He saw her. Not in the circle. She was crouched down on the grass amid a group of women. Rebellion was in every line of her figure. Cunningham loosened his revolver. It was madness, but——
A shout rang out sharply. And the running line of men broke and milled. Cunningham saw a hundred hands flash to as many knife-hilts. He saw the sheriff and four frightened-looking constables come plunging out of the brushwood, shouting something inane about halting in the name of the law. There was a shout and a scream, and then a man’s voice raised itself in a wild yell of command and entreaty. Cunningham’s own name was blended in a sentence in that unintelligible language.
The Strangers darted for the encircling woods. The women vanished, Maria among them. There was only a blank space in the open lighted by monster flames, and the sheriff and two constables struggling with a single figure of the Strangers.
“Go git ’em!” roared the sheriff, holding fast to the captive. “Git ’em! They’re scared. Ketch as many as ye kin!”
Cunningham felt Gray holding him down in an iron grasp.
“Don’t be a fool!” rasped Gray in a whisper. “It’s too late! The Strangers got away, all but one.”
The other men were racing about here and there. They found nothing but a bit of cloth here, and a woman’s embroidered cap there, left behind in the sudden flight.
The struggle in the open space ceased abruptly. The sheriff triumphantly called to the others.
“I got one now! Dun’t be scared! We got a hostage!” He reared up and yelled to the surrounding forest: “Dun’t ye try any o’ your knife-throwin’ tricks! This feller we got, if we dun’t get down safe, he dun’t neither! Dun’t ye try any rescuin’!”
He bent down to jerk his prisoner upright. And Cunningham heard him gasp. He chattered in sudden stillness and the others huddled about him.