Sir Humphrey Challoner had not returned to the Moorhen after his visit to the forge until the sun was very low down in the west. He had bidden the attorney to await him at the inn, and Master Mittachip had not dared to disobey.

Yet the delay meant the crossing of the Heath along the bridle path to Brassington, well after the shadows of evening had lent the lonely Moor an air of awesome desolation. There were the footpads, and the pixies, the human and fairy midnight marauders, who all found the steep declivities, the clumps of gorse and bracken, the hollows and the pits, safe resting-places by day, but who were wont to emerge from their lair after dark for the terror and better undoing of the unfortunate, belated traveller.

Then there was Beau Brocade!

Master Duffy too was very timid, and clung with trembling arms to the meagre figure of the attorney.

"Nay! Master Duffy!" quoth Mittachip, with affected firmness, "why do you pry about so? Are you afraid?"

"Nay! nay! Master Mittachip," replied the clerk, whose teeth were chattering audibly, "I am … n … n … not af … f … f … fraid."

"Tush, man, you have me near you," rejoined Mittachip, boldly. "See! I am armed! Look at my pistols!"

And he leant back in the saddle, so as to give Master Duffy a good view of a pair of huge pistols that protruded ostentatiously from his belt.

Yet all around the air was still, the solitary Heath was at peace, even the breezy nor'-wester, that had blustered throughout the day, seemed to have lain down to rest.

Far out eastwards, the moon, behind a fast dispersing bank of clouds, was casting a silver radiance that was not yet a light, but only a herald of the glittering radiance to come.

The Moor was silent and at peace: only at times there came the sound of a gentle flutter, a moorhen perhaps within its nest, or a belated lizard seeking its home.

Whenever these slight sounds occurred, Master Mittachip's hands that held the reins trembled visibly, and his clerk clung more closely to him.

"What was that?" said the attorney in an awed whisper, as his frightened ears caught a more distinct noise.

"W … w … why don't you draw your p … p … pistols, Master Mittachip?" murmured Duffy, in mad alarm.

The noise was hushed again, but to the overwrought nerves of the two men in terror, there came the certain, awful perception that someone was on the Heath besides themselves, someone not far off, whom the mist hid from their view, but who knew that they were travelling along the bridle path, who could see and perhaps hear them.

"Truth to tell, Master Duffy," whispered the attorney, whose teeth too had begun to chatter. "Truth to tell, it's no use my drawing them … they … they are not loaded."

Master Duffy nearly fell off the pillion in his fright.

"What?"

"There's neither powder nor shot in them," continued Master Mittachip, ruefully.

"Th … th … then we are lost!" was Master Duffy's ejaculation of woe.

"Eh? – what?" quoth Mittachip, "but your pistols are charged."

And his pointed elbow sought behind it for the handles of two formidable weapons, which were stuck in Master Duffy's belt.

"N … n … nay!" whispered the clerk, who now was blue with terror. "I dared not carry the weapons loaded… I trusted to your valour, Master Mittachip, to protect us."

"What was that?"

Again that noise! this time a good deal nearer, and it seemed to Master Mittachip's affrighted eyes as if he saw something moving on the bridle path before him. But he would not show too many signs of fear before his own clerk.

"Tush, man!" he said with as much boldness as he could command. "'Tis only a lizard in the grass mayhap. We'll ride on quite boldly. We can't be far from Brassington now, and no footpads would dare to attack two lusty fellows on horseback, with pistols showing in their belts! … Lord!" he added with a shudder, "how lonely this place appears!"

"And that rascal, Beau Brocade, haunts this Heath every night, I'm told," murmured Master Duffy, who felt more dead than alive.

"Sh! sh! sh! speak not of the devil, Master Duffy, lest he appear!.."

"Hark!!!"

The two men now clung trembling to one another; not ten paces from them there came the sound of a horse's snorting, then suddenly a voice rang out clearly through the mist-laden air, —

"Hello! who goes there!"

