Mount stood back, breathing heavily, hands hanging. I waited in silence.
"What a little thing she was!" he muttered; "what a child—to—do—that! Do you think she will lie easy there?"
"Yes," I said.
At the sound of my voice Mount roused and turned sharply to me.
"The thief and the thief-taker's daughter!" he whispered, with a ghastly laugh. "They'll make a book of it—I warrant you!—and hawk it for a penny in Boston town!"
He touched the slab, all glistening with sleet, gripped the edge of the sepulchre, turned, and shook his fist at the prison. Then, quietly passing his arm through mine, he led the way out of the chapel yard, guiding me between the soaking hedges to the iron gate, and so out into the black alley.
Almost immediately a man shouted: "Stop thief! Turn out the guard!" and a soldier, in the shadow of the wall, fired at us.
Mount glared at him stupidly, hands dangling; the soldier ran up to him and presented his bayonet, calling on us to give up.
The sound of his voice appeared to rouse Mount to fury; he seized the musket, wrenched it from the soldier, and beat him into the mud. Then swinging the weapon by the barrel, he knocked down two bailiffs who were closing in on us, and started after another, with a yell of rage.
"Jack! Jack!" I cried. "Are you mad? Follow me; quick! We can't stay here, you great fool!"