“No, no; none o’ that!” he whispered, hoarsely.  “Ye’d drown like rats, and we can’t afford no sech foolish sakerfices on the altar o’ Baal.  Hunker down and lie clost; if there’s any dying to be done, ye’ve got a good half o’ the night ahead of ye, and there’s all o’ to-morrow that ain’t teched yet.”

It takes a pitiless avalanche of words to spread these interlinear doings out for you; but you are to conceive that the pause is mine and not the action’s.  While the old man was yet pulling us down, my fearless little lady had drawn back a pace and was giving the villain his answer.

“I am glad I know you now for what you are, Captain Falconnet,” she said, coldly.  And then:  “You can take me with you, if you choose, having the brute strength to make good so much of your threat.  But that is all.  You can not take for yourself what I have given to another.”

“Can not, you say?” He clapped his hat on smartly and whistled for his horse-holder; and when the man was gone to fetch the mounts for the women, he finished out the sentence.  “Listen you, in your turn, Mistress Spitfire.  I shall take what I list, and before you see your father’s house again, you’ll beg me on your knees, as other women have, to marry you for very shame’s sake!”

It was then that Uncanoola did the skilfulest bit of jugglery it has ever been my lot to witness.  Posturing like one of those old Grecian discus-throwers, he sent his scalping-knife handle foremost to glide snake-like through the grass to stop at Margery’s feet.  Though I think she knew not how it got there, she saw it, and the courage of the sight helped her to say, quickly: 

“When it comes to that, sir, I shall know how to keep faith with honor.”

His laugh was the harshest mockery of mirth.  “You will keep faith with me, dear lady; do you hear?  Otherwise—­”

He turned to take the black mare from his man.  At this my brave one set her foot upon the weapon in the grass.

“I have no faith to keep with you, Captain Falconnet,” she said.

[Illustration]

He struck back viciously.  “Then, by heaven, you’d best make the occasion.  It has happened, ere this, that a lady as dainty as you are has become a plaything for an Indian camp.  It lies with me to save you from that, my Mistress.”

She stooped to gather her skirts for mounting, and in the act secured and hid the knife.  So her answer had in it the fine steadfastness of one who may make desperate terms with death for honor’s sake.

“I thank you for the warning, Captain Falconnet,” she said, facing him bravely to the last.  “When the time comes, mayhap the dear God will give me leave to die as my mother’s daughter should.”

“Bah!” said he; and with that he whistled for his troopers; and while we looked, my dear lady and her tirewoman were helped upon their horses, and at the leader’s word of command the escort formed upon the captives as a center.  A moment later the little glade, with the smoldering embers of the lodge fire to prick out its limits in dusky red, was empty, and on the midnight stillness of the forest the minishing hoofbeats of the horses came fainter and fainter till the distance swallowed them.