And quickly, before the men, heaving sighs of relief, had had time to emerge from their retreat, she was across the floor, and had dragged Henrietta to her feet.
“Up the stairs!” she whispered. “The door on the left! Knock! Knock! I’ll keep them back.”
Taken by surprise as she was, Henrietta’s courage rose. She bounded to the open stairs, and was half-way up before the men took in the position and understood that she was escaping them. They rushed forward then, falling over one another in their eagerness to seize her. But they were too late, Bess was before them. She sprang on to the widest of the lower steps where the staircase turned in the corner of the room, and flashing her knife in their eyes, she swore that she would blind the first man who ascended. They knew her, and for the moment fell back daunted and dismayed; for Giles had put up his pistol. He bethought himself, indeed, of pulling it out, when he found parley useless; but it was then too late. By that time Bess’s ear told her that Henrietta was safe in Mrs. Tyson’s room, with the bolt shot behind her.
CHAPTER XXXV
THROUGH THE WOOD
Behind the closed door the two haggard-faced women looked at one another. Mrs. Tyson had not left her bed for many days. But she had heard the knocking at the outer door and the answering growl of the dog chained under her window; and hoping, yet scarcely daring to expect, that the nightmare was over and her husband or her friends were at hand, she had dragged herself from the bed and opened the door as soon as the knocking sounded in turn at that.
For days, indeed, one strand, and one only, had held the feeble, frightened woman to life; and that strand was the babe that lay beside her. The sheep will fight for its lamb, the wren for its fledglings. And Mrs. Tyson, if she had not fought, had for the babe’s sake borne and endured; and surrounded by the ruffians who had the house at their mercy, she had survived terrors that in other circumstances would have driven her mad.
True, Bess had not ill-treated her. On the contrary, she had been almost kind to her. And lonely and ill, dependent on her for everything, the woman had lost much of her dread of the girl; though now and again, in sheer wantonness, Bess would play with her fears. Certain that the weak-willed creature would not dare to tell what she knew, Bess had boasted to her of Henrietta’s presence and her danger and her plight. When Henrietta, therefore, the moment the door was unfastened, flung herself into the room, and with frantic fingers helped to secure the door behind her, Mrs. Tyson was astonished indeed; but less astonished than alarmed. She was alarmed in truth, almost to swooning, and showed a face as white as paper.
Luckily, Henrietta had resumed the wit and courage of which stupor had deprived her for a time. She had no longer Bess at her elbow to bid her do this or that. But she had Bess’s example and her own spirit. There was an instant of stricken silence, during which she and the woman looked fearfully into one another’s faces by the light of the poor dip that burned beside the gloomy tester. Then Henrietta took her part. She laid down the child, to which she had clung instinctively; and with a strength which surprised herself, she dragged a chest, that stood but a foot on one side of the opening, across the door. It would not withstand the men long, but it would check them. She looked doubtfully at the bed, but mistrusted her power to move it. And before she could do more, a sound reached them from an unexpected quarter, and struck at the root of her plans. For it came from the window; and so unexpectedly, that it flung them into one another’s arms.
Mrs. Tyson screamed loudly. They clung to one another.
“What is it? What is it?” Henrietta cried.