[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BRAZEN NOTES CLOVE THE AIR."]

Should matters so shape that her life be endangered by her position, Hal might, at the last moment, sever with his dagger the cord that bound her to him. She, being now deprived of weapons, could not do this.

As for Francis, stealthy and resolute as recent occurrences had shown him to be, there was nothing to fear from him while he bestrode the saddle-bow of Anthony Underhill.

It was eight o'clock when they started from the abandoned coach. A little after nine they pa.s.sed through Skipton. The town was half invisible through the falling snow, which, as it came, was the sport of the same wind that made cas.e.m.e.nts rattle and weather-c.o.c.ks creak, and street-folk m.u.f.fle themselves and pay small heed to pa.s.sing riders.

To test his device and his men, Master Marryott, when half way through the town, sounded his horn and gave his horse the spur. The response, from all but Captain Rumney, was instant and hearty. The brazen notes clove the air, the men emitted a score of unearthly yells, the horses dashed forward; and the clamor, which caused the few snow-blinded outdoor folk to stare blinkingly, might well have awakened the ghosts of the ancient castle of the Cliffords. But neither ghosts nor townspeople stayed the turbulent strangers.

When Hal ordered a cessation, outside the town, he found that the men were in the better humor for the little outlet to their pent-up deviltry; all with the exception of Rumney, who had galloped with the rest, but in silence.

Rumney had indeed been moody since the abandonment of the coach. He had kept his place behind Marryott, in full range of the eyes of the lady on the pillion, who, as she sat sidewise, could look back at him with ease.

Her glances, eloquent of a kind of surprise at his inaction, gave him an ill opinion of himself which he soon burned to revenge upon some one.

And his feelings were not sweetened by his men's good humor over an incident from which he had excluded himself.

Of the roads from Skipton, Marryott chose that which he thought would take him soonest into the North Riding. The cavalcade had gone perhaps four miles upon this road, when, suddenly, Captain Rumney called out:

"Halt, lads, and close in upon this quarry!"

His men checked their horses, some with surprise, some as if the order might have been expected. They drew their blades, too,--blades of every variety,--and turned their horses about.

Captain Bottle instantly urged his steed back toward Hal, charging through the confusion of plunging horses in true cavalry fashion.

Marryott himself wheeled half around to face Rumney. Anthony Underhill, with Francis on his saddle-bow, grimly menaced the robbers who had turned.

"What means this, Captain Rumney?" said Hal, quietly. Every sword in the company was now unsheathed.

"It means that I cry, stand and deliver!" replied the robber, finding all needful confidence and courage in the very utterance of the habitual challenge. He felt himself now in his own role, and feared nothing.

"Is it not foolish," answered Marryott, without raising his voice, "to risk your skin thus, for the sake of money that would be yours to-morrow in payment of service?"

"To the devil with your money,--though I'll have that, too, ere all's done! First deliver me the lady!"

"I am much more like to deliver you to the flames below!" replied Hal.

"Say you so! Upon him, boys!" cried Rumney, raising a pistol, which he had furtively got ready to fire.

Two things occurred at the same moment: Anthony Underhill got his sword engaged with that of the nearest robber who had moved to obey Rumney's order; and Master Marryott struck Rumney's pistol aside with his rapier, so that it discharged itself harmlessly into the falling snow.

Hal's next movement was to turn Rumney's sword-point with his dagger, which he held in the same hand with his rein. Behind him, Mistress Hazlehurst clung to her pillion, in a state of mind that may be imagined. In front of Anthony Underhill. Francis, the page, made himself small, to avoid a possible wild thrust from the fellow that contested with the Puritan.

By this time Kit Bottle had reached Anthony's side.

"What, ye jolly bawc.o.c.ks!" he cried to the robbers, his sword-point raised aloft, as if he awaited the result of his words ere choosing a victim for it. "Will ye follow this cheap rascal Rumney 'gainst gentlemen? He'll prove traitor to you all, an ye trust him long enough; as he did to me in the Low Countries! Mr. Edward Moreton, and honest John Hatch, and good Oliver Bunch, I call on you stand by true men!"

"And Tom Cobble!" shouted Hal, without looking back from his combat with Rumney, which, although it was now one of rapiers, they continued to wage on horseback. "You're my man, I wot! A raw rustical rogue like this, is not fit for London lads to follow!"

"What say ye, mates?" cried Tom Cobble. "I am for the gentleman!"

"And I!" quoth John Hatch, stoutly; Ned Moreton, airily; Oliver Bunch, timidly; and two or three others.

