"It is her death or ours," cried the branded man.
The Muggletonian tossed his arms into the air.
"The cause! the cause! Cursed be he that putteth his hand to the plough and finisheth not the furrow! Ride on! Ride on! though it were over the bodies of a thousand painted Jezebels such as this!"
"Time presses!" cried the branded man. "Woodson may come!"
They closed in upon the three who stood at bay. In their dark faces were a passion and an exaltation—they saw in the woman fallen into their hands, a sacrifice bound to the altar. Trail alone looked uneasy and held back, muttering between his teeth.
Landless stepped in front of Patricia and faced them with a still and deadly eye, and with the hand that held the knife drawn back against his breast, Knowing them, he saw no use in any appeal; also he saw that it was indeed her life or theirs. On the one hand, the downfall of all their hopes, the death or perpetual enslavement of many, and for himself surely the gibbet and the rope; on the other—
He made a gesture of command. "Thou shalt do no murder!" he cried.
"It is not murder; it is sacrifice."
"There must be another way!" cried Havisham.
"Find it!"