The Panchronicon Part 60

"We must to London Bridge, Guy," Phoebe said. "Know you a way back thither?"

"Wherefore to London, sweet?" asked Guy. "Were we not safer far afield?

Why seek the shadow of the Tower?"

"One way is left thee," said she, with intense earnestness. "A way that is known to me alone. Thereby only canst thou escape. Oh, trust me--trust me, dear heart! Only I can guide thee to safety and to freedom!"

"On, my Mary!" he cried, gayly. "Lead on! Thou art my star!"

For the moment both forgot the danger behind them. The intoxication of an ideal and self-forgetting trust--a merger of all else in tenderness--flooded their souls and pa.s.sed back and forth between them in their mutual glances.

Then came that pursuing shout again, much nearer than before, and with a shock the two lovers remembered their true plight.

Sir Guy reined in his steed.

"Halt--halt, Mary!" he commanded. "We must conceal us here in this dell till that these fellows pa.s.s us. Then back to London by the way we came.

There is no other road."

Obedient now in her turn, Phoebe drew rein and followed her lover up the bed of a small stream which crossed the road at this point. Behind a curtain of trees they waited, and ere long saw their two pursuers dart past them and disappear in a cloud of dust down the road.

"They will stop at the next dwelling to ask news of us, and thus learn of our evasion," said Guy. "The chase has but begun. Come, sweet, let us hasten southward again."

Darkness had now begun to fall in earnest, and as the two fugitives pa.s.sed the Peac.o.c.k Inn, no one saw them.

They were soon near enough to the city gate to find many houses on either hand, and Sir Guy deemed it wiser to move at a reasonable pace, for fear of attracting suspicion in a neighborhood already aroused by rumors of the man-hunt which had begun. They could count upon the obscurity to conceal their ident.i.ty.

They had not proceeded far beyond the inn when they met a party of travellers on horseback, one of whom uttered a pleasant "Good-even!"

"Good-even!" said Phoebe, thinking only of due courtesy.

"What the good jere!" cried a voice from the rear of the group. "What dost thou here, Poll?"

"My father!" exclaimed Phoebe, in terror.

"Hush!" whispered Sir Guy, putting his hand upon her bridle. "Ride forward at an easy gait until I give example of haste."

They trotted quietly past the greater number of the group until a dark figure approached and a voice in the gloom said, severely:

"What dost thou here? Who rides with thee, la.s.s?"

Sir Guy now leaned forward and spurred his horse, leaping away into the darkness without a word. In equal silence Phoebe followed his example and galloped headlong close behind her lover.

"Help, ho!" yelled old Sir Isaac. "'Tis the traitor Fenton, with my daughter! After them--stop them--a Burton--a Burton!" and, mad with excitement, the angry father set off in hot pursuit. With one accord the others wheeled about and joined in the chase, uttering cries and imprecations that rang through the country for a mile around.

"Now have we need of speed!" said Sir Guy, as they galloped together toward London, whose walls were now visible in the distance. "Soon will the whole country join the hue-and-cry. The watch will meet us at the gate."

"'Twere better, were it not," Phoebe suggested, "that we turn to the left and make a circuit into the Aldersgate?"

"Good wit, my lady!" cried Guy, whose excitement had taken on the form of an exalted gayety. "Who rides with thee rides safe, my love--e'en as Theseus of old did ride, scathless 'neath the spell of protecting Pallas!"

"Stuff!" said Phoebe, spurring again, with a smile.

Guy led the way at once across country to the eastward, the soft English turf so deadening their hoof-beats that those behind them had no clue to their change of route.

When the pursuing party reached the Bishopsgate, they met the watch and learned that no one had pa.s.sed since the hue-and-cry was heard.

"Here divide we, then," cried stout Sir Isaac Burton. "Let eight follow them around the wall, while I with other six ride on, that, if haply they have entered London by the Aldersgate, we may meet them within the city."

The suggestion was adopted, and, all unconscious of their peril, the lovers were rapidly hemmed in between two bands of pursuers. Sir Guy and Phoebe reached the Aldersgate unmolested and were allowed to pa.s.s in without protest, as the hue-and-cry had not yet reached so far. They ambled quietly past the watch, arousing no suspicion, but no sooner had they turned the first corner than once more they urged their tired horses to greater exertion.

"Choose we the side streets," said Guy. "Who knows what watch hath been set on Gracechurch Street. 'Tis for London Bridge we are bound, is't not?"

"Yes," said Phoebe. "I pray no prying watch detain us ere we pa.s.s that way!"

Picking their way through the dark and narrow streets at a pace necessarily much reduced, they slowly approached their goal, until at length, on emerging into New Fish Street, they discerned the towering walls of London Bridge.

Here they reined in suddenly with one accord, for, plainly visible in the moonlight, a group of hors.e.m.e.n was gathered and there was borne to their ears the st.u.r.dy voice of Sir Isaac.

"Hallo!" he cried. "There be riders in New Fish Street. See where they lurk in the shadow! What ho, there! Give a name! Stand forth there!"

Sir Guy drew his sword.

"'Tis time for steel to answer!" he laughed.

"Nay--nay! Wait--wait!" said Phoebe, earnestly. "There must be other issue than in blood!"

Two or three hors.e.m.e.n now detached themselves from the group near the bridge and cantered up New Fish Street. Sir Isaac was among them.

"Are ye there, traitor?" he cried. "Where is my daughter?"

Sir Guy was about to reply when Phoebe put her hand on his arm.

"Hush!" she whispered. "Hearken!"

Faint at first, but growing momentarily louder, there came the clear trilling of a mysterious bell. It floated out from the dark by-ways whence they had themselves just emerged, and something eerie and uncanny in its clamor brought a thrill of terror to the young knight's nerves for the first time.

"Now, what in G.o.d's name--" he began.

But he broke off in horror, for there flashed past him, as silent as the wind and swifter, a dark, bent figure, with flying cloak, under which, as the moonlight struck him, there whirled a web of glittering tissue whereon he seemed to ride. That uncanny tinkling floated back from this strange vision, confirming to the ear what otherwise might have appeared a mere trick of the vision.

As for Sir Isaac and his band, the distant bell had early brought them to a wondering stand; and now, as this rushing phantom--trilling--trilling--trilling--swept down on a living moonbeam, with one accord they put spurs to their steeds, and with cries of horror fled in all directions.

"Forward!" cried Phoebe, exultantly. "Why, what now!" she exclaimed, as she saw her lover still sitting petrified with fear. "How now, my knight! Why sit you here amazed? Is not the way clear?

Come--follow--follow!" and she started forward on a trot.

But her lover did not move, and she was obliged to turn back. Laying her hand on his arm:

"Why, what ails thee, dear heart?" she asked.