A Gentleman Player Part 28

"At this rate, we shall soon see Captain Rumney's heels, or his corpse,"

said Hal, to Kit Bottle.

"I know not," was the reply. "We have but taught him the folly of haste and open attack. He will try craft next. Now is the time to watch every hole by which even a mouse might crawl into this house. 'Tis well that stout fellow, Hatch, has guard of the stable door. I would the Puritan were back! I'm some troubled for the safety of his saintly skin. He is a likable dog, for all his sour virtuousness. G.o.d-'a'-mercy, how his conscience will bite at this breakage of the Sabbath!"

Marryott went up to the room where Tom and Francis were. The sound of firing had aroused them, and they were in great curiosity. Mistress Hazlehurst, Francis said, still slept. Marryott gave the two lads a brief account of matters, for the information of the lady if she awoke.

He then rejoined Kit in the hall.

The morning wore on. Silence continued, without and within the house. No further sign came of Rumney's presence in the vicinity. Marryott began to discuss with Bottle the probabilities of the robbers having fled, appalled at the utterly bootless loss of four men. "Rumney is a deviceful rascal," was the burden of Kit's replies.

Hal made the rounds of the house. Neither Moreton nor Hatch, nor Oliver at his upper window, had sound or sight of the enemy to report. No one was to be seen from the windows. The mounted watchman at the gate had disappeared. But, as Bottle said, when Marryott returned again to the hall, these facts did not answer the question of Rumney's proximity.

There were outbuildings, detached from the house; in these the rascals might have taken refuge while biding the formation of a plan. The watchman might have concealed himself behind the gatehouse.

While Hal and his lieutenant were sitting in talk, near the fire, there arose a sound of hasty steps in an upper corridor, and Oliver Bunch appeared at the stair-head.

"Master Underhill is coming!" he announced, in a loud, excited whisper.

"Follow us!" replied Hal, starting off with Kit at once. The three traversed some rooms, a pa.s.sage, and part of the kitchen wing, and arrived in the half dark stables.

"Open the small door!" called Marryott, in a low tone, to John Hatch.

"And stand all, with sword and pistol, to bar the way 'gainst any but Underhill!"

Hatch undid the door, and flung it wide; then drew his weapons, and stood beside Marryott and Kit, just within the entrance. Behind these three crouched Oliver Bunch, trembling, but with sword and pistol in hand.

Through the blown flakes in the park, Anthony could be seen riding madly for the door. His cloak stood out behind him. From his left shoulder swung a bag, which evidently contained the acquisitions of his journey to the inn. In his right hand he held his naked sword. The manner of his riding, the direction of his look, showed that he saw possible enemies who might attempt to cut him off.

Marryott took a step forth from the stable, and followed Anthony's look.

It was directed toward a long shed, whose open side, being from the house, was invisible to Hal, but visible to the Puritan. As the young gentleman fixed his glance on that shed, there ran out from it nine or ten men, afoot, whose manifest purpose was indeed to intercept Anthony.

Hal recognized them as of Rumney's band, but their leader was not with them. Anthony spurred his horse for a final dash.

The foremost robber fired a pistol. Anthony's horse swayed, toppled over, lay quivering on its side. The Puritan fell free of the animal, having swung his leg over its back in the nick of time. Ere he could rise, his enemies were close upon him.

Marryott and Kit fired their pistols into the pack; then dropped these smoking weapons inside the stable door, and rushed out with ready swords to save the Puritan. Two robbers had sunk down as if tripped up by a rope, and two behind these fell over them in the onward rush. The fellows menacing Anthony, warned of the coming of Hal and Kit by the latter's loud-bellowed curses, turned so as not to be taken in the rear by them. This gave the Puritan time to rise to his feet. While his two rescuers engaged the nearest knaves. Anthony, to save the provisions, skirted the crowd and made for the door. But he was headed off by other rascals. John Hatch now ran forward to his aid, leaving Oliver Bunch alone to hold the doorway.

Two robbers, seeing this opportunity of gaining an entrance, charged the door. The trembling Bunch emptied his pistol into the breast of one, and made a feeble sword-thrust at the other. But the sword was dashed from his shaking hand. Oliver saw his antagonist's blade flash toward him, and dropped to the ground, uncertain whether he was killed or not. The robber, not to lose time, and joined by one of the knaves that had previously fallen unhurt, sprang over the servant's body, and ran through the stables, toward the door to the kitchen wing.

Kit Bottle killed his man in time to meet the attack of the second fellow that had fallen unhurt. Marryott was still engaging his first opponent, a black-bearded rascal of great strength and agility. Hal had at last detected the weak place in the other's guard, and was about to profit by it, when suddenly a fearful shriek, far-off but piercing, made his heart jump. It was borne from a window of the further wing of the mansion; was, as he recognized with a chill of the senses, from Mistress Hazlehurst.

He instantly leaped back from his antagonist, turned, and ran for the open door. Half way through the stables, he came upon one of the two robbers that had gained entrance. The fellow wheeled about, at sound of footsteps behind. With a single thrust, Hal cleared the way of him, and bounded on. At the door to the kitchen wing, the other robber was encountered in similar manner, and was as speedily removed. Gaining the main part of the mansion, Hal heard additional screams and cries for help, which now reached his ears by indoor ways. Like a madman, he dashed through the intervening rooms, cleared the hall, rushed up the stairs, traversed the corridor, sprang across the outer room, which was empty, and entered her chamber.