"A murrain on gentlemen!" roared a burly fellow, and a chorus of approving oaths and curses showed that a majority of Rumney's men remained faithful to their old leader.

"Good, my hearts!" cried their captain, his brow clearing of the cloud that had risen at the first defection. "There shall be the more pickings for you that are staunch! I'll kill every deserter!"

"Look to't you be not killed yourself!" quoth Master Marryott, leaning forward to keep the area of steel-play far from Mistress Hazelhurst.

Rumney had exchanged his emptied pistol for a dagger, and he imitated Hal in using it with the hand that held his rein. In rapier-and-dagger fights, the long weapon was used for thrusting, the short one for parrying. Such contests were not for horseback. When mounted enemies met, so armed, they would ordinarily dismount and fight afoot. But Marryott was determined not to separate himself from his prisoner, and Rumney chose to remain in readiness for pursuit in case his antagonist should resort to flight.

So this unique duel went on,--a single combat with rapier and dagger, on horseback, one of the contestants sharing his horse with a lady on a pillion behind him! The combat remained single because Rumney's men had all they could do in defending themselves against the vigorous attack of Kit Bottle. Anthony Underhill, and the deserters from their own band.

These deserters, knowing that the defeat of the side they had taken would leave them at the mercy of the Rumney party, fought with that fury which comes of having no alternative but victory or death. There was not an idle or a shirking sword to be found on either side. Each man chose his particular antagonist, and when one combatant had worsted his opponent he found another or went to the aid of a comrade. In the narrow roadway, in blinding flakes, and with mingled cries of pain, rage, and elation, these riders plied their weapons one against another, until blood dripped in many places on the fallen snow that was tramped by the rearing horses.

The strange miniature battle, fought in a place out of sight of human habitation, and with no witnesses but the two prisoners so dangerously placed for viewing it, lasted for ten minutes. Then Master Marryott, whose adroitness, sureness, and swiftness had begun to appall and confuse Rumney, ran his rapier through the latter's sword-arm.

With a loud exclamation, the robber dropped the arm to his side, and backed his horse out of reach with his left hand.

But Hal, with a fierce cry "Talk you of killing?" spurred his horse forward as if to finish with the rascal. This was a pretence, but it worked its purpose.

"Quarter," whimpered the robber captain, pale with fear.

"Then call off your hounds!" replied Hal, hotly, checking his horse.

"I will," answered the trembling Rumney, quickly. "Lads, a truce! Put up your swords, curse you!"

His men were not sorry to get this order, nor their opponents to hear it given. The fight had gone too evenly to please either side, and wounds--some of them perhaps destined to prove fatal--had been nearly equally distributed. Hal's adherents ceased fighting when their foes did, Kit Bottle being the last, and probably the only reluctant one, to desist.

"And now you will turn back, Master Rumney," said Marryott, in a hard, menacing tone, "and find another road to travel! Take with you the knaves that stood by you. The others, an they choose, shall remain my men, in my pay. Come, you rogues, march!"

Master Marryott backed to the side of the road, that Rumney's followers might pa.s.s. They did so, readily enough, those who were unhorsed being lifted to saddles by their comrades. Until the two parties were distinctly separated, and several paces were between them, every weapon and every eye on either side remained on the alert to meet treachery.

All the deserters from Rumney stayed with Hal.

"'G.o.d bless you, Ancient Rumney,'" called out Kit Bottle, slightly altering a remembered speech from a favorite play, as the robber turned his horse's head toward Skipton. "'You scurvy, lousy knave. G.o.d bless you!'"

Rumney and his men rode for some distance without answer; Hal and his company, motionless, looking after them. Suddenly, when he was beyond easy overtaking, the robber leader turned in his saddle, and shouted back, vindictively:

"I scorn you, Kit Bottle! You are no better than an Irish footboy! And your master there is a woman-stealing dog, that I'll be quits with yet.

He's no gentleman, neither, but a scurvy fencing-master in false feathers!"

"Shall I give chase and make him eat his words?" asked Kit of Master Marryott.

"Nay, the cur that whines for mercy, and receives it, and then snarls back at a safe distance, is too foul for thy hands, Kit! Let those fellows on the ground be put on horses and supported till we find a safe place for them. I'll not abandon any that stood by me. And then, onward! Madam, I trust you were not incommoded. Your page, I see, is safe."

Mistress Hazlehurst deigned no answer. Her feelings were wrapped in a cloak of outward composure.

The wounded men were soon made safe upon horses, and the northward journey was again in progress.

"I thank heaven we are rid of Captain Rumney!" said Hal to Kit Bottle, who now rode beside him. Anthony having taken the lead.