As the gla.s.s shivered and flew wide, under the point of Nell's blade, all eyes turned toward her and all blades quivered threateningly in the air.

Buckingham was first to ascend the steps in pursuit. He was disarmed--more through the superiority of Nell's position than through the dexterity of her wrist.

Then for the first time, she realized her danger. Her eyes staring from their sockets, she drew back from her murderous pursuers, and, in startled accents, she knew not why, screamed in supplication, with hands uplifted:

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!"

The storm was stayed. All paused to hear what the stranger-youth would say. Would he apologize or would he surrender?

The suspense was for but a second, though it seemed an eternity to Nell.

The open window was behind.

With a parting glance at the trembling blades, she turned quickly and with reckless daring leaped the balcony.

"T' h.e.l.l with ye!" was wafted back in a rich brogue defiantly by the night.

Astonishment and consternation filled the room; but the bird had flown.

Some said that the wicked farewell-speech had been Adair's, and some said not.

How it all happened, no one could tell, unless it was a miracle.

CHAPTER XV

_I come, my love; I come._

One lonely candle, or to speak more strictly a bit of one, sputtered in its silver socket in the cosy drawing-room; and a single moonbeam found its way in through the draperies of the window leading to the terrace and to St. James's Park.

Moll lay upon a couch asleep; but it was a restless sleep.

The voice of a town-crier resounded faintly across the park: "Midnight; and all is well."

She started up and rubbed her eyes in a bewildered way.

"The midnight crier!" she thought; and there was a troubled expression in her face. "I have been asleep and the candle's nearly out."

She jumped to her feet and hastily lighted two or three of its more substantial mates, of which there was an abundance in the rich candelabra about the room.

A cricket in a crevice startled her. She ran to the window and looked anxiously out upon the park, then hastened to the door, with equal anxiety, lest it might be unlocked. Every shadow was to her feverish fancy a spirit of evil or of death.

"I wish Nell would come," she thought. "The ghosts and skeletons fairly swarm in this old house at midnight; and I am all alone to-night. It's different when Nell's about. The goblins are afraid of her merry laugh.

Boo! I am cold all over. I am afraid to stand still, and I am afraid to move."

She ran again to the window and this time pulled it open. The moonlight instantly flooded the room, dimming the candles which she had lighted.

She saw her shadow, and started back in horror.

"Some one glided behind the old oak in the park," she cried aloud, for the company of her voice. "Oh, oh! Nell will be murdered! I begged her not to go to Portsmouth's ball. She said she just wanted to peep in and pay her respects to the hostess. Moll! You better pray."

She fell upon her knees and reverently lifted her hands and eyes in prayer.

Something fell in the room with a heavy thud. She shut her eyes tight and prayed harder. The object of her fear was a long gray boot, which had been thrown in at the window and had fallen harmlessly by her side.

It was followed in an instant by its mate, equally harmless yet equally dreadful.

A jaunty figure, a.s.sisted by a friendly shoulder, then bounded over the bal.u.s.trade and rested with a sigh of relief just within the window-opening. It was Nell, returning from the wars; she was pale, almost death-like. The evening's excitement, her daring escapade and more especially its exciting finish had taken hold of her in earnest.

Her dainty little self was paying the penalty. She was all of a tremble.

"Safe home at last!" she cried wearily. "Heaven reward you, Strings."

From below the terrace, without the window, responded the fiddler, in sympathetic, loving tones: "Good night, Mistress Nell; and good sleep."

"Good night, comrade," answered Nell, as she almost fell into the room, calling faintly: "Moll! Moll! What are you doing, Moll?"

Moll closed her eyes tighter and prayed still more fervently.

"Praying for Nell," her trembling lips mechanically replied.

"Humph!" cried Nell, half fainting, throwing herself upon the couch.

"There's no spirit in this flesh worth praying for. Some wine, some wine; and the blessing after."

The command brought Moll to her senses and she realized that it was really Nell who had entered thus unceremoniously. She rushed to her for safety, like a frightened deer to the lake.

"Nell, dear Nell!" she cried. "You are ill."

"Wine, wine, I say," again fell in peremptory tones from the half-reclining Nell.

Moll glanced in dismay at her bootless mistress: her garments all awry; her sword ill sheathed; her cloak uncaught from the shoulder and half used, petticoat-like, as a covering for her trembling-limbs; her hair dishevelled; her cheeks pale; her wild eyes, excitement-strained, staring from their sockets.

"You are wounded; you are going to die," she cried. "Moll will be all alone in the world again."

Her hands shook more than Nell's as she filled a gla.s.s half full of wine and pa.s.sed it to her mistress.

"To the brim, girl, to the brim," commanded Nell, reviving at the prospect of the draught. "There!"

She tossed off the drink in gallant fashion: "I tell you, sweetheart, we men need lots of stimulating."

"You are all of a tremble," continued Moll.

"Little wonder!" sighed Nell. "These braveries are a trifle chilly, sweet mouse. Boo!" She laughed hysterically, while Moll closed the window. "You see, I never was a man before, and I had all that lost time to make up--acres of oats to scatter in one little night. Open my throat; I cannot breathe. Take off my sword. The wars are done, I hope."

She startled Moll, who was encasing her mistress's pretty feet in a pair of dainty shoes, with another wild, hilarious laugh. "Moll," she continued, "I was the gayest mad-cap there. The s.e.x were wild for me. I knew their weak points of attack, la.s.s. If I had been seeking a mate, I could have made my market of them all and started a harem."

She seemed to forget all her dangers past in the recollection.

"Wicked girl," said Moll, pouting reprovingly.