Behind Justin, moments later, Will Molineux, brandishing his pewter
tankard, emerged from Sam Adams' house, roaring his rage and anger.
Even as he cut for Long Lane, Justin once again felt a curious
undefinable flicker of memory--the same that had troubled him while
listening to Ortine--and once before recently on an occasion he could
not recall.
For a few brief moments, while Justin slithered up the uneven icy
surface of Long Lane, Molineux's shouts were blanketed by the corner
buildings. But before Justin had proceeded more than fifty yards past
his lodging place of the night before, a rising outcry struck his
ears--ominous not only because of its closeness but because it no
longer issued from one throat. Evidently Molineux's gang was joining
the chase.
To his right the uninviting walls of close-set shops and houses offered
no refuge. But to his left the houses were larger and fewer, with
stretches of solid wooden fence between. If he could only get through
into the inner-block area of yards and gardens, he might be able to cut
across them to Arch Street and thence to the Wilkins house.
The hue and cry was growing louder by the moment--his pursuers would
emerge in sight of him and the chase would be as good as over unless he
did something and did it quickly.
Providentially he stumbled, stretched out a hand, struck a small door
in the fence which gave under his weight. With a sobbing gasp of relief
Justin lunged through it, shut it behind him, leaned against it,
panting, while the sounds of pursuit swept past.
Getting through the various yards and gardens was not easy because of
the deep snow. It took him a good fifteen minutes but he finally worked
his way through a manure-hole--mercifully the cold weather kept it from
reeking--into a barn.
Horses, well wrapped but chilly, stamped in their stalls as he made his
way to the front of the building. Justin found a small door, slipped
through it and made his way to the snowpile against the Wilkins shed.
Luckily there was no lock on the window of Deborah's room. Justin
crawled through it, sick with relief, closed it after him--and promptly
skidded on the hardwood floor with a snow-covered heel and crashed into
a small table by the bed.
Before he had time to put the table back up Justin heard heavy
masculine footsteps on the stairs, heard Deborah protesting, "But
I promise ye--there's no one there. It must ha' been the old house
creaking."
The bedroom door was wide open. Justin stood there, unable to think of
a thing to do. He wondered what sort of man Deborah's sire would be
like.
While he waited helplessly, Justin irrelevantly saw the spider lying
on the floor, half beneath the bed. He must have left it in his pajama
pocket, Debby must have found it and put it on the table he had
overturned. Out of sheer reflex action Justin stooped to put it in his
pocket.
He rose reluctantly, his eyes first noting a pair of large black shoes
with silver buckles, then heavy white hose covering long sturdy legs,
grey kneebreeches and waistcoat and a maroon broadcloth coat with
silver buttons.
Atop this tall stocky body was a square not-unhandsome face,
distinguished by a rather flat nose, a low broad forehead, angry hazel
eyes and some of the fieriest red hair Justin had ever seen. The hazel
eyes were regarding him even balefully.
"And who in hell be _ye_?" the newcomer inquired. He swung about as
Deborah appeared behind him in the doorway, the back of one hand to her
mouth. He said, "Is this some scurvy trick to put me further still in
the thrall of my wretched wife?"
"Charles!" Deborah whispered reproachfully. "Ye promised...."
"I know it," Justin replied desperately, "but I had to hide somewhere.
There's a mob chasing me through the streets."
"But e'en so ..." the girl began, then hesitated as the faint sound of
the hue and cry could be heard from the streets outside.
The red-headed man's voice was sharp as the crack of an Australian
bullwhip. He said, "That's Will Molineux!" Then, fiercely, to Justin,
"What have ye done to bring Will and his cutthroats on ye'r tail?"
"I had a little trouble with Mr. Adams," Justin murmured.
"So!" The big man took a menacing step toward him. He glanced at
Deborah, who appeared stricken, then said, "'Twould appear there is
more in this entire episode than meets the eye. Mayhap ye'r one with my
wretched wife and her wretched Tory friends."
He took another step toward Justin, obviously measuring him for a blow.
Deborah gave a little cry and leapt forward, seizing his right arm and
dragging upon it with all of her weight.
"Please!" she cried. "_Please_, Master Otis...."