"The Lord have mercy upon us!" whispered Mittachip.

"It must be Beau Brocade himself," echoed the clerk.

The next moment a horse and rider came into view. Master Mittachip and his clerk were too terrified even to look. The former had jerked the reins and brought his lean nag to a standstill, and both men now sat with eyes closed, teeth chattering, their very faces distorted with fear.

Beau Brocade had reined his horse quite close to them, and was peering through his black mask at the two terror-stricken faces. Evidently they amused him vastly, for he burst out laughing.

"Odd's my life! here's a pretty pair of scarecrows! … Well! I see you can stand, so now let's see what you've got to deliver!"

At this Master Mittachip contrived to open his eyes for a second; but the black mask, and the heavily cloaked figure looked so ghostlike, so awful in the mist, that he promptly closed them again, and murmured with a shudder. —

"Mercy, oh, noble sir! We … we are poor men!.."

"Poor-spirited men, you mean?" quoth Beau Brocade, giving the trembling figure a quick, vigorous shake. "Now then! off that nag of yours! Quick's the word!"

But even before this word of command Master Mittachip, dragging his clerk after him, had tumbled, quaking, off his horse. They now stood clinging to each other, a miserable bundle of frightened humanity.

"Come!" said Beau Brocade, looking down with some amusement at the spectacle. "I'm not going to hurt you – I never shoot at snipe! But you'll have to turn out your pockets and sharp too, an you want to resume your journey to-night."

He had seized Master Duffy by the collar. The clerk was an all too-ready prey for any highwayman, and stooping from his saddle, Beau Brocade had quickly extracted a leather bag from the pocket of his coat.

"Oho! guineas, as I live!"

"Kind sir," began Duffy, tremblingly.

"Now, listen to me, both of you," said Beau Brocade, trying to hide his enjoyment of the scene under an air of great sternness. "I know who you are. I know what work you've been doing this afternoon. Extorting rents barely due from a few wretched people, for your employers as hard-hearted as yourselves."

"Kind sir…"

"Silence! or I shoot! Besides, 'twere no use to tell me lies. The people about here know me. They call me Beau Brocade. I know them and their troubles. I happened to hear, for instance, that you extracted two guineas from the Widow Coggins, threatening her with a process for dilapidations unless she gave you hush money."

"'Twas not our fault, kind sir…"

"Then there was Mistress Haddakin, from whom you extracted fifty shillings for a new gate, which you don't intend to put up for her: and this, although she has only just buried her husband, and had a baby sick at home. You put on finer airs with the poor people than you do with me, eh?"

"'Tis not our money, sir," protested Master Mittachip, humbly.

"Some of it goes into your own pockets. Hush money, blood money, I call it. That's what I want from you, and then a bit over for the poor box on behalf of your employers."

He weighed the leather bag which he had taken out of Master Duffy's pocket.

"This'll do for the poor box. Now I want the five pounds you extorted from Widow Coggins and Mistress Haddakin. The poor women'll be glad of it on the morrow."

"I haven't a penny more than that bagful, sir," protested Master Mittachip. "My employers took all the money from me. 'Twere their rents I was collecting. I swear it, sir, kind sir! on my word of honour! And I am an honest man!"

"Come here!"

And Beau Brocade reined his horse back a few paces.

"Come here!" he repeated.

Mittachip was too frightened to disobey. He came forward, limping very perceptibly.

"Why do you walk like that?" asked Beau Brocade.

"I'm a feeble old man and rheumatic," whined Mittachip, despondently.

"Then 'twere better to ease the load out of your boot, friend. Sit down here and take it off."

And he pointed to a piece of boulder projecting through the shallow earth.

But this Master Mittachip seemed very loth to do.

"Kind sir…" he protested again.

"Sit down and take off the right boot!" repeated Beau Brocade more peremptorily, and with a gay laugh and mock threatening gesture he pointed the muzzle of his pistol at the terror-stricken attorney.

