"You are too good a man for crows' meat," he said, shortly. "Stand clear and save your ears; my business is with the white-faced boy behind you."
But Guyder Touchett, ruddy, full-bodied, and loving his life as well as any man, only girded at him, saying:
"Is there, then, a deeper hell than this? I follow where my master has gone, and you, my lord, shall show me the way."
"The more fool you," quoth Quinton Edge, and drove at him.
Again the blades engaged, and a great fear suddenly tightened at the boy's heart. His champion had been exhausted by his previous efforts, and now his strength was going fast. Constans saw Touchett stagger and Quinton Edge preparing for a final stroke; he turned and ran for the upper end of the hall—the Rat's-Hole.
The key was still in his bosom, and in a few seconds he had passed the postern, closing and locking it behind him. Five minutes' hard running and he was free of the stockade and at the summit of a hill that commanded the scene which he had just left. The conflagration was progressing with astonishing rapidity; already the Great House itself was in flames, and dark figures could be seen issuing from the water gate. There! the red cock was crowing from the top of the bell-tower, and now the whole court-yard was a furnace of fire. A spark carried by the wind fell on his naked shoulder, where it bit like a fiery serpent. Yet he scarcely felt the smart; he stood motionless, looking upon the wreck of his little world, the only one that he had ever known.
"So in the end he made me a coward as well," said the boy, speaking softly to himself. "Is it that a slave must be a slave—always?"
He drew a long breath. "No, not always. But in the mean time I am to go on living and bearing everywhere his mark—Quinton Edge's mark. Well, I will begin by learning how to wait."
He stood irresolute for a moment longer, gazing at the scene of the night's tragedy as though to impress it indelibly upon his memory. Then turning his back to the east, where the faint saffron of early dawn was now showing, he started off on a long, swinging trot that speedily carried him down the slope and into the deeper shadow of the wood beyond.