She wheeled as she spoke, but instantly the mare’s bridle was seized, and she was brought to a standstill.
“What is the meaning of this?” cried Peggy, her eyes flashing. “Thee is safe, Harriet. Call off thy friends. Thee knows that I must return.”
“Dost think that I will part with you so soon, my cousin?” laughed Harriet mockingly. “Nay, nay; I have promised to bring you to New York. Best go peaceably, Peggy; for go you must.”
“Never!” exclaimed Peggy, striking Star a sharp blow. The little mare reared, plunged, pranced and wheeled in the effort to rid herself of the hold on her bridle, but vainly. Peggy uttered a piercing shriek as she was torn from the saddle, and half dragged, half carried through the trees down the bank to the boat which was drawn up close to the shore. Two of the men followed after the captain and Harriet. The latter seated herself by Peggy’s side, and placed her arm about her.
“’Twould have been better to come quietly,” she said. “I meant you should go back with me all the while. I could not bear to lose you, Peggy. I thought——”
But Peggy, her spirit up in arms, turned such a look of scorn upon her cousin that Harriet paused in her speech abruptly.
“Speak not to me of affection, Harriet Owen,” she cried. “Thou art incapable of feeling it. Is there no truth to be found in any of thy family? Are ye all treacherous and dishonorable? Would that thou wert no kin of mine! Would that I had never seen thee, nor any of thy——”
Unable to continue, she burst into a passion of tears.
CHAPTER XXIII—IN THE LINES OF THE ENEMY
| “There is but one philosophy, though there are a thousand schools— Its name is fortitude.” —Bulwer. |