‘They will murder us!’ he protested faintly.  His cheeks were pale; his face wore a scared look, and he trembled visibly.

‘Let them!’ she answered passionately, beating on the nearest door.  ‘Better that than be in their hands.  Help!  Help!  Help here!’

Her shrieks rose above the rumble of the wheels and the steady trampling of the horses; she added to the noise by kicking and beating on the door with the fury of a mad woman.  Mr. Thomasson had had enough of violence for that day; and shrank from anything that might bring on him the fresh wrath of his captors.  But a moment’s reflection showed him that if he allowed himself to be carried on he would, sooner or later, find himself face to face with Mr. Dunborough; and, in any case, that it was now his interest to stand by his companion; and presently he too fell to shouting and drumming on the panels.  There was a quaver, indeed, in his ‘Help!  Help!’ that a little betrayed the man; but in the determined clamour which she raised and continued to maintain, it passed well enough.

‘If we meet any one—­they must hear us!’ she gasped, presently, pausing a moment to take breath.  ‘Which way are we going?’

‘Towards Calne, I think,’ he answered, continuing to drum on the door in the intervals of speech.  ‘In the street we must be heard.’

‘Help!  Help!’ she screamed, still more recklessly.  She was growing hoarse, and the prospect terrified her.  ’Do you hear?  Stop, villains!  Help!  Help!  Help!’

‘Murder!’ Mr. Thomasson shouted, seconding her with voice and fist.  ‘Murder!  Murder!’

But in the last word, despite his valiant determination to throw in his lot with her, was a sudden, most audible, quaver.  The carriage was beginning to draw up; and that which he had imperiously demanded a moment before, he now as urgently dreaded.  Not so Julia; her natural courage had returned, and the moment the vehicle came to a standstill and the door was opened, she flung herself towards it.  The next instant she was pushed forcibly back by the muzzle of a huge horse-pistol which a man outside clapped to her breast; while the glare of the bull’s-eye lanthorn which he thrust in her face blinded her.

The man uttered the most horrid imprecations.  ‘You noisy slut,’ he growled, shoving his face, hideous in its crape mask, into the coach, and speaking in a voice husky with liquor, ’will you stop your whining?  Or must I blow you to pieces with my Toby?  For you, you white-livered sneak,’ he continued, addressing the tutor, ’give me any more of your piping and I’ll cut out your tongue!  Who is hurting you, I’d like to know!  As for you, my fine lady, have a care of your skin, for if I pull you out into the road it will be the worse for you!  D’ye hear me? he continued, with a volley of savage oaths.  ’A little more of your music, and I’ll have you out and strip the clothes off your back!  You don’t hang me for nothing.  D—­n you, we are three miles from anywhere, and I have a mind to gag you, whether or no!  And I will too, if you so much as open your squeaker again!’