She rummaged under the bed. As she barred the egress by the foot of the bedstead, I scrambled over the bed, gained the door, and fled to the attic. She was after me at once, wielding the famous weapon, a good yard of stout old ship's rope, a relic of Grandfather Lee or maybe Great-Grandfather Vickary. In the middle of the attic stood a large elliptical table. Round and round it she chased me. It was a defiance I had never shown before. She was appalled. I was appalled. Defiance was a quality she never encountered, and now for meek miserable little me to show it! Her features were a livid blue-black. She lashed out with the rope frequently; I dodged and ducked. The attic was wide enough for me to elude her reach. In a corner I should have had no chance; so Knight of the Round Table was the part I played. Once the rope grazed my shoulder. After ten minutes perhaps, the part of slasher at emptiness had become so undignified that Aunt Jael suddenly stopped. A ruse? A minute's rest before a last wild spring for victory? No; for she could hardly breathe. Then she gave me a long cruel stare, eyes saying I Will Repay: for all my defiance I cowered. She went out, slammed the door behind her, and stumped heavily down the uncarpeted attic-stairs.
The heat of battle over, my spirits sank. Why had I defied her? There was no ultimate escape. For every gesture of defiance, every moment of that round-the-table chase, she would repay me a hundredfold. Yet what else could I have done? If I had owned up to stealing her sweets and thus (perhaps) incurred a lesser wrath, I should have owned up to something I had not done. I should have lied. I had told the truth instead, and my only reward was a clear conscience. (I was staring, as so often, at the great blue picture on the wall, whose deep violet blue seemed to be toned down by the cold grey-blue of the room; an old print of some tropical sea with a volcano belching forth fire, smoke and lava in the background,—the Caribbean Sea perhaps, with one of the Mexican craters, or the Mediterranean with Vesuvius; a gaudy gorgeous thing such as sailors buy on their travels.)
I waited over an hour before risking a descent. When I turned the half-landing by Mrs. Cheese's bedroom door, I sprang back. There beneath me, sitting on the stairs, her feet on the main landing just outside her bedroom door, was Aunt Jael. A small table was drawn up to the foot of the stairs. A good tea was spread thereon; she was eating and drinking heartily. I spied the rope by her side; she heard my footsteps above her, and her hand closed on it. I went back. She meant grim business. Still, she could not stay there all night. I sat down outside the attic door and listened. Mrs. Cheese cleared away her tea things, grumbling; Grandmother came up to her, gently remonstrating. She stayed on. Darkness set in. I heard her stamp the floor for Mrs. Cheese to bring her supper. After all, she might stay there for the night: knowing her will to be not weaker than mine, I put my self in her place, and I felt almost sure she would. I was hungry, and there would be no escape. Escape I must. How? My first plan was that Mrs. Cheese—Aunt Jael would have to get up to let her pass, I reflected, since either one of them was as broad as the attic staircase—should bring me something to eat when she came upstairs to bed. Then I could survive till the morrow, sleep on the attic floor, and confound Aunt Jael. I would show her who had the stronger will. The weak point of this notion was that I could not shout instructions to Mrs. Cheese to bring me something to eat, nor rely on her doing it unprompted. A more desperate plan suggested itself, and before I had time to shrink back, I put it into action.
I slid down the banisters and took a flying vault safely over Aunt Jael's head and the little supper table in front of her. If there had been a big open space beyond, all might have been well. Unfortunately the banister that surrounded the sort of well in which you saw the ground floor began only a yard beyond Aunt Jael's door; my flying feet knocked against it, and I fell; I was hurt badly, and could not get up. In a second Aunt Jael was up, and at me with the rope, savagely. She saw I was in pain and helpless, so lammed the more brutally. I screamed. Grandmother came running upstairs, and with a strength and daring she rarely used wrenched the rope from her sister's hands.
I limped downstairs.
"Before you eat, child, confess your lie, and apologize to your aunt for telling it." Grandmother was unwontedly stern.
"What lie?" I did not flinch.
"Smell her! Smell her!" shouted Aunt Jael.
"Mary, in all her life your mother told not one single lie."
"It's not a lie," feebly. "I swear it," pitiably.