She propped him against the nail-studded door, and placed herself before, him, and the three robbers, bunched together in a group, stealing along the middle of the way, might almost have gone past without seeing them.  But it was not a chance to trust to.  Miss Gregory let them come abreast of her; her whole honest body was tense to the occasion; on the due moment she flung herself forward and the brandished umbrella rained loud blows on aghast heads; and at the same time she summoned to her aid her one accomplishment—­she shrieked.  She was a strong woman, deep-chested, full-lunged; her raw yell shattered the stillness of the night like some crazy trumpet; it broke from her with the suddenness of a catastrophe, nerve-sapping, ear-scaring, heart-striking.  Before it and the assault of the stout umbrella the robbers broke; a panic captured them; they squealed, clasped at each other, and ran in mere senseless amaze.  The Latin blood, when diluted with Coast mixtures, is never remarkable for courage; but braver men might have scattered at the alarm of that mighty discordancy attacking from behind.

Fortunately the door they sought was not far off; through it they entered a big untidy room, stone-floored as the custom is, and littered with all the various trifles a man gathers about him on the Coast.  Miss Gregory put her patient on the narrow bed and turned to the door; true to his fears, it would not lock.  The youth was very pale and in much fear; blood stained the back of his clothes, and his eyes followed her about in appeal.

“You must wait a little,” Miss Gregory told him.  “I’ll look at that wound of yours when I’ve seen to the door.  No lock, of course.”  She pondered frowningly.  “It’s a childish thing at the best,” she added thoughtfully; “but it may be a novelty in these parts.  Have you ever arranged a booby trap, my boy?”

“No,” he answered, wonderingly.

Miss Gregory shook her head.  “The lower classes are getting worse and worse,” she observed.  She put a chair by the door, which stood a little ajar, and looked about her.

“As you are going away you won’t want this china.”  It was his ewer and wash-hand basin.  “I don’t see anything better, and it’ll make a smash, at any rate.”

“What you goin’ to do, ma’am?” asked the man on the bed.

“Watch,” she bade him.  It was not easy, but with care she managed to poise the basin and the ewer in it on top of the door, so that it leaned on the lintel and must fall as soon as the door was pushed wider.

“Now,” she said, when it was done, “let’s have a look at that cut.”

It was an ugly gash high in the back, to the left of the spine—­a bungler’s or a coward’s attempt at the terrible heart-stab.  Miss Gregory, examining it carefully, was of opinion that she could have done it better; it had bled copiously, but she judged it not to be dangerous.  She washed it and made a bandage for it out of a couple of the patient’s shirts, and he found himself a good deal more comfortable.  He lay back on his bed with some of the color restored to his face, and watched her as she moved here and there about the room with eyes that were trustful and slavish.