"Get up," bade Miss Gregory. "Bleeding or not, we must get away from here. Up you get."
She pulled him to a sitting position, and he screamed and resisted, but Miss Gregory was his master. By voice and force she brought him upright; he could stand alone, and seemed surprised to find it out.
"Take my arm," she ordered him. "Lean on it; don t be afraid. Now, where are your rooms?"
"On this way," he sobbed.
Evidently he had an ugly wound, for at each few steps he had to stop and rest, and sometimes he swayed, and Miss Gregory had to hold him up. His breath came hastily; he was soft with terror. "They'll come back! they'll come back!" he gabbled, tottering on his feet.
"They're coming now; I can hear them," replied Miss Gregory grimly. "Here, lean in this doorway behind me, man. Stop that whimpering, will you! Now, keep close."
She propped him against the nail-studded door, and placed herself before, him, and the three robbers, bunched together in a group, stealing along the middle of the way, might almost have gone past without seeing them. But it was not a chance to trust to. Miss Gregory let them come abreast of her; her whole honest body was tense to the occasion; on the due moment she flung herself forward and the brandished umbrella rained loud blows on aghast heads; and at the same time she summoned to her aid her one accomplishment—she shrieked. She was a strong woman, deep-chested, full-lunged; her raw yell shattered the stillness of the night like some crazy trumpet; it broke from her with the suddenness of a catastrophe, nerve-sapping, ear-scaring, heart-striking. Before it and the assault of the stout umbrella the robbers broke; a panic captured them; they squealed, clasped at each other, and ran in mere senseless amaze. The Latin blood, when diluted with Coast mixtures, is never remarkable for courage; but braver men might have scattered at the alarm of that mighty discordancy attacking from behind.
Fortunately the door they sought was not far off; through it they entered a big untidy room, stone-floored as the custom is, and littered with all the various trifles a man gathers about him on the Coast. Miss Gregory put her patient on the narrow bed and turned to the door; true to his fears, it would not lock. The youth was very pale and in much fear; blood stained the back of his clothes, and his eyes followed her about in appeal.
"You must wait a little," Miss Gregory told him. "I'll look at that wound of yours when I've seen to the door. No lock, of course." She pondered frowningly. "It's a childish thing at the best," she added thoughtfully; "but it may be a novelty in these parts. Have you ever arranged a booby trap, my boy?"
"No," he answered, wonderingly.