Otis! Justin was stunned. The resemblance to his well-known portrait
was unmistakable. Here was James Otis, the brilliant and powerful young
Boston lawyer who first, in that very month of February, in that very
year of 1761, stood up for four hours in the Province House and defied
the right of the Crown to issue the unlimited search warrants known as
"Writs of Assistance" in order to check smuggling.
Here was the man who resigned his lucrative position as King's Advocate
for Massachusetts, defied his wealthy Tory wife and all his wife's
friends to make the first open plea for Colonial freedom.
Here was the man who gave heart to the Adamses, to Hancock and, in a
vastly widening circle, to the Virginians Patrick Henry and, later,
Thomas Jefferson. Here was the man who led Boston toward freedom until
the tensions of his own career and domestic life drove him at length to
madness.
Worse, as Justin quickly realised, here was the man to whom Deborah's
friends and family were asking her to give herself. Justin understood
their motives all too well. Apparently, unless he found some outlet
away from his strife-torn home, Otis' friends already feared for his
sanity. Employing an age-old therapy they had selected Deborah to
supply that outlet.
Even in the misery of the moment, Justin found his mind ranging back
to Ortine and his motives in having the girl go through with her
assignment. In untampered-with history the girl must have turned Otis
down. Perhaps in that turn-down Ortine read the outraged pride that had
led Otis to stand up and make his revolutionary speech. By having the
girl acquiesce Ortine figured, probably correctly, that the attorney
would never be so inspired. The chain reaction that led to Independence
Hall, to Saratoga, to Yorktown, would not have been touched off.
Justin saw, as if in slow-motion, Otis fling back his arm to clear it
of the girl's desperate grip--saw her tossed against the wall. Her head
struck with a sickening thud and she dropped to the floor in a pathetic
unconscious heap.
Justin forgot about his near-worship for James Otis and sprang forward
to do battle. He landed a hard right high on the lawyer's cheek, then
felt the snow on a heel again betray him into slipping. Out of the
corner of an eye he caught a quick glimpse of a large fist emerging
from a ruffled cuff and arching directly toward his own jaw. He felt a
jarring impact....
* * * * *
Justin found himself once more lying on a portable bed in one of the
cubicles of Ortine's Belvoir dormitory. His jaw hurt and there was a
tender spot over his right ribs that would, he knew, grow sorer with
time.
He sat up, rubbing his chin, discovered he was still wearing the
ill-fitting clothing with which Deborah had fitted him out. He glanced
around--and his heart did a ground-loop. Alongside his own cot was
another--and on it lay the girl.
Justin forgot his own sorenesses and went to her, put a hand on her
face, felt his knees turn to oil as he discovered her face was warm,
felt the rhythmic softness of her breath against his fingers.
She opened her eyes and smiled--and Justin felt his insides melt at the
trustful happiness of her expression. He said, "It's all right, Debby
dear--Ortine's brought us back to Belvoir."
"As long as we're still together," she whispered. Then, frowning, "My
head hurts in back--a little."
A familiar sardonic voice spoke from the doorway. "I am glad," said
Ortine, "that you find your return here so pleasant. I don't suppose
you have the slightest inkling of what this unexpected insanity of
yours has cost."
Justin considered for the first time the possible consequences of what
he and Deborah had just managed to accomplish. He said, "We fouled up
the works?"
Ortine stared at him for a long moment. Only by rigidity of manner did
he give indication of the anger he must have felt. He said, "You show
rather more discernment than I had expected, Justin--but I fear you
still fail to realise the enormity of your sabotage.
"Time, as you conceive it, has no meaning for me, of course--yet I
have had to spend vast amounts of it, searching, searching the entire
course of human history, to select the exact men and women for my
purpose, the exact moments in which they could be effective.
"The essence of my entire plan was simultaneous alteration of the
historic line," Ortine went on. "Only thus could the salvation of
humanity be effected without dislocation amounting to chaos. By your
insane romantic aberration you two have disrupted the entire process."
Justin thought it improbable that Deborah could understand much of what
their host was saying, yet the impact of his tone upon her was dynamic.
She slipped from her bed, skirts whirling, marched up to Ortine and
said, "I care not what ye think, Master Ortine. Neither Charles nor I
asked to be brought here. Aye, and furthermore I'll not have ye using
that tone to Charles."