“Take the lady!” said Sir Nicholas, and lowered her into Joshua’s arms.
“Beshrew your heart, master!” whispered Joshua, staggering under the burden. “Are you mad in very sooth? Come away, sir! For the love of God come swiftly!”
“I come,” said Sir Nicholas, and climbed lightly over the sill. He dropped to the ground, lifted his prisoner from Joshua’s straining arms, and carried her off over his shoulder across the dark pleasaunce to the low wall, and the spinney beyond.
“We are sped! we are sped!” almost moaned Joshua. “And you lug the wrong lady off with us! What now, master? Whither?”
“To that hunting-lodge,” said Sir Nicholas through his teeth. “We shall leave the wrong lady in the spinney. I do not think they will look for her there in a hurry.” He dumped Doña Beatrice down on the wall, climbed over, and lifted her up again. She was carried to the thicket where the horses stood, and set down in the middle of it. Sir Nicholas untied his horse and gathered the bridle in his hand. A moment he looked down at Doña Beatrice, glaring up at him. “Señora,” he said, “do not repine at the discomfort of your situation. Had you been a man I should have killed you.”
XXIII
The track through the forest was found, and Beauvallet’s horse leaped forward under the spur. Joshua, pressing up close, looked anxiously into his master’s grimly smiling face. “Master, what is it?” he said fearfully.
“Don Diego has had my lady shut up in the lodge since yesterday,” said Sir Nicholas curtly.
Joshua’s jaw dropped. He could understand now why Sir Nicholas wore his killing look. This was ill news; the very worst that could have befallen. His stupefaction passed; righteous wrath sprang up. “Ah, villain! ah, crack-hemp! If we slit not your weasand for this!”
They galloped on down the track. To either side the great trees reared up, ghostly in the darkness. The road was good, a grassy ride cut through the woods. “Well for us it was, for we did not pick our way daintily, look you,” says Joshua.
Sir Nicholas caught his horse up on a stumble, and turned his head. “Hard-pressed now, my Joshua,” he said, and shook the sword in his scabbard slightly.
“In my opinion, master, there is naught new in that,” said Joshua philosophically.
“How many men, by your reckoning?”
“Enough to do our business,” said Joshua dryly. “But having dumped the fat lady in the spinney—I allow it to have been politic, upon reflection—and so shut her mouth, we may yet win clear away.”
“I don’t think it,” said Sir Nicholas calmly. “They may waste time in searching for her, but if I read this villainy aright every hilding on the estate will know where Doña Dominica lies, and send the guards hotfoot after me there.”
Joshua spoke in a voice of alarm. “Save you, master, save you! do you lose heart? For if that is so at last then I know we are shent.”
The answering laugh reassured him. “Oh chewet, do you not know when I am in fighting humour?”
“I should indeed, sir,” acknowledged Joshua. “I make bold to say I find you dangerous at this present. There will be broken heads and slit gullets yet.”
They rode on in silence, stirrup to stirrup. Presently Beauvallet spoke again. “I may have to lead the chase astray a little,” he said. “Do you ride off with my lady by the northwest road to Villanova, and there await me. You mark me?”
“Master, do you tell me to desert you?” said Joshua, offended. “That is not very likely.”
He caught the well-known gleam in Beauvallet’s eye. “Oho!” said Sir Nicholas softly. “Do you command here, my friend? Now I think you will do as I say, or it may be the worse for you.”
“Pretty treatment, master, by my troth!” said Joshua. “Well, go to: I do not deny you are the General.”
“If we are overtaken,” said Sir Nicholas, ignoring this stricture upon his ruthless methods, “as I have little doubt we shall be, ride with my lady hotfoot to Villanova, and there await me. Is it understood?”
“Well, master, well. And if you come not?”
“By this hand I shall come!” said Beauvallet. “What, do you fear for me? Know then that I was never more in the mood to try a throw with death.”
“That I may very easily believe, sir, and I may add that it does not set me the more at ease,” said Joshua. He peered ahead and reined in to a walk. “Softly now! What’s here?”
A house loomed up ahead, approached by a wicket-gate giving on to the track. There was a low building some three hundred yards further on: stables, Joshua guessed.
Sir Nicholas slipped from the saddle, and twitched the bridle over his horse’s head. “This should be the place. Follow me now.” He led the way off the track into the gloom of the forest. The moss-grown floor muffled the sound of the horses’ hooves; they skirted the house, and came round to the back of it, under cover of the trees. The horses were swiftly tethered to a young sapling. Sir Nicholas unbuckled his sword-belt, and drew the shining blade clear of its sheath. “No need to take this to hamper me,” he said, and left the scabbard on the ground. He scanned the back of the house, and saw a lighted window on the upper storey. “Aha, my bird, do you lie there?” he said. “We shall see anon. Now I am for you, Don Diego de Carvalho!”
They went quickly round to the front of the house. Joshua had his long dagger out, and followed silently in Beauvallet’s grim wake. Sir Nicholas went boldly now, the naked sword in his hand, and hammered on the door of the lodge with its chased hilt.
“God’s my life, we stalk on our fate now!” muttered Joshua, aghast at these high-handed measures.
They heard footsteps approaching inside the house, rather hesitantly. Sir