There was naught to do but to obey: and quickly too. Master Mittachip cursed the rascally highwayman under his breath, and even consigned him to eternal damnation, before he finally handed him up his boot.

Beau Brocade turned it over, shook it, and a bag of jingling guineas fell at Jack o' Lantern's feet.

"Give me that bag!"

"Sir! kind sir!" moaned Master Mittachip, as he obediently handed up the bag of gold to his merciless assailant. "Have pity! I am a ruined man! 'Tis Sir Humphrey Challoner's money. I've been collecting it for him … and he's a hard man!"

"Oh!" said Beau Brocade, "'tis Sir Humphrey Challoner's money, is it? Nay! you old scarecrow, but 'tis his Honour himself sent me on the Heath to-night. Oho!" he added, whilst his merry, boyish laugh went echoing through the evening air, "methinks Sir Humphrey will enjoy the joke. Do you tell him, friend – an you see him in the morn – that you've met Beau Brocade and that he'll do his Honour's bidding."

He counted some of the money out of the bag and put it in his pocket: the remainder he handed back to the astonished lawyer.

"There!" he said with sudden earnestness, "I'll only make restitution to the poor whom you have robbed. You may thank your stars that an angel came down from heaven to-day and cast eyes of tender pity upon me, so that I care not to rob you, save for those in dire want. You may mount that nag of yours now, and continue your journey to Brassington. No turning aside, remember, and answer me when I challenge your good-night."

Master Mittachip and his clerk had no call to be told twice. They mounted with as much agility as their trembling limbs would allow. Truly they considered themselves lucky in having saved some money out of the clutches of the rogue, and did not care to speculate on the cause of their good fortune.

A few minutes later their lean horse was once more on its way, bearing its double burden. At first they had both looked back, attracted – now that their terror was gone – by the sight of that tall, youthful figure on the beautiful thoroughbred standing there on the crest of the hill and gradually growing more and more dim in the fast-gathering mist.

The bridle path at this point dips very suddenly and a sharp declivity leads thence, straight on to Brassington.

Beau Brocade's sharp eyes, accustomed to the gloom, watched horse and riders until the mist enveloped them and hid them from his view. Then he called loudly, —

"Good-night!"

And faintly echoing came the quaking reply, —

"Good-night!"

After that there was silence again. The outlaw was alone upon the Heath once more, the Heath which had been his home for so long.

For him it had no cruelty and held no terror: the tall gorse and bracken oft sheltered him from the rain! Wrapped in his greatcoat, he had oft watched the tiny lizards darting to and fro in the grass, or listened to the melancholy cry of moorhen or heron. The tiny rough branches of the heather had been a warm carpet on which he had slept on lazy afternoons.

The outlaw found a friend in great and lonely Nature, and when he was aweary he laid his head on her motherly breast, and like a child found rest.

CHAPTER XVII
A FAITHFUL FRIEND

How long he stood there on the spur of the hill he could not afterwards have told. It may have been a few seconds, perhaps it was an eternity.

During those few seconds or that eternity, the world was re-created for him: for him it became more beautiful than he had ever conceived it in his dreams. A woman's smile had changed it into an earthly paradise. A new and strange happiness filled his being, and set brain and sinews on fire. A happiness so great that his heart well nigh broke with the burden of it, and the bitter longing for what could never be.

The cry of a moorhen thrice repeated at intervals roused him from his dreams.

"John Stich," he murmured, "I wonder now what brings him out to-night!"

And with a final sigh of deep regret, a defiant toss of the head, Beau Brocade turned Jack o' Lantern's head northwards whence the cry had come.

There a rough track, scarce perceptible amongst the bracken, led straight up to the forge of John Stich. Horse and rider knew every inch of the way, although for the moment the fitful moon still hid her light behind a bank of clouds, and the mist now enveloped the Moor in a thick mantle of gloom.

