Rafael Sabatini - The Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

The footsteps halted. Kenneth crawled softly to his post. The soldier's struggles grew of a sudden still, and Crispin released his throat at last. Then calmly drawing the fellow's dagger, he felt for the straps of his cuirass, and these he proceeded to cut. As he did so the door was opened.

By the light of the lamp burning in the passage they beheld silhouetted upon the threshold a black figure crowned by a steeple hat. Then the droning voice of the Puritan minister greeted them.

“Your hour is at hand!” he announced.

“Is it time?” asked Galliard from the bed. And as he put the question he softly thrust aside the trooper's breastplate, and set his hand to the fellow's heart. It still beat faintly.

“In another hour they will come for you,” answered the minister. And Crispin marvelled anxiously what Kenneth was about. “Repent then, miserable sinners, whilst yet—”

He broke off abruptly, awaking out of his religious zeal to a sense of strangeness at the darkness and the absence of the sentry, which hitherto he had not remarked.

“What hath—” he began. Then Galliard heard a gasp, followed by the noise of a fall, and two struggling men came rolling across the chamber floor.

“Bravely done, boy!” he cried, almost mirthfully. “Cling to him, Kenneth; cling to him a second yet!”

He leapt from the bed, and guided by the faint light coming through the door, he sprang across the intervening space and softly closed it. Then he groped his way along the wall to the spot where he had seen the lanthorn stand when Kenneth had flung his cloak over it. As he went, the two striving men came up against him.

“Hold fast, lad,” he cried, encouraging Kenneth, “hold him yet a moment, and I will relieve you!”

He reached the lanthorn at last, and pulling aside the cloak, he lifted the light and set it upon the table.

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By the lanthorn's yellow glare Crispin beheld the two men-a mass of writhing bodies and a bunch of waving legs—upon the ground. Kenneth, who was uppermost, clung purposefully to the parson's throat. The faces of both were alike distorted, but whilst the lad's breath came in gasping hisses, the other's came not at all.

Going over to the bed, Crispin drew the unconscious trooper's tuck-sword. He paused for a moment to bend over the man's face; his breath came faintly, and Crispin knew that ere many moments were sped he would regain consciousness. He smiled grimly to see how well he had performed his work of suffocation without yet utterly destroying life.

Sword in hand, he returned to Kenneth and the parson. The Puritan's struggles were already becoming mere spasmodic twitchings; his face was as ghastly as the trooper's had been a while ago.

“Release him, Kenneth,” said Crispin shortly.

“He struggles still.”

“Release him, I say,” Galliard repeated, and stooping he caught the lad's wrist and compelled him to abandon his hold.

“He will cry out,” exclaimed Kenneth, in apprehension.

“Not he,” laughed Crispin. “Leastways, not yet awhile. Observe the wretch.”

With mouth wide agape, the minister lay gasping like a fish newly taken from the water. Even now that his throat was free he appeared to struggle for a moment before he could draw breath. Then he took it in panting gulps until it seemed that he must choke in his gluttony of air.

“Fore George,” quoth Crispin, “I was no more than in time. Another second, and we should have had him, too, unconscious. There, he is recovering.”

The blood was receding from the swollen veins of the parson's head, and his cheeks were paling to their normal hue. Anon they went yet paler than their wont, as Galliard rested the point of his sword against the fellow's neck.

“Make sound or movement,” said Crispin coldly, “and I'll pin you to the floor like a beetle. Obey me, and no harm shall come to you.”

“I will obey you,” the fellow answered, in a wheezing whisper. “I swear I will. But of your charity, good sir, I beseech you remove your sword. Your hand might slip, sir,” he whined, a wild terror in his eyes.

Where now was the deep bass of his whilom accents? Where now the grotesque majesty of his bearing, and the impressive gestures that erstwhile had accompanied his words of denunciation?

“Your hand might slip, sir,” he whined again.

“It might—and, by Gad, it shall if I hear more from you. So that you are discreet and obedient, have no fear of my hand.” Then, still keeping his eye upon the fellow: “Kenneth,” he said, “attend to the crop-ear yonder, he will be recovering. Truss him with the bedclothes, and gag him with his scarf. See to it, Kenneth, and do it well, but leave his nostrils free that he may breathe.”

Kenneth carried out Galliard's orders swiftly and effectively, what time Crispin remained standing over the recumbent minister. At length, when Kenneth announced that it was done, he bade the Puritan rise.

“But have a care,” he added, “or you shall taste the joys of the Paradise you preach of. Come, sir parson; afoot!”

A prey to a fear that compelled unquestioning obedience, the fellow rose with alacrity.

“Stand there, sir. So,” commanded Crispin, his point within an inch of the man's Geneva bands. “Take your kerchief, Kenneth, and pinion his wrists behind him.”

That done, Crispin bade the lad unbuckle and remove the parson's belt. Next he ordered that man of texts to be seated upon their only chair, and with that same belt he commanded Kenneth to strap him to it. When at length the Puritan was safely bound, Crispin lowered his rapier, and seated himself upon the table edge beside him.

“Now, sir parson,” quoth he, “let us talk a while. At your first outcry I shall hurry you into that future world whither it is your mission to guide the souls of others. Maybe you'll find it a better world to preach of than to inhabit, and so, for your own sake, I make no doubt you will obey me. To your honour, to your good sense and a parson's natural horror of a lie, I look for truth in answer to what questions I may set you. Should I find you deceiving me, sir, I shall see that your falsehood overtakes you.” And eloquently raising his blade, he intimated the exact course he would adopt. “Now, sir, attend to me. How soon are our friends likely to discover this topsy-turvydom?”

“When they come for you,” answered the parson meekly.

“And how soon, O prophet, will they come?”

“In an hour's time, or thereabout,” replied the Puritan, glancing towards the window as he spoke. Galliard followed his glance, and observed that the light was growing perceptibly stronger.

“Aye,” he commented, “in an hour's time there should be light enough to hang us by. Is there no chance of anyone coming sooner?”

“None that I can imagine. The only other occupants of the house are a party of half a dozen troopers in the guardroom below.”

“Where is the Lord General?”

“Away—I know not where. But he will be here at sunrise.”

“And the sentry that was at our door—is he not to a changed 'twixt this and hanging-time?”

“I cannot say for sure, but I think not. The guard was relieved just before I came.”

“And the men in the guardroom—answer me truthfully, O Elijah—what manner of watch are they keeping?”

“Alas, sir, they have drunk enough this night to put a rakehelly Cavalier to shame. I was but exhorting them.”

When Kenneth had removed the Puritan's girdle, a small Bible—such as men of his calling were wont to carry—had dropped out. This Kenneth had placed upon the table. Galliard now took it up, and, holding it before the Puritan's eyes, he watched him narrowly the while.