In the centre of the apartment lay one of Rumney's men, apparently done for. Near him were Francis, with a bleeding gash across his forehead, and Tom Cobble, his jerkin reddened by a fresh wound in the body. At the open window, a man was holding ready the top of a ladder, whose foot must have rested on the ground outside; while another man was tying the wrists of Mistress Hazlehurst, who was standing in a half fainting position in the single available arm of Rumney.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "RUMNEY ... BACKED QUICKLY TO THE WINDOW, AND MOUNTED THE LEDGE."]

The visible top of the ladder explained all. With a small force, leaving his other men at the shed. Rumney had caused this ladder--found in one of the outbuildings--to be stealthily placed at the chamber window, and had made good his ascent so quietly that even Tom and Francis, in the outer room, knew not of his presence until apprised by the shriek that had summoned Marryott.

Whether Rumney had known that this was Anne's chamber might be inquired into later. The present business was to rescue her from his grasp, and Hal rushed blindly forward to the work, his sword still dripping with the blood it had taken in the stables.

A smile of joy on Anne's face, driving the terror from her eyes, welcomed him to the task. But ere he could thrust at her captor, the latter had swiftly turned, so as to be s.h.i.+elded by her body. Rumney then, bearing her in one arm, as if she were of small weight, backed quickly to the window, and mounted the ledge. Hal rushed after.

The man who had been tying her wrists dropped to his knees, caught Hal's legs in both arms, and brought him heavily to the floor; then clambered over him on all fours, and grasped his sword-wrist with a powerful hand.

Hal cast a glance of dismay at Anne, who looked down at him with astonished and terrified eyes. Rumney, shouting two words as to some one holding the bottom of the ladder, bestrode the window, and set foot on one of the rounds. Doubtless, having no able arm free to grasp the ladder with, he was to be supported by the man who should follow him down.

"G.o.d's light, she is lost!" cried Hal, in tones of despair.

Just then there came, from the direction of the road, a peculiar sound, half cry, half whistle. It gave Captain Rumney a start; made him turn pale and stand still, with one foot on the ladder. It caused the man at the ladder's top to look anxiously at Rumney, and the robber upon Hal to rise and stride toward the window. By the time Hal was on his feet, the call was repeated a little nearer. Rumney hesitated no longer. With a m.u.f.fled oath, he released Mistress Hazlehurst, and slid, rather than stepped, down the ladder. Hal's man seized Anne, dragged her back from the window ledge to clear the way for himself, and thereby--probably without intention--saved her from losing her balance and falling out of the window. This rascal was speedily followed down the ladder by the one who had held its top; and the chamber was thus suddenly freed of robbers, excepting the inert one on the floor.

Marryott's first act was to cut the bonds from Anne's wrists. Motioning away his proffered further a.s.sistance, she regained the bed, and lay down exhausted, breathing rapidly from the excitement of the recent peril. Hal thereupon looked out of the window, and saw Rumney and three men running toward the rear of the wing, behind which they soon disappeared. What meant this sudden flight?

Marryott would have questioned Anne, but she received his first inquiries with shakes of the head, and with an expressed desire to be left alone. He then examined the wounds of Francis and Tom, which were painful, but apparently not serious. He a.s.sisted these two to the outer room, and dragged out the body of the robber, who, it proved, had fallen victim to the long knife of Tom Cobble. He now groaned, and opened his eyes. Finding that he possessed his senses, and promising to send water to him, Hal interrogated him as to why Rumney had selected that particular window for his stolen entrance. The knave replied, weakly, that when the robbers first rode around the house, they saw the lady standing at that window.

This, if true, was news to both Francis and Tom; but they had been asleep until roused by the shooting below. It was also a circ.u.mstance hard to reconcile with Anne's manifest illness, and it made Hal thoughtful.

Returning to the lower part of the house, whither more than one consideration called him, Hal was surprised to encounter Kit Bottle in the hall. The captain's face was wet with perspiration and blood.

"What?" cried Hal. "Is all well at the stable door?"

"Ay, the rascals heard their cry of danger, and took to their heels for the shed where their horses were. Rumney and some others joined them from behind the house, and forthwith it was switch and spur with all that were left of them. They're off now, like the wind."

"And Anthony?"

"He and our men are safe inside; they're barricading the stable door.

There be some few scratches and knocks among us; nothing more."

"What made the rascals fly so suddenly? A cry of danger, say you? What danger?"

"A cry of danger raised by their watchman in the road. He joined them as they fled. Let us go up and look."

The two ascended to the oriel whence Hal had fired down on Rumney's first a.s.sault. Kit's gaze instantly sought the road. At the distant gate stood a large group of hors.e.m.e.n, who appeared to have just come up, and to be scanning with interest the front of Foxby Hall. Several of them wore cuira.s.ses and steel head-pieces. In a moment, one of these turned his horse toward the mansion; the others followed.

"Tis plain now," said Kit. "Rumney's watchman liked not the looks of this party; perhaps he recognized that fellow at their head, and took him to be after the Rumney gang."

"And who is the fellow at their head?" asked Hal, with a strange thrill,--for he divined already the answer.

"'Tis Roger Barnet," said Kit, gruffly.

CHAPTER XX.

ROGER BARNET SITS DOWN TO SMOKE SOME TOBACCO.

"At least we'll die with harness on our back."--_Macbeth._

The avenue by which the pursuivant and his men were approaching the house would lead them first near the wing in which was Mistress Hazlehurst's chamber. Marryott remembered the ladder still outside her window.

"Devil's name!" he cried. "They may enter as Rumney did! Follow me, Kit!"