“In with you—no nonsense, now,” he cried to May. “Be ready, my lads—gallop hard. I’ll pay!”
He was leaning towards the postboys as he spoke, but as the words left his lips they were half drowned by a piercing shriek that rang out upon the night, sending a thrill through every bystander. It was no hysterical cry, but the agony and dread-born appeal for aid from one in mortal peril.
Sir Harry held the door open, and stood as if paralysed by the cry, for as if instantaneously, a dark lithe figure had glided out from beneath the chaise, caught May’s arm, and, as the word “Perfida!” seemed hissed in her ear, there was a flash as of steel, and a sharp blow was delivered like lightning, twice over.
“Curse you!” cried Sir Harry. “Cowardly dog!” He seized May’s assailant by the throat, but only to utter a low cry of pain, and stagger back from the effect of the heavy blow he received in the shoulder.
To the startled spectators at hand it was all like some scene in the half-light of a drama. No sooner had the dark figure rid himself of Payne than he glided rapidly beneath the chaise again, and before those who ran up to arrest him could reach the farther side of the vehicle, he had darted into the wood and was gone. Just then a voice cried: “Help! for heaven’s sake, or she’ll bleed to death.”
Volume Three—Chapter Seven.
“Too Late! Too Late!”
The words uttered by the first to run to May Burnett’s help seemed to paralyse the party instead of evoking aid, while in the horror and confusion there was no attempt made to pursue, so stunned were all by the rapidity with which one event had succeeded the other.