Part 13 (2/2)

She does not answer him; she could not. Her lips are dry and quivering with the terror that has come upon her.

At this moment some one glides from behind a pillar and touches Power on the arm. With an impatient gesture he moves back a little way to listen to the man's message; and in this one second Honor sees her only chance of escape.

With a slow gliding motion she gains the end of the wall, and sees the open square of the old court before her.

Some one may be watching from behind those broken b.u.t.tresses, she knows; but she is desperate, and has no time to count the chances. With a rapid step she crosses the square, and is almost at the open gateway when a man steps forward and holds her back by the arm.

”Not so fast, miss! Shure ye'd not be for forgetting the masther!”

With a sharp cry of fear she struggles to get free; but she might as well try to fly as to loose her arm from the grip of those grimy fingers.

Surely the steps she heard a little while ago are coming back again--more slowly this time, but still coming! Yes, and it is Brian--she knows it; she cannot be mistaken, and, yielding to a sudden impulse, she calls his name aloud, calls it again and again, in her utter helplessness and misery.

She does not think that he will hear and come to her. She has no hope of help from any quarter, as she looks round upon the dark menacing faces of the men who have gathered so noiselessly and rapidly about her. She is in their power--she realizes that; and, as a Blake of Donaghmore, she expects but little mercy, unless it be granted her for Power Magill's sake.

He has come up to her now, and the men fall back a little at a sign from him.

”Are you mad, Honor?” he asks hoa.r.s.ely. ”Is it your own death or is it mine that you seek this night?”

”Oh, let me go home!” she moaned, looking at him piteously. ”If ever you loved me, Power, let me go home!”

But a threatening murmur rises from the men about them.

”If I would trust you to carry our secret back to Donaghmore they would not,” he said curtly. ”No, no, Honor--there is no turning back for either of us!”

The steps--the slow, heavy tread, as of a man in deep thought--are close at hand now. She can hear them plainly; so does Power, for he pauses and seems almost to hold his breath in the deep stillness that has fallen upon the place.

Through this quiet Honor's despairing cry--”Brian--oh, Brian, come to me!”--rings sharply out.

She hears a shout as if in answer; and the hoa.r.s.e murmur of threatening voices fills her heart with fear. She has twisted her ankle on the rough stones, and now, when she tries to move, she cannot, so she crouches back against the wall and waits for the help that she is sure is coming in an agony that is fast merging into unconsciousness.

”Honor, where are you? Speak!”

She tries to answer: but her voice has failed her; she can only moan faintly in her great pain.

And clearly, above all the sounds of this terrible night, she hears a man's voice saying sternly:

”Back, Magill! Would yez risk the lives of your friends for the sake of a woman?”

Then comes silence--a great silence--and darkness; and the terror and the pain and the longing for Brian all fade away together.

Fortunately Honor's swoon does not last long. The cold night air revives her, and she opens her eyes to see Brian Beresford kneeling beside her. He had almost stumbled over her in his eager search for her, and at the first glance he thought that she was dead.

Everything is intensely quiet as the girl raises her head from his shoulder and looks round her with terrified eyes. There is not a sound to tell that the place has so lately been filled with armed men.

”Where are they?” she whispers, trembling. ”Oh, Brian, if they come back they will kill us both!”

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