Soon the sensitive ears of the highwayman, accustomed to every sound, had perceived heavy footsteps on the unbeaten track, and presently a burly figure detached itself from the darkness beyond and came rapidly forward.

"Odd's my life! but it's friend John!" said Beau Brocade, with a great show of severity. "Zounds! but this is rank insubordination! How dare you follow me on the Heath, you villain, and leave your noble guest unprotected? What?"

"His lordship is safe enough, Captain," said the smith, who at sight of the young man had heaved an obvious sigh of relief, "and I could not rest until I'd seen you again."

"Faith! you can't do that in this confounded mist, eh, John?" quoth Bathurst, lightly. But his fresh young voice had softened with a quaint tenderness, whilst he looked down, smiling, at the upturned face of his devoted friend.

"Well! what about my friend, the Sergeant and the soldiers, eh?" he added gaily.

"Oh! the Sergeant is too sick to speak," rejoined the smith, earnestly, "but the men vow you're a rebel lord. Those that were fit walked down to Brassington directly after you left: one man, who was wounded in the arm, started for Aldwark: they've gone to get help, Captain; either more soldiers, or loafers from the villages who may be tempted by the reward. They'll scour this Heath for you, from Aldwark to the cross-roads, and from Brassington to Wirksworth, and…"

"And so much the better, friend Stich, for while they hunt for me his lordship will be safe."

"But have a care, Captain! they're determined men, now, for you've fooled them twice. Be gy! but you've never been in so tight a corner before."

"Pshaw!" quoth Beau Brocade, lightly, "life is none too precious a boon for me that I should make an effort to save it."

"Captain…" murmured Stich, reproachfully.

"There, friend John," added the young man, with that same touch of almost womanly tenderness, that had endeared him to the heart of honest Stich, "there! there! have no fear for me! I tell thee, man, they'll not get me on this Heath! Think you the furze and bracken, the heron or peewit would betray me? Me, their friend! Not they! I am safe enough!" he continued, while a strange ring of excitement made his young voice quiver. "Let them after me, and leave her brother in peace! And then, John! when he is safe … perhaps I may see her smile once more! … Heigh-ho! A fool am I, friend! A fool, I tell thee! fit for the gallows-tree outside thy forge!"

John said nothing: he could not see Jack's face in the gloom, and did not understand his wild, mad mood, but his faithful heart ached to hear the ring of bitter longing in the voice of his friend.

There was a moment's pause, whilst Bathurst made a visible effort to control his excitement. Then he said more calmly, —

"Here, John! take this money, friend!"

He dived in the pocket of his big caped coat and then placed in John's hand the two bags of money he had extracted from Master Mittachip and his clerk.

"I've just got it from a blood-sucking agent of Sir Humphrey Challoner's: 'tis money wrung from poor people, who can ill afford it."

"Aye! aye!" quoth John, with a sigh.

"I want two guineas to go to Mistress Haddakin, who has just lost her husband: the poor wretch is nigh to starving. Then thirty shillings are for the Widow Coggins, up Hartington way: those blood-suckers took her last shilling yesterday. Wilt see to it, friend John?"

"Aye! aye!"

"The rest is for the poor box at Aldwark this time. Perhaps there'll be more before the morn."

"Captain…"

"Hush! don't begin to lecture, John!" said Beau Brocade, with curious earnestness. "I tell thee, friend, there's madness in my veins to-night. I pray thee go back home, and leave me to myself."

"Don't send me away, Captain," pleaded John, "I … I … am uneasy, and…"

"Dear, kind, faithful John," murmured Bathurst. "Zounds! but I'm an ungrateful wretch, for I vow thou dost love me, friend."

"You know I do, Captain. I … I … I'd give…"

"Nay … nothing!" interrupted Jack, quickly, "give me nothing but that love of thine, friend … it is more precious than life … but I pray thee, let me be to-night … I swear to thee I'll do no harm… I'll see thee in the morn, John… I'll be safe … never fear!"

