“Dead!” he said hoarsely, his voice sounding old and strained in the intense silence. “She is sure to be dead; we have never struck twice, but,” his voice sank to a whisper, “at last we have struck too soon.”
He passed his hand over his forehead and gazed fixedly in front of him; some of the blood which had spurted off the knife on to his hand now smeared his forehead. Save for this, his face was ashy pale—then with slow, deliberate steps he walked to the door, opened it, and went out.
For a second the kitchen was in perfect silence, and then a scream as high and despairing as a woman’s rang out loud and clear in the suddenly cold room, and Hal Grame his boyish face distorted with rage and horror, flung himself across the kitchen and out after the Spaniard.
The night was an exceedingly dark one, and Nan Swayle stumbled once or twice over the loose stones in her path as she strode over the rough track which ran from her shanty to the Ship.
Many strange thoughts came to her as she passed on through the darkness, her tall, gaunt figure straining against the wind and her ragged garments flying like streamers out behind her.
The bitter memory of her last encounter with Pet Salt still rankled with her, and the thought of Anny’s enforced marriage to the Spaniard made her hate the other old woman more deeply than before. She had sworn to Anny that she would prevent her sailing with Dick, and it was to fulfil this promise that she was striding through the night.
To prevent Dick from carrying off Anny!
Nan had thought over her self-allotted task very carefully, and to her there seemed but one way to accomplish it. She had decided to take that way. And as she hastened on, her thin brown fingers gripped her long staff fiercely and from time to time she stopped to feel the heavy round stone which was bound to the top of it, making a once-harmless walking-stick a formidable weapon.
On she went, her head held high, and her sharp eyes fixed ahead as if she were seeking to pierce the blackness which closed in all around her.
“They do not sail till eleven,” she muttered, “and she would not go at once. I shall be in time to catch them as they come out of the yard. Ay, that is it, as they come out of the yard; it is dark there,” and, mumbling to herself, she clambered through a gap in the hedge and stumbled out into the Ship lane.