What happened after that I only knew in part, for from that moment all was a medley of random blows and stragglings in the dark. The crowd seeing half of us down, and the rest entangled, took heart of grace to finish us. I remember a man dashing a torch in my face, and the blow blinding me. Nevertheless I staggered forward to close with him. Then something tripped me up, something or some one struck me from behind as I fell. I went down like an ox, and for me the fight was over.
Drunken Steve and two of the Waldgrave's men fought across me, I am told, for a minute or more. Then Steve fell and an odd thing happened. The mob took fright at nothing--took fright at their own work, and coming suddenly to their senses, poured pell-mell out of the alley faster than they had come into it. The two strangers, knowing nothing of the way or the town, knocked at the nearest door and were taken in, and sheltered till morning.
CHAPTER V.
[MARIE WORT.]
There never was one of my forefathers could read, or knew so much as a horn-book when he saw it; and therefore I, though a clerk, have a brain pan that will stand as much as any scholar's and more than many a simple man's. Otherwise the blow I got that night must have done me some great mischief, instead of merely throwing me into a swoon, in which I lay until the morning was well advanced.
When I came to myself with an aching head and a dry mouth, I was hard put to it for a time to think what had happened to me. The place in which I lay was dark, with spots of red lights like flaming eyes here and there. An odour of fire and leather and iron filled my nostrils. A hoarse soughing as of a winded horse came and went regularly, with a dull rumbling and creaking that seemed to shake the place. Dizzy as I was, I rose on my elbow with an effort, and looked round. But my eyes swam, I could see nothing which enlightened me, and with a groan I fell back. Then I found that I was lying on a straw-bed, with bandages round my head, and gradually the events of the night came back to me. My mind grew clearer. Yet it still failed to tell me where I was, or whence came the hoarse choking sound, like the sighing of some giant of the Harz, which I heard.
At last, while I lay wondering and fearing, a door opened and let into the dark place a flood of ruddy light. Framed in this light a young girl appeared, standing on the threshold. She held a tray in her hand, and paused to close the door behind her. The bright glow which shone round her, gave her a strange unearthly air, picking out gold in her black locks and warming her pale cheeks; but for all that I recognised her, and never was I more astonished. She was no other than the daughter of the Papist Wort--the girl to rescue whom we had gone down to the Red Hart.
I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise, and the girl started and stopped, peering into the corner in which I lay.
'Master Martin,' she said in a low tone, 'was that you?'
I had never heard her speak before, and I found, perhaps by reason of my low state, and a softness which pain induces in the roughest, a peculiar sweetness in her voice. I would not answer for a moment. I made her speak again.