“Thieves! Murder! Robbery!” screamed Mistress Benton. “We are killed!”
Even the Lady Barbara’s white hand could not quell the tumult, and, all the time, her frightened eyes rested tremulously everywhere save on Lord Farquhart’s face.
“Here, here, not a hundred paces from the inn,” screamed Mistress Benton. “He robbed us. He stole our all. Oh, just Heaven! We are all murdered.”
Here the Lady Barbara’s hand did produce silence in one quarter by clasping Mistress Benton’s mouth with its long, slim fingers.
But from one and another the story was soon out. They had, indeed, been stopped at the points of a dozen pistols! This version was told by one of the coach boys.
“A dozen, man!” scoffed Barbara. Even her voice was slightly tremulous. “There was one lone highwayman, a single highwayman in black mask and coat and hat!”
“’Twas the Black Devil himself!” cried the chorus of men, who had watched calmly at the inn while the outrage was occurring.
“One man! And the horses’ legs knotted in a haze of ropes strung over the road!” cried Drennins, determined to maintain the number to which he had been willing to yield his own and his lady’s life. “One man! God’s truth! There must have been at least a dozen!”
“Ay, but ’twas Barbara’s own fault!” Mistress Benton cried, but again Barbara’s hand silenced her in the same way, and now Barbara’s own voice rang out clear and decisive.
“Why do we dally here?” she demanded. “The story’s all told, and I’ve given my word that the fellow should go free. There’s little loss—a few jewels and an old glove. Nay, nay, Lord Percy. My word is given. You shall neither go yourself nor send your servants after the fellow. He is absolutely safe from molestation from me and mine.” Her eyes now rested with curious insistence on Lord Farquhart’s face, but he could not read the riddle in them. “And now”—the lady leaned back wearily—“if this clamor might all cease! I am desperately weary. Get me to my aunt’s house with as much speed as possible.”