"I warn you!" said a haughty voice, the voice of a woman of rank, rich and full. "You enter at your own peril!"
For answer Nigel thrust his foot and his steel cap into the opening as the door gave way a span, and a dagger descended with the breathless fury of a woman's onset, only to glance off the casque, while the assailed swung round and seized the wrist of the thruster. The dagger fell to the floor. Blick stooped and picked it up and thrust it into his belt, where it had company of the same sort. It was worth a guilder, he reflected; and stood waiting just inside the door, his men without.
The soldier of fortune was a tall man, and she who faced him, flushed and disappointed, was a tall woman. The soldier of fortune was a handsome fellow of a dark russet upon olive complexion, with a crisp curl to his moustaches and his hair, though little of that emerged from the steel cap inlaid with gold that had so well protected him. Her eyes ran over him and said to her "Lineage." His eyes in turn told him that the woman was sprung of a ruling race, incapable of fear, unused to any domination: told him also that she had dark hair in abundance, dark mist-laden eyes, a clear paleness of complexion which was neither white nor yellow nor pink nor olive; told him that her carriage was that of a queen, and that she was as virginal as the dawn.
If the eagle in her held his eyes in its imperious clutch, hers encountered a spirit just as much an eagle's. High lineage and high poverty had been his portion, and no Charteris had ever feared to look a haughty beauty in the eyes.
It was the matter of an instant. Nigel looked round.
In the embrasure of the principal window, seated in a great chair, was the figure of an old man, whose dress denoted a Lutheran pastor. His head was fallen helplessly sidelong on the pillows that had but a few moments ago supported it. He was dead. At his feet, half on the dais of the window, lay a golden-haired girl. The great white kerchief that covered her shoulders and bosom showed a red spot over the heart, and a little dagger was still enclosed by the listless fingers that lay quiet in her lap. She too looked like one that is dead.
"Your handiwork, brave captain!" said the dark lady bitterly. "Pastor Reinheit died of shock as you halted without. Elspeth stabbed herself to save her honour as soon as she heard your footsteps on the stair. It was well done!"
"Count Tilly does not make war upon girls!" said Nigel angrily, striding across and kneeling beside the girl. "Bring water, linen, and salve!" Gently he laid her flat upon the floor with a cushion beneath her head. Quickly he unfastened the neckerchief and staunched the blood till he could see the wound, of what width it was, and how the blood welled up into its mouth. Then he looked at the dagger.
"Blick! Look you here! A flesh wound! A thumbnail's depth? What say you?"