Elinor's lip curled with scorn.
"Yes," he went on, "I will show thee what I am, and first of all I am thy master."
"A moment since thou wert my slave."
"Ay, both slave and master in one; and I am come to take thee with me to a place where thou shalt know me under both guises."
"Never!"
With her left hand Elinor Calvert pulled a dagger from her belt; but before she had time to use it, Ingle loosed her other hand and seizing Cecil cried, "When thou wouldst see thy boy again, seek the world through for Ralph Ingle."
He was gone before Elinor could utter a word; and when she would have rushed after him her limbs seemed made of lead, her outstretched arms fell nerveless at her side, her knees tottered under her, and with her child's shriek of terror ringing in her ears, his pleading eyes still straining toward hers, she fell to earth in a dead swoon.
As she fell, Margaret Brent turned the corner of the street, and seeing her believed her wounded, and rushed toward her with open arms, while from the other side Richard Ingle advanced, brandishing a pistol in one hand and a torch in the other. He and Margaret Brent met above the prostrate form.
"So you are here," he said; "I thought you were at Kent Fort, and I meant to seek you there. I killed that precious brother of yours."
Margaret Brent paid no more heed to him than if he had been a fly in her path. She knelt by Elinor's side, and finding the pulse beating still drew a breath of relief. Once more, however, she bent over lower still, and when she rose it was with a cocked pistol, which she pointed full at Ingle's head.