They were a party of three gentlemen lighted by a link-boy, on their homeward way. They were young and adventurous, as it chanced, and very ready to bare their blades in defence of a lady in distress.
But it happened that this was a contingency for which Holles was fully prepared, one, indeed, which he could not have left out of his calculations.
The foremost of those hastening gallants was suddenly upon him, his point at the level of the Colonel’s breast, and bawling dramatically:
“Stand, villain!”
“Stand yourself, fool,” Holles answered him in tones of impatient scorn, making no shift to draw in self-defence. “Back—all of you—on your lives! We are conveying this poor lady home. She has the plague.”
That checked their swift advance. It even flung them back a little, treading on one another’s toes in their sudden intimidation. Brave enough against ordinary men and ordinary lethal weapons, they were stricken with instant panic before the horrible, impalpable foe whose presence was thus announced to them.
Miss Farquharson, who had overheard the Colonel’s warning and perceived its paralyzing effect upon those rescuers whom she had been regarding as Heaven-sent, leaned forward, in frenzied fear that the trap was about to close upon her.
“He lies! He lies!” she shrieked in her terror. “It is false! I have not the plague! I have not the plague! I swear it! Do not heed him, sirs! Do not heed him! Deliver me from these villains. Oh, of your charity, sirs ... in God’s name ... do not abandon me, or I am a lost woman else!”
They stood at gaze, moved by her piteous cries, yet hesitating what to believe. Holles addressed them, speaking sadly: