By What Authority? Part 71

The man got up; the flames were out now, and he slipped the papers into a pocket. Mary went on immediately.

"If I may not burn my own lute music, or keep my door locked, without a riotous mob of knaves breaking upon me---- Ah! how dare you?" and she stamped furiously.

The pursuivant came up close to her, insolently.

"See here, my lady----" he began.

The men had fallen back from her a little now that the papers were safe, and she lifted her ringed hand and struck his ruddy face with all her might. There was a moment of confusion and laughter as he recoiled.

"Now will you remember that her Grace's ladies are not to be trifled with?"

There was a murmur from the crowded room, and a voice near the door cried:

"She says truth, Mr. Nichol. It is Mistress Corbet."

Nichol had recovered himself, but was furiously angry.

"Very good, madam, but I have these papers now," he said, "they can still be read."

"You blind idiot," hissed Mary, "do you not know lute music when you see it?"

"I know that ladies do not burn lute music with locked doors," observed Nichol bitterly.

"The more fool you!" screamed Mary, "when you have caught one at it."

"That will be seen," sneered Mr. Nichol.

"Not by a d.a.m.ned blind scarlet-faced porpoise!" screamed Mary, apparently more in a pa.s.sion than ever, and a burst of laughter came from the men.

This was too much for Mr. Nichol. This coa.r.s.e abuse stung him cruelly.

"G.o.d's blood," he bellowed at the room; "take this vixen out and search the place." And a torrent of oaths drove the crowd about the door out into the pa.s.sage again.

A couple of men took Mary by the fierce ringed hands of hers that still twitched and clenched, and led her out; she spat insults over her shoulders as she went. But she had held him in talk as she intended.

"Now then," roared Nichol again, "search, you dogs!"

He himself went outside too, and seeing the stairs stamped up them. He was just in time to see the Tacitus settle down with crumpled pages; stopped for a moment, bewildered, for it lay in the middle of the pa.s.sage; and then rushed at the open door on the left, dashed it open, and found a little empty room, with a chair or two, and a table--but no sign of the priest. It was like magic.

Then out he came once more, and went into Anthony's own room. The great bed was on his right, the window opposite, the fireplace to the left, and in the middle lay two sooty shoes. Instinctively he bent and touched them, and found them warm; then he sprang to the door, still keeping his face to the room, and shouted for help.

"He is here, he is here!" he cried. And a thunder of footsteps on the stairs answered him.

Meanwhile the men that held Mary followed the others along the pa.s.sage, but while the leaders went on and round into the lower corridor, the two men-at-arms with their prisoner turned aside into the parlour that served as an ante-chamber to the hall beyond, where they released her. Here, though it was empty of people, all was in confusion; the table had been overturned in the struggle that had raged along here between Lackington's men, who had entered from the front door, and the servants of the house, who had rushed in from their quarters at the first alarm and intercepted them. One chair lay on its side, with its splintered carved arm beside it. As Mary stood a moment looking about her, the door from the hall that had been closed, again opened, and Isabel came through; and a man's voice said:

"You must wait here, madam"; then the door closed behind her.

"Isabel," said Mary.

The two looked at one another a moment, but before either spoke again the door again half-opened, and a voice began to speak, as if its owner still held the handle.

"Very well, Lackington, keep him in his room. I will go through here to Nichol."

Isabel had drawn a sharp breath as the voice began, and as the door opened wider she turned and faced it. Then Hubert came in, and recoiled on the threshold. There fell a complete silence in the room.

"Hubert," said Isabel after a moment, "what are you doing here?"

Hubert shut the door abruptly and leaned against it, staring at her; his face had gone white under the tan. Isabel still looked at him steadily, and her eyes were eloquent. Then she spoke again, and something in her voice quickened the beating of Mary's heart as she listened.

"Hubert, have you forgotten us?"

Still Hubert stared; then he stood upright. The two men-at-arms were watching in astonishment.

"I will see to the ladies," he said abruptly, and waved his hand. They still hesitated a moment.

"Go," he said again sharply, and pointed to the door. He was a magistrate, and responsible; and they turned and went.

Then Hubert looked at Isabel again.

"Isabel," he said, "if I had known----"

"Stay," she interrupted, "there is no time for explanations except mine.

Anthony is in the house; I do not know where. You must save him."

There was no entreaty or anxiety in her voice; nothing but a supreme dignity and an a.s.surance that she would be obeyed.

"But----" he began. The door was opened from the hall, and a little party of searchers appeared, but halted when the magistrate turned round.

"Come with me," he said to the two women, "you must have a room kept for you upstairs," and he held back the door for them to pa.s.s.

Isabel put out her hand to Mary, and the two went out together into the hall past the men, who stood back to let them through, and Hubert followed. They turned to the left to the stairs, looking as they went upon the wild confusion. Above them rose the carved ceiling, and in the centre of the floor, untouched, by a strange chance, stood the dinner-table, still laid with silver and fruit and flowers. But all else was in disarray. The leather screen that had stood by the door into the entrance hall had been overthrown, and had carried with it a tall flowering plant that now lay trampled and broken before the hearth. A couple of chairs lay on their backs between the windows; the rug under the window was huddled in a heap, and all over the polished boards were scratches and dents; a broken sword-hilt lay on the floor with a feathered cap beside it. There were half a dozen men guarding the four doors; but the rest were gone; and from overhead came tramplings and shouts as the hunt swept to and fro in the upper floors.

At the top of the stairs was Mary's room; the two ladies, who had gone silently upstairs with Hubert behind them, stopped at the door of it.

"Here, if you please," said Mary.

Before Hubert could answer, Lackington came down the pa.s.sage, hurrying with a drawn sword, and his hat on his head. Isabel did not recognise him as he stopped and tapped Hubert on the arm familiarly.

"The prisoners must not be together," he said.

Hubert drew back his arm and looked the man in the face.

"They are not prisoners; and they shall be together. Take off your hat, sir."

Then, as Lackington drew back astonished, he opened the door.