From the window above a piercing cry of agony rang out.
“Tony! Tony!”
Creagh slewed round his head and threw up his free hand.
“’Toinette!” he cried.
But Miss Westerleigh had fainted, and Volney was already carrying her from the window with the flicker of a grim smile on his face. I noticed with relief that Craven had disappeared from sight.
My relief was temporary. When I turned to leave I found my limbs clogged with impedimenta. To each arm hung a bailiff, and a third clung like a leech to my legs. Some paces distant Sir James Craven stood hulloing them to the sport with malign pleasure.
“To it, fustian breeches! Yoho, yoho! There’s ten guineas in it for each of you and two hundred for me. ’Slife, down with him, you red-haired fellow! Throw him hard. Ecod, I’ll teach you to be rough with Craven, my cockerel Montagu!” And the bully kicked me twice where I lay.
They dragged me to my feet, and Craven began to sharpen his dull wit on me.
“Two hundred guineas I get out of this, you cursed rebel highwayman, besides the pleasure of seeing you wear hemp—and that’s worth a hundred more, sink my soul to hell if it isn’t.”
“Your soul is sunk there long ago, and this blackguard job sends you one circle lower in the Inferno, Catchpoll Craven,” said a sneering voice behind him.