John Stich sighed. He knew that further protest was useless. Already Beau Brocade had turned Jack o' Lantern's head once more towards the crest of the hill. The smith waited awhile, listening while he could to the sound of the horse's hoofs on the rain-sodden earth. His honest heart was devoured with anxiety both for his friend and for the brave young lady who was journeying townwards to-night.

Suddenly it seemed to him as if far away he could hear the creaking of wheels on the distant Wirksworth road. The air was so still, that presently he could hear it quite distinctly. 'Twas her ladyship's coach, no doubt, plying its slow, wearying way along the quaggy road.

It would be midway to the little town by now. The narrow track on which John stood cut the road at right angles, about a mile and a half away. The smith took to blaming himself that he had kept her ladyship's journey a secret from Beau Brocade. The latter was a monarch on the Heath: he would have kept footpads at bay, watched and guarded the coach, and seen it, mayhap, safely as far as Wirksworth.

Never for a moment did the slightest fear cross the smith's mind that the notorious highwayman would stop Lady Patience's coach. Still, a warning would not have come amiss. Perhaps it was not too late. The road wound in and out a good deal, skirting bogland or massive boulders. John hoped that on the path he might yet come across Jack o' Lantern and his master, before they had met the coach.

He started to run and had covered nearly a mile when suddenly he heard a shout, which made his honest heart almost stop in its beating, a shout, followed by two pistol shots in rapid succession.

The shout had rung out clear and distinct in the fresh, lusty voice of Beau Brocade.

"Stand and deliver!"

John dared not think what the pistol shots had meant.

With elbows now pressed to his sides, he began running at a wild gallop along the rough, unbeaten track, towards the point whence shots and shout had come.

CHAPTER XVIII
MOONLIGHT ON THE HEATH

The jolting of the carriage along the quaggy road had been well nigh unendurable. Mistress Betty was groaning audibly. But Lady Patience, with her fair head resting against the cushions, was forgetting all bodily ailments, whilst absorbed in mental visions that flitted, swift and ever-changing, before her excited brain.

There was the dear brother in peril of his life, his young face looking wan and anxious, then Sir Humphrey Challoner, the man she instinctively, unreasonably dreaded, and John Stich, the faithful retainer, brave and burly, guarding his lord's life with his own. These faces and figures wandered ghostlike before her eyes, and then vanished, leaving before her mental vision but one form and face, a pair of merry, deep-set grey eyes, that at times looked so inexpressibly sad, a head crowned with a mass of unruly curls, a figure, lithe and active, sitting upon a chestnut horse and riding away towards the sunset.

It was a pleasant picture: no wonder Patience allowed her mind to dwell on it, and in fancy to hear that full-toned voice either in lively song or gay repartee, or at times with that ring of tenderness in it, which had brought the tears of pity to her eyes.

The hours sped slowly on, the cumbrous vehicle jostled onwards, plunging and creaking, whilst Thomas urged the burdened horses along.

Suddenly a jerk, more vigorous than before, roused Patience from her half-wakeful dreams. The heavy coach had seemed to take a plunge on its side, there was fearful creaking, and much swearing from the driver's box, a shout or two, panting efforts on the part of the horses, and finally the vehicle came to a complete standstill.

Mistress Betty had started up in alarm.

"Lud preserve us!" she shouted, putting a very sleepy head out of the carriage window, "what's the matter now, Thomas?"

"We be stuck in a quagmire," muttered the latter worthy, vainly trying to smother more forcible language, out of respect for her ladyship's presence.

Timothy, the groom, had dismounted: lanthorn in hand, he was examining the cause of the catastrophe.

"Get the other lanthorn, Thomas!" he shouted to the driver, "and come and give me a hand, else we'll have to spend the night on this God-forsaken heath."

