MASTER CROSS-EYES
THE instant that Betty Carew recognized Sir Barton’s dark face, she
recoiled with a cry of terror. Her first thought was of the door by
which she had entered, but when she ran to it she found it fastened on
the outside. There was another entrance, but that was behind Henge, and
he stepped back, and locking it, put the key in his pocket with a grim
smile. She was a prisoner; but after the first moment of dismay, she
collected herself and confronted him with spirit. She was angry at his
insolent daring, and her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled.
“Sir,” she said proudly, “what means this? How dare you so insult me?
Undo the door and let me go or you will answer for it to my uncle!”
Henge laughed and sneered.
“You take a high tone, mistress,” he said tauntingly, “but it will be
long ere Carew finds you; you are safe enough at last!”
Betty’s anger for the time conquered her womanly fears; her hatred of
the man, her contempt for an act that seemed to her one of cowardly
wickedness, made her forgetful of her peril.
“You villain!” she cried, her form quivering with passion, “have you
no better employment than to make war on a defenceless woman? It is
like you! He who would strike a man from ambush is capable of any
shamelessness. Undo the door, sir, or I will call the watch and make
your name a byword in London!”
“Scream your loudest; it will not aid you,” he retorted coolly. “Come,
come, my pretty shrew; I have you now, and you shall rue the day you
struck my face with your whip.”
In spite of her anger, a feeling of dismay was beginning to shake
Mistress Betty’s resolution. She remembered that there was a little
dagger in her belt that she had thrust there in the morning when she
set out to the Tower. The thought of it was some small comfort; she
had, at least, a weapon. She would not let him see any wavering; she
held her head high and faced him like a beautiful fury.
“If you dare to harm me,” she said haughtily, “Sir William Carew will
leave no stone unturned until you are brought to justice.”
Henge laughed again his unpleasant laugh, that rang in her ears with
the sound of triumph in it.
“Look you, fair mistress, is it well to flaunt your influence in my
face?” he asked her. “You and your precious lover defied me. Where is
Simon Raby now? Safe, where he can neither save you nor himself. A
traitor in the Tower! Beware, lest Carew falls in a like trap.”
“Ah, now I know!” cried Betty; “a fool I was, and blind. ’Tis you who
ensnared Lord Raby! ’tis you who would ruin my uncle. Villain! liar!
coward! I defy you!”
“You young she-devil, you!” exclaimed Henge, advancing toward her, “I
would wring that white neck of yours for your insults, did I not know I
could invent a slower, surer punishment. I have you, my shrew, and you
shall not escape me.”
At his first step toward her, Betty retreated to a window, and now she
tried to unfasten the shutter, crying out for help at the top of her
strong, young voice.
“Scream away!” said Henge bitterly, his face full of dark enjoyment of
her despair, “no one will help you; a screaming woman in this quarter
of the town is no novelty. Do you look for your lover from the Tower to
rescue you? You pretty fool!” he added contemptuously, “you are mine,
mine as sure as death!”
Betty was no coward; she put her hand to her girdle and felt the little
knife there safe. She meant to kill him--or herself. She had a firm,
strong wrist and she could strike; he was a powerful man, but he did
not know that she was armed, and an unlooked-for blow might end the
matter. She saw the evil triumph in his face and set her teeth; she
would kill him. He, unconscious of her purpose, looked at her and
smiled, as a devil might, who saw his prey before him.
At this moment there was a strange interruption; the door that Henge
had not fastened, the one that had been secured from without, opened,
and the cross-eyed man entered, and closing it behind him, stood, with
his arms folded on his breast, staring at Sir Barton, who, in turn,
glared at him in furious surprise.
“What are you here for, Master Cross-Eyes?” he exclaimed. “Get out, you
rogue, or I will break a rod on your bare back and slit your ears, to
boot.”
The groom pointed at Betty.
“She screamed,” he said sullenly; “if you hurt a hair of her head, I’ll
cut your throat, my master!”
