"Fighting outside!" he cried. Turning to the woman he asked, with a fierceness that contrasted with his previous calm, "Who is the traitor here?"

His sword was naked in his hand as he spoke and he made a rush for the door. But before he could reach it it was flung open in his face and Halfman rushed in, waving his drawn sword, and followed by Thoroughgood carrying a gun and Garlinge and Clupp armed with pikes.

Inevitably bewildered by the sudden turn in the tide of events, Evander Cloud gave ground for a moment before the onrush, while Halfman, staggering like a drunken man, reeled forward towards Brilliana, shrieking:

"There is fighting in the rebel lines. Help has come at last."

Whatever joy the tidings gave to Brilliana, she wasted no words from the needs of the moment. Pointing to Evander where he stood, irresolute in surprise, she commanded, "Secure that man!"

Evander's resolution returned to him with the sound of her voice, but he was one against too many. While he tried to engage the blade of Halfman, a swinging blow from the pike of Garlinge knocked his weapon out of his hand, and in another moment he was gripped in the grasp of the two young country giants, while Thoroughgood covered him with his musketoon.

"This is treachery," he gasped; but no one paid any attention to his protest. Halfman, convinced that the Puritan was a sure prisoner, swaggered up to Brilliana with all the arrogance of a stage herald.

"Dear lord," he shouted, "dear lady, a company of Cavaliers are galloping up the avenue, a-shouting like devils for the King."

He was flushed and drunk with exhilaration; he could speak no more; the timely episode tickled his tired brain like wine; he caught at the table for support and muttered inarticulately. Thoroughgood, who had secured Evander's fallen sword, interpolated a word of explanation.

"It is Sir Rufus, my lady--Sir Rufus and his friends."

The interruption had been so sudden, the things that had chanced had pa.s.sed so swiftly, that Brilliana still stood as she had stood when she gave the command to secure Evander. But now all her being seemed alive with a new life.

"I hear them; I hear them!" she cried, exultantly. And, indeed, the sounds came very clearly now of fierce young voices shouting for the King.

"The King! The King!" Brilliana cried, in an ecstasy, and as the loyal syllables died on her lips there came a trampling of near feet, and then through the yawning doorway rushed a covey of young gentlemen waving their drawn swords and yelling their cry, "The King!

The King!" As they flooded into the room, bright foam on the wave of victorious loyalty, Brilliana knew them all. Sir Rufus Quaryll, her neighbor and hot lover; the Lord Fawley, who had vainly wooed her for wife; Sir John Radlett, who had the sense to love her and the sense to hold his tongue; Captain Bardon, the bold and bluff; and young Lord Richard Ingrow, with the delicate, girlish face that masked the amazing rake. She seemed to see them as in some golden dream, seemed to hear a-down the vistas of dreams the echoes of their gallant cries of "G.o.d save the King!" Then as the new-comers knelt before her she knew that all was true.

"G.o.d bless you, gentlemen!" she cried, from a full heart. "You are very well come."

Rufus Quaryll, neighbor and wooer, was the first to speak, looking up at her with rapture in his eyes of reddish brown.

"Imperial lady, the siege of Harby is raised."

Brilliana flung out her hands to him, and as he caught and kissed them she raised him to his feet.

"Your news is music," she said, and her voice was as blithe as a song.

"We are heralds of victory," Rufus said, as he stood and looked into her eyes.

My Lord Fawley rose from his knees with a whoop.

"We have pelted the rebels from Edgehill," he shouted. Sir John Radlett caught him up. "We banged them finely," he trumpeted. Young Ingrow, with a flush on his fine cheeks, sang out a shrill "Hurrah for Prince Rupert!" and bluff Bardon rubbed his hands as he chuckled, "He brushed them into dust."

All the Cavaliers spoke rapidly and eagerly, flinging their phrases each on top of the other. Rufus summed up all in a single splendid sentence.

"The road lies plain to London."

"Heaven be praised," Brilliana e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and then, wonder treading on the heels of thankfulness, she questioned, "How came you here so timely?"

My Lord Fawley broke into a boisterous laugh which seemed to rattle among the rafters.

"Oh, Lord, the best jest in the world," he bellowed. Bardon clapped a hand on lad Ingrow's shoulder.

"Our Ingrow writes a clerky hand," he a.s.serted. Ingrow, stabbing at Bardon's stout ribs with slender fingers, riposted:

"And our Bardon has a merry invention."

Brilliana looked commands and entreaties at the row of jolly, laughing faces.

"Do not play the sphinx with me," she pleaded. Rufus immediately made himself interpreter of the mirth.

"Why, between us we forged a letter from my lord high d.a.m.nable traitor Ess.e.x to your enemy here, advising him of reinforcements, a.s.suring him of the King's defeat."

"Yes," chirruped the Lord Fawley, "and the gull-gaby swallowed the bait."

"When we rode up but now," Radlett interposed, "his rascals received us with open arms."

Rufus smiled sardonically as he completed the story of the entrapment.

"They took us for Ess.e.x men because of our orange-tawny scarves, but they found out when too late that we were right-tight Cavalier lads and no crop-eared curmudgeons. Why, we were in the thick of them with sword and pistol before they had stayed from snuffling their psalms of welcome."

Brilliana held out her hand again for her cousin's hand and clasped it manfully.

"How rich is the ring of victory in your loyal voice," she sighed.

"My last public news was of the King's stay at Shrewsbury. Then these curmudgeons raced hot-foot from Cambridge to pull down my flag. But 'This is Loyalty House,' says I, and 'Go to the devil,' says I--forgive me, sirs, if I raged unmaidenly--and I slammed the door in their sour faces. Then came such a tintamar, rebels firing on us, we firing on rebels, and so in such noise and thunder we have been eclipsed out of the world these weary days."

"Never were such days better lived through since the world began,"

said Rufus. "You do well to call this Loyalty House which has held out so well against the King's enemies."

Brilliana now turned to where Halfman stood apart, his hands resting on the hilt of his sword, and the shadow of a frown on his forehead as he eyed the babbling gallants.

"That Loyalty House should hold out so long as it could was from the first my purpose," she said. "But that it was able to hold out so long as it did was greatly due to the courage and the counsels of this brave gentleman."

As she spoke she pointed to Halfman, whose dark face flushed with pleasure as he gave back the stares of the astonished Cavaliers who up to now had left him unnoticed.

"Gentles," she went on, "this is Captain Halfman, who warned me of my danger, who helped me in my peril with his soldier's knowledge and his soldier's sword, and who was of my own mind rather to die than to surrender Harby."

Halfman strode forward with a studied grace. He felt like Faulconbridge; he felt like Harry at Agincourt; he felt like Coriola.n.u.s; he felt exceedingly happy.

"Gallants," he said, with a magnificent salutation, "to have served this lady makes a man know how it had seemed to serve Alexander or Caesar. Wherefore, a soldier of good-fortune salutes you."

Rufus, who had watched him with something of a sullen eye from the moment of Brilliana's introduction, now answered him with a clearer countenance.

"We greet you, sir," he said, gravely, "with great grat.i.tude and great envy, for, indeed, there is none among us who would not have given his life to be lieutenant to this lady." He accorded the beaming Halfman a military salute, and then, turning to Brilliana, continued:

"Bright Brilliana, your servants and swains yearned to ride to your help when we heard of your peril, but we could not leave the King in the beginning of his enterprise. He gave us glad leave after the victory. 'Tell the brave lady,' he said, 'she shall be our viceroy in Oxfordshire.'"

Brilliana's cheeks blazed with pleasure. "Oh, the dear man," she cried, with clasped hands of rapture. But there was more to come.