“Scream away!” said Henge bitterly, his face full of dark enjoyment of her despair, “no one will help you; a screaming woman in this quarter of the town is no novelty. Do you look for your lover from the Tower to rescue you? You pretty fool!” he added contemptuously, “you are mine, mine as sure as death!”
Betty was no coward; she put her hand to her girdle and felt the little knife there safe. She meant to kill him—or herself. She had a firm, strong wrist and she could strike; he was a powerful man, but he did not know that she was armed, and an unlooked-for blow might end the matter. She saw the evil triumph in his face and set her teeth; she would kill him. He, unconscious of her purpose, looked at her and smiled, as a devil might, who saw his prey before him.
At this moment there was a strange interruption; the door that Henge had not fastened, the one that had been secured from without, opened, and the cross-eyed man entered, and closing it behind him, stood, with his arms folded on his breast, staring at Sir Barton, who, in turn, glared at him in furious surprise.
“What are you here for, Master Cross-Eyes?” he exclaimed. “Get out, you rogue, or I will break a rod on your bare back and slit your ears, to boot.”
The groom pointed at Betty.
“She screamed,” he said sullenly; “if you hurt a hair of her head, I’ll cut your throat, my master!”
“You accursed villain, you!” cried Henge, in furious anger, “how dare you threaten me? Is it for this that I dragged you from the gutter?”
“Nay,” retorted Master Cross-Eyes, unmoved; “you picked me up from the slums because you wanted desperate men to do your bidding; and so I would, if the case were different, but Mistress Carew you shall not hurt.”
So amazed was Henge at the varlet’s courage, that he did not spurn him from the room at once, but stared at him as if he doubted his own senses.
“And wherefore?” he asked harshly; “what is Mistress Carew to you, you hound?”