“And s’help me when we do,” Lunt answered, “I’ll——”
And then, mercifully, the voices grew indistinct. The flicker of the lanthorn was lost among the trees. With wonder and stupefaction Henrietta found herself alone, found herself faint, gasping, scarcely sensible—but safe! Safe!
She could not understand the why or the wherefore of her escape, and she had not energy to try to fathom it. She lay a few seconds to rest and clear her head, and then she thought that she would try to rise. She was on her knees, and was supporting herself with one hand against the cold, rough surface of the wall, when every fibre in her cried suddenly, Alarm! Alarm! He was coming back. Yes, he was coming back, leaping and running, bursting his way through the undergrowth. And she understood. He had led the others away and he was coming back—alone!
She fell back feeling deadly faint. Then she tried to rise, but she could not, and she screamed. She screamed hoarsely once and again, and, oh, joy! even as the gipsy clambered over the stile, sprang into the road and came to seize her, and all her being arose in revolt against him, a voice answered her, feet came racing up the road, a man appeared, she was no longer alone.
It was the chaplain, panting and horrified. He had been the first to be alarmed by the woman’s tale, and running out of the house unarmed and hatless he had come in time, in the nick of time! Across her lifeless body, for at last she had swooned quite away, the gipsy and he looked at one another by the light of the moon. And without warning, without a word said, the gipsy came at him like a wildcat, a knife in his hand. Sutton saw the gleam of the weapon, and the gleam of the man’s savage eyes, but he held his ground gallantly. With a yell for help he let the man close with him, and, more by luck than skill, he parried the blow which the other had dealt him with the knife. But the gipsy, finding his arm clutched and held, struck his enemy with his left fist a heavy blow between the eyes. The poor chaplain fell stunned and breathless.
The gipsy stood over him an instant to see if he would rise. But he did not move; and the man turned to the girl, who lay insensible beside the wall. He stooped to raise her, with the intention of putting her over the wall. But in the act he heard a shout, and he lifted his head to listen, supposing that his comrades had got wind of the skirmish.
It was not his comrades; for despairing of retaking the girl, they had hurried back to the house to attend to their own safety. He stooped again; but this time he heard the patter of footsteps coming up the road, and a man came in sight in the moonlight. With every passion roused, and determined, since he had risked so much, that he would not be balked, the gipsy lifted the girl none the less, and had raised her almost to the level of the top of the wall, when the man shouted anew. Perforce the ruffian let the girl down again, and with a snarl of rage turned and faced the newcomer with his knife.
But Clyne—for it was he—had not come unarmed. For many days he had not gone so much as a step unarmed. And the stranger’s attitude as he let the girl fall, and the gleam of his knife, were enough. The man rushed at him, as he had rushed at the chaplain, with the ferocity of a wild beast. But Clyne met him with a burst of flame and shot, and then with a second shot; and the gipsy whirled round with a muffled cry and fell—at first it seemed backwards. But when he reached the ground he lay limp and doubled up with his face to his knees, and one arm under him.
Clyne, with the smoking pistol in his hand, bent over him, ready, if he moved, to beat out his brains. But there was no need of that third blow, which he would have given with hearty good-will. And he turned to the girl. Something, perhaps the pistol-shot, had brought her to herself. She had raised herself against the wall, and holding it, was looking wildly about her; not at the dead man, nor at the chaplain, who stirred and groaned. But at Clyne. And when he approached her she threw herself on his breast and clung to him.
“Oh, don’t let me go! Oh, don’t let me go!” she cried.