"Is it serious, Timothy?" queried Lady Patience, anxiously.

"I hope not, my lady. The axle is caked with mud on this side, and we do seem stuck in some kind of morass, but if Thomas'll hurry himself…"

The latter, with many more suppressed oaths, had at last got down from his box, and had brought a second lanthorn round to the back of the coach, where Timothy had already started scraping shovelfuls of inky mud from the axle of the off-wheel.

It was at this moment, and when the two men were intent upon their work, that a voice, loud and distinct, suddenly shouted behind them, —

"Stand and deliver!"

Thomas, who was of a timorous disposition, dropped the lanthorn he held, and in his fright knocked over the other which was on the ground. He was a man of peace, and knew from past experience that 'tis safer not to resist these gentlemen of the roads.

When therefore the highwayman's well-known challenge rang out in the night, he threw up both hands in order to testify to his peaceful intentions; but Timothy, who was younger and more audacious, drew a couple of pistols from his belt, and at all hazards fired them off, one after the other, in the direction whence had come the challenge. The next moment he felt a vigorous blow on his wrists and the pistols flew out of his hand.

"Hands up or I shoot!"

Thomas was already on his knees. Timothy, thus disarmed, thought it more prudent to follow suit.

From within the coach could be heard Mistress Betty's shrill and terrified voice, —

"Nay! nay! your ladyship shall not go!" followed by her ladyship's peremptory command, —

"Silence, child! Let me go! Stay you within an you are afraid!"

There was a moment's silence, for at sound of her voice Beau Brocade had started, then he leaned forward on his horse, listening with all his might, wondering if indeed his ears had not misled him, if 'twas not a dream-voice that came to him out of the gloom.

"Have I the honour of addressing Lady Rounce?" he murmured mechanically.

At this moment the darkness, which up to now had been intense, began slowly to give place to a faint, silvery light. The moon, pale and hazy, tried to pierce the mist that still enveloped her as with a cold, blue mantle, and one by one tipped blackthorn and gorse with a cluster of shimmering diamonds.

Like a ghostly panorama the heath revealed its thousand beauties, its many mysteries: the deep, dark tangle of bramble and ling, beneath which hide the gnomes and ghouls, the tiny blue cups of the harebells, wherein the pixies have their home; the fairy rings in the grass, where the sprites dance their wild saraband on nights such as this, with the crickets to play the tunes, and the glow-worms to light them in their revels.

But to Beau Brocade the dim radiance of the moon, shy and golden through her veil of mist, only revealed one great, one wonderful picture: that of his dream made real, of his heavenly vision come down to earth, the picture of her stepping out of the coach that she might speak to him.

She came forward quickly, and the hood flew back from her face. She was looking at him with a half-puzzled, half-haughty expression in her eyes, and Beau Brocade thought he had never seen eyes that were so deeply blue. He murmured her name, —

"The Lady Patience!"

"Nay, sir, since you know my name," she said, with a quaint, almost defiant toss of her small, graceful head. "I pray you, whoever you may be, to let me depart in peace. See," she added, holding a heavy purse out to him, "I have brought you what money I have. Will you take it and let me go?"

But he dared not speak. He longed to turn Jack o' Lantern's head and to gallop away quickly out of her sight, before she had recognised him and learnt that the man on whom she had looked with such tender pity, and with such glowing admiration, was the highway robber, the outlaw, the notorious thief. Yet so potent was the spell of her voice, the moist shimmer of her lips, the depth and glitter of her blue eyes, that he felt as if iron fetters held him fast to the ground, there enchained before her, until at least she should speak again.

He dismounted and she stepped a little closer to him, so close now that, had he stretched out his hand, he might have touched her cloak, or even those white finger-tips which…

"Believe me, sir," she said a little impatiently, seeing that he did not speak, "I give you all I have freely an you molest me no more. I have urgent, very urgent business in London, which brooks of no delay. Kindly allow my men to go free."

