He dragged them all three about with him; he kicked, he hit, he did every thing that a man with one hand, and a lion’s heart, could do.

But gradually they got the better of him; and at last it came to this, that two were struggling on the ground with him, and Cole standing over them all three, ready to strike.

“Now, hold him so, while I settle him,” cried Cole, and raised his murderous cudgel.

It came down on Little’s shoulder, and only just missed his head.

Again it came down, and with terrible force.

Up to this time he had fought as mute as a fox.  But now that it had come to mere butchery, he cried out, in his agony, “They’ll kill me.  My mother!  Help!  Murder!  Help!”

“Ay! thou’lt never forge no more!” roared Cole, and thwack came down the crushing bludgeon.

“Help!  Murder!  Help!” screamed the victim, more faintly; and at the next blow more faintly still.

But again the murderous cudgel was lifted high, to descend upon his young head.

As the confederates held the now breathless and despairing victim to receive the blow, and the butcher, with one eye closed by Henry’s fist, but the other gleaming savagely, raised the cudgel to finish him, Henry saw a huge tongue of flame pour out at them all, from outside the church, and a report, that sounded like a cannon, was accompanied by the vicious ping of shot.  Cole screamed and yelled, and dropped his cudgel, and his face was covered with blood in a moment; he yelled, and covered his face with his hands; and instantly came another flash, another report, another cruel ping of shot, and this time his hands were covered with blood.

The others rolled yelling out of the line of fire, and ran up the aisle for their lives.

Cole, yelling, tried to follow; but Henry, though sick and weak with the blows, caught him, and clung to his knees, and the next moment the place was filled with men carrying torches and gleaming swords, and led by a gentleman, who stood over Henry, in evening dress, but with the haughty expanded nostrils, the brilliant black eyes, and all the features of that knight in rusty armor who had come to him in his dream and left him with scorn.

At this moment a crash was heard:  two of the culprits, with desperate agility, had leaped on to the vestry chest, and from that on to the horse, and from him headlong out of the window.

Mr. Raby dispatched all his men but one in pursuit, with this brief order—­“Take them, alive or dead—­doesn’t matter which—­they are only cutlers; and cowards.”

His next word was to Cole.  “What, three blackguards to one!—­that’s how Hillsborough fights, eh?”

“I’m not a blackguard,” said Henry, faintly.

“That remains to be proved, sir,” said Raby, grimly.

Henry made answer by fainting away.

CHAPTER XVI.