"Seize Mary by force and bear her away, lad," I whispered, "down
cellar to the boat. Catherine will show thee the way."
"I cannot, Harry," he whispered back, and as I live the tears were
in the boy's eyes. "I cannot leave thee, Harry."
"You must; there is no other way, if you would save her," I
whispered back. "And what good can you do by staying? The four of
us will be taken, for you can do nothing for me single-handed.
Captain Jaynes is killed--I saw him fall--and the parson has
fled, and--and--I know not where be the others. For God's
sake, lad, save her!"
Then Sir Humphrey with such a look at me as I never forgot, but have
always loved him for, with no more ado, turned upon Mary Cavendish,
and caught her, pinioning both arms, and lifted her as if she had
been an infant, and Catherine would have gone to her rescue, but I
caught at her hand, which was still at work on my bandage.
"Go you with them and show the way to the boat," I whispered. She
set her mouth hard and looked at me. "I will not leave thee," she
said.
"If you go not, then they will be lost," I cried out in desperation.
For Mary was shrieking that she would not go, and I knew that
Humphrey did not know the way, and could not find it and launch the
boat in time with that struggling maid to encumber him, for already
the door trembled as if to fall.
"I tell you they will not harm a wounded man," I cried. "If you
leave me I am in no more worse case than now, and if you remain,
think of your sister. You know what she hath done to abet the
rebellion. 'Twill all come out if she be found here. Oh, Catherine,
if you love her, I pray thee, go."
Then Catherine Cavendish did something which I did not understand at
the time, and perhaps never understood rightly. Close over me she
bent, and her soft hair fell over my face and hers, hiding them, and
she kissed me on my forehead, and she said low, but quite clearly,
"Whatever thou hast done in the past, my scorn henceforth shall be
for the deed, not for thee, for thou art a man."
Then to her feet she sprang and caught hold of Mary's struggling
right arm, though it might as well have struggled in a vise as in
Sir Humphrey Hyde's reluctant, but mighty grasp.