Part 7 (2/2)
”Go back, Miss Honor!” some one shouts. ”Shure, we would not hurt a hair of your head!”
But the girl smiles coldly. She has no fear for herself; her one care, her one dread is for the safety of those others, who are dearer to her a thousand-fold than her own safety.
The men talk fast and furiously, but she hardly hears their words. She is waiting for what must come after, when all their threats have failed, as she knows so well they will fail.
They demand arms--with which they know the house to be well supplied.
”Give them arms, and they will go in peace, for the present, squire,”
one man adds, with menacing emphasis.
For answer Robert Blake raises his right arm, and they see the muzzle of a revolver; and now a louder and more angry cry comes from the crowd.
”You know me, James Phelan,” the squire says calmly, addressing an old tenant whose voice he has recognized; ”tell these men that I am a dead shot, and I will fire if they come a yard nearer.”
For an instant the crowd sways back, then it rallies. Those behind push the front rows mercilessly forward. The men are thoroughly excited now--there are more of them than at first appeared--and Honor feels that the next few moments will decide her fate and that of those dear to her.
Suddenly the great hall lamp falls to the floor with a crash, and the whole place is in profound darkness. For an instant the men, pressing toward their prey, pause, afraid, it may be, of a stray bullet striking them in the obscurity.
Then a loud shout is raised, and the hall, the stairs, the corridors are filled with a struggling, panting, furious mob.
Honor feels herself lifted out of the crowd, and let down inside the library, close to the door.
”Don't move for your life, and don't speak!” a voice says softly, close to her cheek, and then she is alone; and, save for the lightning that illumines the room almost every moment, she is in darkness.
Outside there are loud hoa.r.s.e cries, heavy blows, and trampling feet, the indescribable horror and confusion of a fierce fight fought with blind rage on both sides.
It cannot be that her father and Horace--for on the servants she does not count at all--are keeping all these men at bay so long!
The suspense becomes torture. She feels that at any risk she must know how things are going, and, cautiously opening the door, she looks out.
The hall is full of police; most of the attacking party have been disarmed--a few have escaped, but she does not know that; three men, however, are making a pretty tough fight for it still. But even as Honor stands and looks on, powerless in her dismay, it is over; the men are struck down and secured.
”This is no sight for you, Honor,” a man's voice says suddenly, and, looking up, she sees Brian Beresford before her, with an ugly cut on the temple, from which the blood is flowing freely.
”You!” she gasps, holding her hands out to him with a gesture infinitely touching in one so cold and proud as Honor. ”Oh, Brian, I have been wanting you so! I--I thought you would never come back!”
”You see you were mistaken,” he says coolly. How the man's pulse are throbbing, how the welcome in her glad sweet eyes has thrilled him, no one looking at him could divine. ”I said you were not so unprotected as you imagined,” he adds, looking round with a grim smile. ”We got here in time to foil the rascals--thanks to Aileen!”
”Why, what had Aileen to do with it? She went home hours ago.”
”No, she did not. She crossed the mountain to Drum--a stiff climb for a woman of her years--and gave us notice that the house was to be attacked some time to-night, and off we came.”
”Gave you notice?” the girl repeats. She looks dazed and faint, as well she may--a hollow-eyed, white-faced wraith of a girl, in her creased white gown.
The captured men are filing out now in twos and threes, closely guarded. Suddenly Honor starts forward, she has caught sight of a face that, disfigured by blows as it is, she would know among a thousand, and her heart seems to cease beating with the shock.
The tall man marching past between two policemen looks at her for an instant, and then turns his head aside. It is the one thing too much for Honor. With a heart-broken cry that has a thrill of horror in it she falls forward at her cousin's feet.
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