As he sang, step by step, nay, hardly so, hair'sbreadth by hair'sbreadth, as the dawn creeps up the sky over the moor, the spirit returned from the abysses where it had lost its way in darkness.
As he sang, Anthony doubted his own power, feared the slightest interruption, the least thing to intervene and scare the tremulous spirit-life back into the profound whence he was conjuring it.
The soul came, slow as the dawn, and yet, unlike the dawn in this, that it came under compulsion. It came as the treasure heaved from a mine, responsive to the effort employed to lift it; let that strain be desisted from, and it would remain stationary or fall back to where it was before.
An explosion of firearms, the crash of broken glass, and the rattle of bullets against the walls.
Instantly Anthony has leaped to his feet, caught Urith in his arms, and carried her where she was protected by the walls, for the bullets had penetrated the window and whizzed past her head.
At the same moment he saw Solomon Gibbs, who plunged into the hall, red, his wig on one side, shouting, "Tony! for God's sake, fly! the troopers are here, sent after you. I've fastened the front door. Quick—be off. They'll string you up to the next tree."
He was deafened by blows against the main entrance, a solid oak door on stout iron hinges let into the granite. It was fastened by a cross-bar—almost a beam—that ran back into a socket in the jamb, when the door was unbarricaded.
"Tony! not an instant is to be lost. Make off. But by the Lord! I don't know how. They are clambering over the garden wall to get at the back door. There are a score of them—troopers under Captain Fogg."
Anthony had Urith in his arms. He looked at her, her eyes were fixed on him, full of terror, but also—intelligence.