We all turned round and looked at the door. There stood the sergeant of Desborough's troopers, pale and silent, and close behind him, clinging to him as if for protection, was the lithe naked figure of a black lad, looking from behind the sergeant, with terrified visage, first at one and then at another of us.
I saw disaster in their faces, and would have held up my hand to warn him not to speak before Mrs. Buckley. But I was too late, for he had spoken. And then we sat for a minute, looking at one another, each man seeing the reflection of his own horror in his neighbour's eyes.
Chapter XL
THE STORM BURSTS.
Poor little Cecil Mayford had left us about nine o'clock in the morning of the day before this, and, accompanied by Charles Hawker, reached his mother's station about eleven o'clock in the day.
All the way Charles had talked incessantly of Ellen, and Cecil joined in Charles's praises of his sister, and joked with him for being "awfully spooney" about her.
"You're worse about my sister, Charley," said he, "than old Sam is about Miss Brentwood. He takes things quiet enough, but if you go on in this style till you are old enough to marry, by Jove, there'll be nothing of you left!"
"I wonder if she would have me?" said Charles, not heeding him.
"The best thing you can do is to ask her," said Cecil. "I think I know what she would say though."