Buckingham scratched his head again. "Are there two of you?" he demanded. "I certainly caught you or another just like you at the falls over a week ago."
Suddenly Naomi thought that she comprehended. "You caught a girl like me?" she demanded.
"Yes."
"Where is she?"
"If you are not she, she is with God in his castle—down there." He leaned out over the edge of the cliff and pointed to a stone castle on a ledge far below. He turned toward her as a new idea took form in his mind. "If you are not she," he said, "then God has the other one—and I can have you!"
"No! No!" cried the girl. "Let me go! Let me go back to my people."
Buckingham seized her and tucked her under one of his huge arms. "Neither God nor Henry the Eighth shall ever see you," he growled. "I'll take you away where they can't find you—they shan't rob me of you as they robbed me of the other. I'll take you to a place I know where there is food and water. I'll build a shelter among the trees. We'll be safe there from both God and the king."
Naomi struggled and struck at him; but he paid no attention to her, as he swung off to the south toward the lower end of the valley.