She was pleading now, all the haughtiness vanished from her face. Her voice, too, shook perceptibly; the tall, silent figure before her was beginning to frighten her.

Yet he dared not trust himself to speak, lest by a word he should dispel this dream. This golden vision of paradise that heaven had so unaccountably sent to him this night! it might vanish again amidst the stars and leave the poor outlaw to his loneliness.

This moment was so precious, so wonderful.

Madly he longed for the god-like power to stop Time in its relentless way, to make sun, moon and stars, the earth and all eternity pause awhile, whilst he looked upon her, as she stood there, with the pleading look in her eyes, the honey-coloured moon above throwing a dim and flickering light upon her upturned face … her golden hair … that tiny hand stretched out to him.

She seemed to wait for his reply, and at last in a low voice, which he tried to disguise, he murmured, —

"Madam, I entreat you, have no fear! Believe me, I would sooner never see the sun set again than cause you even one short moment's anxiety."

Again that quaint puzzled look came into her eyes, she looked at the black mask that hid his face, as if she would penetrate the secret which it kept.

"Will you not take this purse?" she asked.

"Nay! I will not take the purse, fair lady," he said, still speaking very low, "but I would fain, an you would permit it, hold but for one instant your hand in mine. Will you not let me?"

The impulse was irresistible, the desire to hold her hand so strong that he had no power to combat it. She seemed puzzled and not a little frightened, but neither haughty nor resentful at his presumption: perhaps she felt the influence of the mystery which surrounded the dark, cloaked figure before her, or the more subtle spell of the mist-covered moon. She made no movement towards him, her hand which he craved to hold had dropped to her side.

There was magic in the vast stillness of the Moor; on each dew-tipped point of grey-green gorse, from every frond of emerald bracken, there glistened a tiny crystal. Timothy and Thomas had retreated to a safer position, out of sight behind the huge vehicle, and inside the coach Betty was cowering in terror. They stood alone, these two, away from all the world, in a land all their own, a land of dreams, of poetry, and romance, where men died for a look from women's eyes, and conquered the universe for a smile.

How silent was the Heath while he looked at her, and she returned his gaze half-trembling, wholly puzzled.

"Will you not let me?" he pleaded. And instinctively his voice trembled in the pleading, and there came back to her mind the memory of this same voice, young and tender, as she had heard it in the forge. But she would not let him know that she had guessed.

"Sir," she said with sudden, unaccountable shyness, "you have overpowered my men, they are but loutish cowards, and you are heavily armed. I am a defenceless woman… How can I refuse if you command?"

He took the pistols from his belt and laid them on the ground at her feet.

"Nay, fair lady!" he said, "there is no question of command. See! I am unarmed now, and your men are free. Give them the word and I'll not stir hand or foot till you have worked your will with me. You see, 'tis I am at your mercy … yet I still crave to hold your hand … for one moment … in mine…"

For one second more she hesitated: not because she was afraid, but because there was a subtle sweetness in this moment of suspense, a delicious feeling of expectancy for the joy that was to come.

Then she gave him her hand.

"Why! … how it trembles," he said, "like some tiny frightened bird. See how white it looks in my rough brown hand. You are not afraid?"

"Afraid? … oh, no! … but … but the hour is late … I pray you let me depart … I must not tarry … for so much depends upon my journey… I pray you let me go."

"No, no! don't go," he pleaded, clinging to the little hand whose cool touch had made his very senses reel, "don't go … not just yet… See how glorious is the moon above those distant hills … and the mist-laden air which makes your hair glisten with a thousand diamonds, whilst I, poor fool, holding your cool, white hand in mine, stand here gazing on a vision that whispers to me of things which can never, never be… No! no, don't go just yet … let the moon hide her light once more behind the mist … let the Heath sink into darkness … let me live in my dream one moment longer … it will be dispelled all too soon."