CHAPTER XVII THE ABDUCTION
The chair swung past the grotesque wooden structure of Temple Bar and along Fleet Street in the deepening dusk of that summer evening, and this being the normal way it should have taken there was so far nothing to alarm its occupant. But as its bearers were about to turn to the right, to plunge into the narrow alley leading down to Salisbury Court, a man suddenly emerged from that black gulf to check their progress. The man was Holles, who had gained the place ahead of them.
“Back!” he called to them, as he advanced. “You cannot pass. There is a riot down there about a plague-stricken house which has been broken open, and the pestilence is being scattered to the four winds. You cannot go this way.”
The bearers halted. “What way, then?” the foremost inquired.
“Whither would you go?” the man asked him.
“To Salisbury Court.”
“Why, that is my way. You must go round by the Fleet Ditch, as I must. Come, follow me.” And he went ahead briskly down Fleet Street.
The chair resumed its way in the altered direction. Miss Farquharson had leaned forward when it halted to hear what was said. She had observed no closed house in the alley upon coming that way some hours ago in daylight. But she saw no reason to doubt the warning on that account. Infected houses were, after all, growing common enough by now in London streets, and she was relieved that the closing of the theatre was to permit her own withdrawal into the country, away from that pestilential atmosphere.