“Choke him,” said one of the men.
I gave one more loud squeal before they jammed the sack on my mouth. To my joy, the feet broke into a run. They were the feet of the watch, coming to my rescue.
“Up with him,” said the leader among my captors. “Quick, in to the Colonel with him.”
“No, no! Drop it. I'm off. Here's the watch,” cried the other hurriedly.
They let me drop on to the pavement after half lifting me. In five seconds more they were scattering to shelter. As I rose to my feet, flinging off the flour-sack, I found myself in the midst of the city watch, about a dozen men, all armed, whose leader carried a lantern. The windows of the great inn were open; people were thronging on to the balcony to see what the matter was; citizens came to their house-doors. At that moment, Mr. Jermyn appeared. The captain of the guard was asking questions in Dutch. The guardsmen were peering at my face in the lantern light.
Mr. Jermyn questioned me quickly as to what had happened. He interpreted my tale to the guard. I was his servant, he told them. I had been attacked by unknown robbers, some of whom, at least, were English. One of them had tried to stifle me with a flour-sack, which, on examination under the lantern, proved to be the sack of Robert Harling, Corn-miller, Eastry. Goodness knows how it came to be there; for ship's flour travels in cask. Mr. Jermyn gave an address, where we could be found if any of the villains were caught; but he added that it was useless to expect me to identify any of them, since the attack had been made in the dark, with the victim securely blindfolded. He gave the leader of the men some money. The guard moved away to look for the culprits (long before in hiding, one would think), while Mr. Jermyn took me away with him.
As we went, I looked up at the inn balcony, from which several heads looked down upon us. Behind them, in the lighted room, in profile, in full view, was the lady of the fierce eyes. I knew her at once, in spite of the grey Spanish (man's) hat she wore, slouched over her face. She was all swathed in a Spanish riding cloak. One took her for a handsome young man. But I knew that she was my enemy. I knew her name now, too; Aurelia. She was looking down at me, or rather at us, for she could not have made out our faces. Her face was sad. She seemed uninterested; she had, perhaps, enough sorrow of her own at that moment, without the anxieties of others. A big, burly, hulking, handsome person of the swaggering sort which used to enter the army in those days, left the balcony hurriedly. I saw him at the window, speaking earnestly to her, pointing to the square, in which, already, the darkness hid us. I saw the listlessness fall from her. She seemed to waken up into intense life in an instant. She walked with a swift decision peculiar to her away from the window, leaving the hulking fellow, an elderly, dissolute-looking man, with the wild puffy eyes of the drinker, to pick his teeth in full view of the square.
When we left watching our enemies, Mr. Jermyn bade me walk on tiptoe. We scurried away across the square diagonally, pausing twice to listen for pursuers. No one seemed to be following. There was not much sense in following; for the guard was busy searching for suspicious persons. We heard them challenging passers-by, with a rattle of their halberds on the stones, to make their answers prompt. We were safe enough from persecution for the time. We went down a dark street into a dark alley. From the alley we entered a courtyard, the sides of which were vast houses. We entered one of these houses. The door seemed to open in the mysterious way which had puzzled me so much in Fish Lane. Mr. Jermyn smiled when I asked him how this was done. “Go on in, boy,” he said. “There are many queer things in lives like ours.” He gave me a shove across the threshold, while the door closed itself silently behind us.
He took me into a room which was not unlike a marine store of the better sort. There were many sailor things (all of the very best quality) lying in neat heaps on long oak shelves against the walls. In the middle of the room a table was laid for dinner.
Mr. Jermyn made me eat a hearty meal before starting, which I did. As I ate, he fidgeted about among some lockers at my back. Presently, as I began to sip some wine which he had poured out for me, he put something over my shoulders.