He bowed as he spoke, and looked at her with an expression which she could not translate, though it appeared to her one of cruel malevolence.
She noticed now that he carried his right hand pushed inside the bosom of his vest, and she remembered what she had heard of his being wounded in that arm.
“Lady!” he pursued, after a lengthy pause, “have you no word for me? May I not be permitted to hear the sweet music of your voice?”
“Sir!” our heroine returned, struggling with all her might to speak calmly, or at least coherently—“who are you? Why have you thus placed yourself in my way? What would you with me?”
At this point, and before the chief could reply to the lady’s demand, one of those behind—a dark-visaged, low-browed, villainous-looking man—came to his side and whispered something in his ear. His words Cordelia could not distinguish, but she had no difficulty in distinguishing the response.
“Aye, Gurt, you’re right,” the tawny chief said. “The sooner we haul our wind out o’ this the better it may be for us. Bryan! Jack! This way, and lend a hand. Mind now, no roughness! Handle them as lightly as you can.”
And the three men, thus commanded, moved forward.
CHAPTER XVI.
A TERRIBLE MOMENT.
As our heroine heard the address of the chief to his comrades, and then saw the latter move toward her, she looked to see a possible way of escape, but there was none. There was but one hope, and that was in help. She whispered to Mary, who was clinging closely to her side: