I had done them wrong. There was something in my voice, I suppose, as I said the words which cost me so much, which wrought with almost all of them in a degree. They gazed at me with awed, wondering faces, and murmured "His father!" in low tones. They were recalling the scene of last night, the moment when I had denounced him, the curse he had hurled at me, the half-told story of which that had seemed the climax. I had wronged them. They did see the tragedy of it.
Yes, they pitied me; but they showed plainly that they would still do what perhaps I should have done in their place--justice. "He knows too much!" said one. "Our lives are as good as his," muttered another--the first to become thoroughly himself again--"why should we all die for him?" The wolfish glare came back fast to their eyes. They handled their weapons impatiently. They were longing to be away. At this moment, when I saw I had indeed made my confession in vain, Master Bertie struck in. "What," he said, "if Master Carey and I take charge of him, and escorting him to his agent without, be answerable for both of them?"
"You would be only putting your necks into the noose!" said Kingston.
"We will risk that!" replied my friend--and what a friend and what a man he seemed amid that ignoble crew!--"I will myself promise you that if he refuse to remain with us until midnight, or tries wherever we are to raise an alarm or communicate with any one, I will run him through with my own hand? Will not that satisfy you?"
"No," Master Kingston retorted, "it will not! A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!"
"But the woman outside?" said one timidly.
"We must run that risk!" quoth he. "In an hour or two we shall be in hiding. Come, the lot must be drawn. For this gentleman, let him stand aside."
I leaned against the wall, dazed and horror-stricken. Now that I had identified myself with him I felt a great longing to save him. I scarcely noticed the group drawing pieces of paper at the table. My every thought was taken up with the low door over there, and the wretched man lying bound in the darkness behind it. What must be the horror, the black despair, the hate and defiance of his mind as he lay there, trapped at last like any beast of prey? It was horrible! horrible! horrible!
I covered my face and could not restrain the cry of unutterable distress which rose to my lips. They looked round, two or three of them, from the table. But the impression my appeal had made upon them had faded away already, and they only shrugged their shoulders and turned again to their task. Master Bertie alone stood apart, his arms folded, his face grave and dark. He too had abandoned hope. There seemed no hope, when suddenly there came a knocking at the door. The papers were dropped, and while some stood as if stiffened into stone, others turned and gazed at their neighbors. It was a knocking more hasty and imperative than the usual summons, though given in the same fashion. At last a man found tongue. "It is Sir Thomas," he suggested, with a sigh of relief. "He is in a hurry and brings news. I know his knock."
"Then open the door, fool," cried Kingston. "If you can see through a two-inch plank, why do you stand there like a gaby?"