"How are ye, messmate?"
"Very well ... thanks to the both of you," he answered, struggling to his feet.
"And what o'—this?"
Now glancing round, Adam saw his uncle crouched nearby upon his knees.
"Oh, Adam!" he sobbed. "Oh, Adam.... Twas you brought me out of hell ... am I to live? Ah, God of mercy ... is this life?" But, with no word, Adam turned and limped away between his two silent companions, through a darkness shot now by a red and awful glow.
CHAPTER IV
CONCERNING ANTONIA THE WOMAN, AND AN OATH OF BROTHERHOOD
It was as they breathed their horses after the ascent of a steep hill that the girl came tumbling down upon them,—a wild, breathless creature who, bursting through hedge that crowned the steep grassy bank, rolled and slid into the narrow road so suddenly that their startled horses danced and Absalom slipped from saddle.
"Don't..." panted the girl, clinging to him with desperate hands, "don't ... for dear God's sake ... let them ... take me."
"Not I, or damme!" he answered, clasping ready arm about her. "But what the——" His question was forbidden by a loud, hoarse shout above:
"Hey there ... hey, you down there," cried this voice breathlessly, "hold me fast the ... bloodsome, curst ... Jezebel ... hold her!"
"I am," answered Absalom, stealing hand into deep side-pocket. "Then what?"
"Keep her so ... till us gets our claws on 'er. Hey, Jacob ... Oh, Jake, 'ere she be! Come ye now ... down this yere bank ... foller me!" Down the slope scrambled a burly fellow armed with a stout bludgeon.
"Thankee, gemmen," quoth he, "thankee for saving my legs and breath. She run like a stag, ah, like a perishin' deer, she did. So now I'll take the curst jade and——"
"Good fellow, tut-tut!" said Absalom, putting the girl behind his broad back. "Easy, my pretty cut-throat lurcher, and very gently now."
"Eh—what?" demanded the man, handling his bludgeon. "You gimme that there gallers-vixen now or 'twill be the worse for ye. I got the Law, I 'ave."
"But not the lass—yet!" said Absalom, speaking with an extreme of mildness. "First I must beg to know the wherefore and the why——"
"Oh, Jacob!" cried the man. "Come on down! Yere she be——" At this, there descended another man even burlier than his fellow.
"What's to do yere?" he growled. "Come on now, us don't want no 'by-your-leaves' nor 'ow d'ye do's, us wants the gell and we're a-goin' for to tek 'er, one way or t'other, so which is it for to be? Does you give 'er up or do we set about the lot o' ye?"
"Fie!" exclaimed Absalom, spreading his feet slightly. "Such a fearsome, violent fellow! Pray don't terrify me, speak me kind and say why you want this trembling child,—what hath she done?"
"Ho, child, d'ye say? A f'rocious vixen! And, wot's she done? Robbery, ah and—murder, that's wot she's done! So 'tis prison, 'tis rope and gallers for 'er! Now give 'er up,—we're the Law."
"Why then," quoth Absalom in his rough seaman's voice and diction, "sheer off, afore I rip out your livers,—both 'o ye! Aha, is that it?" With these words, he leapt, very suddenly, in beneath up-swung bludgeon and instantly felled his would-be assailant with down-smiting pistol-barrel, while Captain Smy seemed to fall bodily from saddle upon the second man, bearing him to earth. So, for brief space, was dust and sounds of strife.
"All fast ... messmate?" panted Absalom, at last.
"Ay, ay, brother, my rogue is peaceful awhile. Don't forget to belay and make fast their jaw tackle."
"Not I, shipmate, my fellow's fast, and dumb as a damned oyster."
"Then, brother, it's loose moorings and stand away."
Hereupon, they mounted their horses that Adam had been holding; but, being in the saddle, Absalom turned to look at the girl who stood leaning in shadow of the bank between the silenced but writhing forms of her late pursuers who lay expertly gagged and bound with their own belts and neckcloths.
"Sink me!" he exclaimed, "what o' the lass?"
"Yes," she answered, in tremulous voice yet without moving. "What shall become of me? I can run no farther. I'm ... faint with hunger and have no money——"
"Then," said Captain Smy, leaning down to her, "take these few coins, child, and may the Lord bless and be thy protection."
"And, lass, take my purse," cried Absalom. "I would 'twere heavier."
"Get you up on to my horse!" said Adam. "Come,—here before me. Give me your hand,—now your foot on my toe—up!"
Swiftly, lightly she obeyed, and with this quick-breathing, soft-trembling fugitive within his bridle-arm, Adam rode forward, his two companions following after, wide-eyed.
Now as they rode thus, said Absalom to his old shipmate:
"Well, Smy, what say ye to this?"
"Yonder I see trouble!"
"Ay, a petticoat,—and in it a young murderess!"
"Brother, since Eve ate the apple, man's chief trouble hath been woman!"
"True enough, Smy, and the sooner we are rid o' this one, the better for all concerned...."
Meanwhile, the subject of their talk was stealing side-long glances at Adam and, the moon being so very bright, caught him glancing askance at her.
"Well?" she enquired timidly and almost whispering.
"Yes, I ... I hope so!" he answered, almost as shyly.
"But," said she, emboldened by this, "you ask me no questions ... my name ... who I am ... what—I have done."
"I ... I wait to be told ... if you will."
"I struck down my master with his own sword."
"And—killed him?"
"I don't know ... the sword was sheathed. I ... oh, I for the moment ... meant to kill him. I struck him very hard because he would have whipped me ... and ... worse."
"Then," said Adam, looking on the distance, "I grieve the sword was sheathed."
"I struck so hard that he fell and hit his head—I saw blood on his face! Then I was afraid and ran away."
"And ... the things you stole?"
"These clothes that cover me. I was to pay for them out of my wages and have not. His servants came after me, but I hid in a wood."
"Were those two men his servants?"
"No, they were law officers from Horsham. They caught me once and told me I must hang on a gallows. I broke from them and ran and ran till I thought I should fall dead, and then ... I found you. But I know.... Oh I know if I'm taken they'll prison and hang me ... as they did a girl that stole five yards of lace ... only last month.... My master and mistress took me to see.... Oh it was horrible.... She screamed and cried ... just as I should! So I'm afraid for my life."
"Then you must not be taken."
"No—no! I pray merciful God! Yet is there any place in England I shall ever be safe?"
"Ay, to be sure! Never doubt it," he answered, and so confidently that she took comfort from his mere look and tone.
"Pray what is your name?" she asked him.
"Call me Adam."
"And I am Antonia Chievely—because I was found by a rich lady named Chievely in the porch of Saint Anthony's church. She adopted me, educated me but—ah, most of all she taught and learned me how to love her. Six months ago nearly, her horse ran away and killed her, and because there was no will, her nephew took everything, all her property, and they turned me away. So, to live, I became a serving maid ... and to-day I am penniless ... afraid, and very lonely."
"I am lonely too!" said Adam.
"Where are you taking me?"
"To safety, I hope."
"But where—where?"
"A tavern called 'The Mariner's Joy.'"
"A tavern!" she repeated, whispering, and glanced fearfully from the speaker's pale, strange face to the grim horsemen behind.