“Wid thim murtherin, vill’ns?”
“I’m one myself!”
“Already?” she cried. “Tom—Tom—”
It was his turn to hold up a warning hand.
Miss Sullivan stood listening at the door; but not to them.
Tom listened too.
For some instants all was still.
Then a thwack, thwack, thwack was greeted with a yell of savage joy; and Miss Sullivan was gone from the door.
“Let her go,” cried Tom, seizing Peggy’s wrist. “I did my best for her. You at all events shall be saved!”
“Not without you, Tom.”
“Nonsense, Peggy; I must see this through.”
“An’ so must I, then!”
With these words she set her back to the open door; but there stood Tom, looking past and beyond her, as though he had not heard one of them. Presently a soft laugh came from his lips.
“All right, Peggy! You are safer than I thought. Look behind you!”
The girl obeyed; and there, trotting two abreast through the open gate, were a score of troopers, with the glare from the still blazing hut reddening their whiskered faces, jewelling their spurs, and gilding from hilt to point the waving sword of the lad who rode at their head.
Peggy stood aghast with an amazement that left no room for thought; it was only when the cavalcade had swept close by, and so out of sight, at a gallop, that she heard Tom speaking to her from a height. He had himself mounted one of the horses, and was entreating her to stand aside and let him out.
