She gave a wild shriek, which reached upstairs to Hazel's room and caused her to spring into bed and pull the blankets over her ears, as if it had been a thunderstorm.
Master Nathaniel signed to Ben, who, grinning from ear to ear, as is the way of rustics when witnessing a painful and embarrassing scene, came up to his mistress with the coil of rope. But to bind her, he needed the aid of both the blacksmith and Master Nathaniel, for, like a veritable wild cat, she struggled and scratched and bit.
When her arms were tightly bound, Master Nathaniel said, "And now I will read you the words of the dead."
She was, for the time, worn out by her struggles, and her only answer was an insolent stare, and he produced the farmer's document and read it through to her.
"And now," he said, eyeing her curiously, "shall I tell you who gave me the clue without which I should never have found that letter? It was a certain old man, whom I think you know, by name Portunus."
Her face turned as pale as death, and in a low voice of horror she cried, "Long ago I guessed who he was, and feared that he might prove my undoing." Then her voice grew shrill with terror and her eyes became fixed, as if seeing some hideous vision, "The Silent People!" she screamed. "The dumb who speak! The bound who strike! I cherished and fed old Portunus like a tame bird. But what do the dead know of kindness?"
"If old Portunus is he whom you take him to be, I fail to see that he has much cause for gratitude," said Master Nathaniel drily. "Well, he has taken his revenge, on you—and your accomplice."
"My accomplice?"
"Aye, on Endymion Leer."
"Oh, Leer!" And she laughed scornfully. "It was a greater than Endymion Leer who ordered the death of farmer Gibberty."