The official spread his hands, shrugged his shoulders, bowed and evaporated. She looked from his retreating back to the nuns’ faces, saw loyalty framed in bands of starched linen, and issued a mandate in unfaltering tones.
“Find me a hatchet, Mother Aquinas. Look for an iron bar, or a beam light enough for us to handle, Sister Jerome! For we are going to break open that door!”
The sentry muttered, bringing the butt of his musket sharply to the flagstones.
“Ma’am, av ye do, ’tis myself will smarrut for ut!... Flogged, an’ broke will I be, an’ divil a lie!”
His starting eyes and scarlet face confirmed his sincerity. She said to him:
“You shall not be flogged! I would strip my own shoulders to the lash rather than that you should suffer! Stand aside!” She caught up a stone and struck upon the wooden lock.
One of the nuns had found, and now brandished, an ancient, rusty chopper. The other had a bent poker, disinterred from a heap of scrap. As they advanced upon the door, the sentry whimpered, gave in, and put down his musket, crying:
“Stand away, ma’am! Hould harrud, Sisthers! I’ll do ut, be the hokey! The knife to my buttons—the lash to my back—divil a one av me cares wan way or the odher! Give me a hoult av the chopper!” He amended, for Dunoisse, with a brief word to the nun, had already possessed himself of the weapon. “The poker, thin—since the gintleman has a taste for the other article!—and we’ll be in among the blankuts and broth-bottles before yez can say ‘knife!’”
The door yielded to their united attack upon it. As the Sisters darted joyfully in, as the sentry resumed his musket, Dunoisse knew that he was recognized. For Ada Merling’s eyes were fixed on him, and a faint tinge of color suffused her paleness. He threw down the chopper on the scrap-heap and approached her, saying hurriedly:
“Miss Merling, I trust I have not alarmed you by an appearance you were not prepared for? When you have time to listen to me, I will explain why I am here.... Meanwhile, let me serve as best I may in this house of sickness and anguish, under an assumed name, for it will be best that my own should be forgotten! You will not deny me that comfort, I hope?”