Tried for Her Life Part 20

They talked over their plans for the next day, and then retired to bed, and slept well until the next morning.

They arose and breakfasted early. The morning was fine and clear, and they wrapped themselves in their outer garments, and started with the intention of going out to purchase a couple of trunks and other necessaries for their long voyage.

Lyon was cheerful; Sybil was even gay; both were full of bright antic.i.p.ations for the future. For were they not flying toward freedom?

They had reached the great lower halls of the hotel, when they were stopped by a sound of altercation in the office, which was on their right hand as they went out.

"I tell you," said the clerk of the house, in an angry voice, "that there is no one of that name here!"

"And I tell you there _is_! And there she is now! I'd know her among ten thousand!" exclaimed a harsh, rude-looking man, who the next instant came out of the office and confronted Sybil, saying roughly:

"I know you, madam! You're my prisoner, Madam Berners! And you'll not do _me_, I reckon, as you did Purley! I'm Jones! And 'tan't one murder you've got to answer for now, but half a dozen!"

And without a word of warning, he snapped a pair of handcuffs upon the lady's delicate wrists.

"VILLAIN!" thundered Sybil's husband, as with a sweep of his strong arm he felled the ruffian to the floor.

It was but a word and a blow, "and the blow came first."

He caught his half-fainting wife to his bosom, and strove to free her from those insulting bracelets; but he could not wrench them off without wounding and bruising her tender flesh.

Meanwhile the fallen officer sprung to his feet, and called upon all good citizens to help him execute his warrant.

A crowd collected then. A riot ensued. Lyon Berners, holding his poor young wife to his bosom, vainly, madly, desperately defended her against all comers, dealing frantic blows with his single right arm on all sides. Of course, for the time being, he was insane.

"Knock him down! Brain him! but don't hurt the woman," shouted some one in the crowd. And some other one, armed with a heavy iron poker, dealt him a crashing blow upon the bare head. And Sybil's brave defender relaxed his protecting hold upon her form, fell broken, bleeding, perhaps dying at her feet.

A piercing scream broke from her lips. She stooped to raise her husband, but was at that instant seized by the officer, and forced from the spot.

"Shame! shame!" cried a bystander. "Take the handcuffs off the poor woman, and let her look at her husband."

"Poor woman indeed!" exclaimed Jones, the officer, "she's the biggest devil alive! Do you know what she's done? Not only murdered a beautiful lady; but blown up a church and killed half a dozen men!"

A shudder shook the crowd. Could this be true? A score of questions was put to Bailiff Jones. But he would not stop to answer any one of them.

Calling his coadjutor Smith to help him, they each took an arm of Sybil and forced her from the scene.

Faint, speechless, powerless under this sudden and awful acc.u.mulation of misery, the wretched young wife was torn from her dying husband and thrust into a stage-coach, guarded by three other bailiffs, and immediately started on her return journey.

Resistance was useless, lamentations were in vain. She sat dumb with a despair never before exceeded, scarcely ever before equalled in the case of any sufferer under the sun.

There were no other pa.s.sengers but the sheriff's officers and their one prisoner.

Of the first part of this terrible homeward journey there is but little to tell. They stopped at the appointed hours and stations to breakfast, dine, and sup, and to water and change the horses, but never to sleep.

They travelled day and night; and as no other pa.s.senger joined them, it was probable that the sheriff's officers had engaged all the seats for themselves and their important charge.

During that whole horrible journey the hapless young wife neither ate, drank, slumbered, nor spoke; all the faculties of mind and body, all the functions of nature, seemed to be suspended.

It was on the night of the third day, and they were in the last stage of the journey.

They were going slowly down that terrible mountain pa.s.s, leading to the village of Blackville. The road was even unusually difficult and dangerous, and the night was very dark, so that the coachman was driving slowly and carefully, when suddenly the bits of the leaders were seized and the coach stopped.

In some alarm the bailiffs thrust their heads out of the side windows to the right and left, to see what the obstacle might be.

To their horror and amazement they found it surrounded by half a score of highwaymen, armed to the teeth.

CHAPTER X.

THE NIGHT ATTACK ON THE COACH.

"The sound of hoof, the flash of steel, The robbers round her coming."

"The road robbers, by all that's devilish!" gasped Jones, falling back in his seat.

"Good gracious!" cried Smith.

And all the brave "b.u.m-baillies" who had so gallantly bullied and brow-beaten Sybil and her sole defender, dropped panic-stricken, paralyzed by terror.

"Get out of this, you vermin!" ordered a stern voice at one of the windows.

"Ye--ye--yes, gentlemen," faltered Jones.

"Ta--take, all we have, but spa--spa--spare our lives!" pleaded Smith.

"Well, well, get out of this, you miserable cowards! Empty your pockets, and you shall be safe! It would be crueler than infanticide to slay such miserably helpless wretches!" laughed the same voice, which poor Sybil, as in a dream, recognized as belonging to Captain "Inconnu."

The trembling bailiffs descended from the coach and gave up their pocket-books and watches, and then submitted to be tied to trees.

The coachman and the guard yielded to the same necessity.

The horses were taken from the coach and appropriated to the use of the victors.

And lastly, Sybil, who was rendered by despair indifferent to her fate, was lifted from her seat by the strong arms of Moloch, who held her a moment in suspense, while he turned to his chief and inquired:

"Where now, Captain?"

"To the rendezvous! And look that you treat the lady with due deference!"

"Never you fear, Captain! I'm sober to-night!" answered the giant, as he threw the half-fainting form of the lady across his shoulders and strode up a narrow foot-path leading through the mountain pa.s.s.

Indifferent to fate, to life, to all things, Sybil felt herself borne along in the firm embrace of her rude abductor. As in a dream she heard his voice speaking to her:

"Now don't you be afeard, darlint! We an't none on us agwine to hurt a hair o' your head, or to let anybody else do it! Bless your purty face, if we didn't carry you off you'd spend this night and many more on 'em in the county jail! and end by losing your liberty and your life for that which you never did! But you's safe now! And don't you go to mistrusting on us 'pon account o' that night! Why, Lord love ye! we was all drunk as dukes that night, else we never would a mislested you!

Lord! if you'd seen the lots of liquor we'd took aboard, you wouldn't wonder at nothing! But we's sober now! And so you's safe! Where's your little dog? Lord bless my life and soul how that little creetur did take hold o' my throat, to be sure! Where is she?"