“You accursed villain, you!” cried Henge, in furious anger, “how dare
you threaten me? Is it for this that I dragged you from the gutter?”
“Nay,” retorted Master Cross-Eyes, unmoved; “you picked me up from the
slums because you wanted desperate men to do your bidding; and so I
would, if the case were different, but Mistress Carew you shall not
hurt.”
So amazed was Henge at the varlet’s courage, that he did not spurn
him from the room at once, but stared at him as if he doubted his own
senses.
“And wherefore?” he asked harshly; “what is Mistress Carew to you, you
hound?”
“One good turn deserves another, Sir Barton,” the groom answered
curtly; “this young mistress saved my neck from the halter at Deptford
when old Lady Crabtree would have hung me as a valiant beggar. The
young lady saved me, and, by Saint Michael and his angels, you shall
not harm one black hair of her pretty head!”
“The devil take your insolence!” retorted Henge violently, drawing his
sword and raising his arm to strike the man on the head with the flat
of it, intending to administer a lesson.
But Master Cross-Eyes was more than his match in strength; he caught
his arm, and twisting it back, sent the sword flying across the room,
pushing Henge toward the wall as he did so. Sir Barton, now fully
roused to his peril, grappled with his powerful adversary, calling
loudly for help as he did so.
“What ho!” he shouted, “John! Andrew! Here, you villains, take this
fellow to the gallows!”
Master Cross-Eyes laughed, much as Sir Barton had at Betty’s cries for
aid.
“I sent them all below,” he said grimly; “you may scream as loud as my
young lady now, and get no aid.”
The two men swayed and struggled, the vagrant having the advantage, yet
closely pressed by Henge, who was no mean opponent and had the strength
of wrath. They overturned the table, and the taper being extinguished,
the struggle continued in darkness. Sir Barton was striving to reach
the door and Cross-Eyes was pressing him away.
At first Betty was so wholly fascinated by the contest, so amazed, that
she stood gazing, completely unnerved, her courage deserting her now
that a champion was so suddenly raised up for her. But in a moment the
full peril of her own situation returned to her mind, and she looked
for a way to escape while the two were fighting. However, this was not
easy; one door was still locked, and before the other the men were
struggling; she could not pass them and get out, for they swayed to
and fro before the entrance, and when the taper was extinguished, she
could not see to move. In her extremity, she put out all her strength,
and undoing the shutters at last, threw them open, and leaning from
the window, screamed for the watch. In spite of the noise that the two
men made fighting, she heard an answering shout, and cried out again
that there was murder being done. As she did so, there was a groan of
pain from Master Cross-Eyes and he fell heavily to the floor; Henge
had wrenched his hand free from his adversary’s grip, and drawing his
dagger, stabbed him. With an oath, Sir Barton threw open the door and
snatched a taper from its socket in the hall and brought it into the
room; the sudden light revealed to Betty the prostrate figure of her
defender and the furious aspect of her enemy. He kicked the groom
as he passed him and then picked up his sword. Seeing her last hope
of escape cut off, Betty again leaned from the window and called for
help. This time the reply came from the court below, and there was a
noise at the door. Expecting the watch, Sir Barton turned with a curse
to confront him, his naked sword in his hand. The scene was one of
wild confusion; the taper he had brought, and the light from the hall
showed the scene of the struggle, the overturned table and chairs, the
unconscious body of the vagrant, and in the window Betty’s tall figure
and white face. Henge himself stood waiting defiantly, his dress wildly
disordered, and his breast heaving from his recent struggle. Footsteps
came up the stairs, paused as if a stranger were looking about for the
room from which the screams had issued, and then came across the hall.
The next moment a man stood on the threshold, and at the sight of him
Betty uttered a wild cry of amazement and joy, while Henge swore a deep
oath, but recoiled a step as if he saw a ghost.
It was Simon Raby.