“I’ll knock the wind out of some on ’em, Mas’r Harry, spite of their knives,” cried Tom excitedly. “I’ll let ’em know how an Englishman serves them that knocks women about. Hit her with a great thick stick, he did—cuss him! I’ll let him know!”
“Be quiet, Tom! Are you mad?” I said, catching him by the collar, for he was squaring away at the Indians, who were a couple of dozen yards away.
“What did he go knocking her about for? Yah! Mas’r Harry, they’re a rotten lot out here, and the country’s a thousand times too good for them!”
By degrees I got Tom cooled down, and into the house, and on returning I found Lilla standing watching for me at the window, but only to gaze at me with a strange, troubled look, half pain, half pleasure, and before I could speak she had fled.
But an hour had not passed before I came upon her again, speaking anxiously to Tom. They did not see me approach, and as I was close up I was just in time to hear Tom exclaim:
“But he did, Miss, and stuck to you when all the rest had got ashore—the Don and all.”
Lilla gave a faint shriek as I spoke; and then darting at me a look of reproach, she hurried away, leaving me excited and troubled; for she had learned a secret that I had intended should not come to her ears.
“How dare you go chattering about like that?” I cried fiercely to Tom, for I was anxious to have some one to blame.
“Don’t care, Mas’r Harry,” he said sulkily. “Miss Lilla asked me, and I never told her only the truth. They are a cowardly set of hounds, the whole lot of ’em; and I’ll take any couple of ’em, one down and t’other come on, with a hand tied behind me.”
“We shall have to go, Tom,” I said bitterly. “What with your brawls and the mischief you have made, this will be no place for us.”