The man and the woman glared at each other, each in swift suspicion
of treason. The Lady of Harby was the quickest to act upon impulse.
She snatched up the pistol that lay upon the table and levelled it
with a steady hand at Evander.
"Do you use your trust to betray us?" she shrilled. "It shall not
save you."
Even a less-experienced soldier could have seen from the sure way in
which Brilliana handled her weapon that his life was in real peril,
but he paid no more heed to her menace than if she was threatening
him with her glove or her fan.
"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
passed 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 "God save the King!" Then as the new-comers knelt before her she
knew that all was true.
"God 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 ejaculated, 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 asserted. 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 damnable
traitor Essex to your enemy here, advising him of reinforcements,
assuring 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 Essex 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
Coriolanus; 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
Cæsar. 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 gratitude 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.
"I think," continued Rufus, "it is more than likely that his Majesty
will visit Harby--I should say Loyalty House--ere he rides to
London."
Brilliana thrilled with pride--with pleasure. The air about her
seemed to swoon with music, to be sweet as roses, to be spangled with
golden motes.
X