Helen ceased not, however, to cry for help, as long as strength remained, but it was in vain, and for two miles the man who carried her bore her on with a rapidity that made his own breath come thick and hard. At length as they were entering what seemed a wilder, and less cultivated part of the country, where the walls of the vineyards and gardens had ceased, and nothing was before them but the hills covered with their odoriferous plants, he paused, saying--"I must stop for a minute. Bid the men make a circle round us."
"Oh!" cried Helen; "for pity's sake let me go. What have I done to injure you? If you will let me go, you shall have any ransom that you name."
"Ransom!" he replied, speaking in English and in a voice too well known; "half a world should not ransom you, till you become a thing that you yourself loathe and hate. You scorned my love in England, you scorned it still more bitterly at Rome, but now I have you amongst these wild hills, and the God that delivers you, will be a God indeed! Come on, my men, come on;" he continued, "see, the moon is breaking through the clouds, and the wind is going down, we are still too near the houses.--Come on, quick, I say; I think I hear a horse's feet."
Helen heard the same sound, and shrieked aloud for aid, but help did not come; they hurried her on: the echo of the horse's feet died away, and Lieberg said, in a bitter tone--"He hears not the sweet music; or, like the deaf adder, he stoppeth his ear to the song of the charmer. Your mode of journeying is unpleasant, perhaps; it will soon be over, lady, so content yourself for a time."
When he had gone about a quarter of a mile farther, however, a distant noise met the ears of the whole party, not like the noise of one horse's feet, but as if there were many, coming up at the full gallop by the same path which they were pursuing. Helen found her persecutor's arms clasped more tightly round her, while his pace grew still more rapid; and, confirmed by these signs in the faint hope she entertained of assistance being near, she again called aloud for help.
"Tie this over her mouth," cried one of the men, giving Lieberg a handkerchief; "they cannot trace us here, unless her screams bring them up."
"That accursed moon will betray us," exclaimed Lieberg. "Cannot we get down into the hollow way?"
"They will hem us in there," cried the man. "By the body of Bacchus, they have got round, and are before us! Bend down, Eccellenza, bend down!--Curse that screaming! I will drive my knife into her!"
"Here, take her," cried Lieberg. "We shall have to fight them.--Call up some of the men from behind.--Tie her, and keep her here; they cannot be so many as we are. We will soon disperse them.--Here come three, right down upon us--call up some of the men from behind, I say!"
The man to whom he spoke uttered the same loud whistle that Helen had heard before, but at that moment were heard two or three shots from the ground which they had just passed over, and then a whole volley, while the three horsemen, who had galloped on and intercepted Lieberg's farther progress, caught sight of him, by the clear moonlight and were coming down at full speed.