his breath coming quickly, for he was in a towering passion. He was not speaking to the darker of the two girls at all; in fact, he was unconscious of her presence. He was standing by Adrienne Cartuccio's side, watching the faint color steal again into her cheeks, and the terror dying out of her eyes, to be replaced by a far softer light. Her black lace wrap, which she had been wearing in Spanish fashion, had fallen a little back from her head, and the moonlight was gleaming upon her ruddy golden hair, all wavy and disarranged, throwing into soft relief the outline of her slim, girlish figure, her heaving bosom, and the exquisite transparency of her complexion. She stood there like an offended young queen, passionately wrathful with the men who had dared to lay their coarse hands upon her, yet feeling all a woman's gratitude to their preserver. Her eyes were flashing like stars, and her brows were bent, but as she looked into his face her expression softened. Of the two sensations gratitude was the stronger.