the edge of the line. On the
opposite side there was a surging in the crowd and as MacDougall raised
his whip a woman burst through.

"My God!" cried Nathaniel, "it's--"

He left the rest of the words unspoken. His veins leaped with fire. A
single sweep of his powerful arms and he had forced himself through the
innermost line of spectators. Within a dozen feet of him stood Strang's
wife, her beautiful hair disheveled, her face deadly white, her bosom
heaving as if she had been running. In a moment her eyes had taken in
the situation--the man at the stake, the upraised lash--and Nathaniel.
With a sobbing, breathless cry, she flung herself in front of MacDougall
and threw her arms around the kneeling man, her hair covering him in a
glistening veil. For an instant her eyes were raised to Nathaniel and he
saw in them that same agonized appeal that had called to him through the
king's window. The striking muscles of his arms tightened like steel.
One of the guards sprang forward and caught the girl roughly by the arm
and attempted to drag her away. In his excitement he pulled her head
back and her hair trailed in the dirt. The sight was maddening. From
Nathaniel's throat there came a fierce cry and in a single leap he had
cleared the distance to the guard and had driven his fist against the
officer's head with the sickening force of a sledge-hammer. The man fell
without a groan. In another flash he had drawn his knife and severed the
thongs that held the man at the stake. For a moment his face was very
near the girl's and he saw her lips form the glad cry which he did not
wait to hear.

He turned like an enraged beast toward the circle of dumfounded
spectators and launched himself at the second guard. From behind him
there sounded a shout and he caught the gleam of naked shoulders as the
man who had been at the stake rushed to his side. Together they tore
through the narrow rim of the crowd, striking at the faces which
appeared before them, their terrific blows driving men right and left.

"This way, Neil!" shouted Nathaniel. "This way--to the ship!"

They raced up the slope that led from the town to the forest. Even the
king's officer, palsied by the suddenness of the attack, had not
followed. From a screened window in the king's building two men had
witnessed the exciting scene near the jail. One of these men was Strang.
The other was Arbor Croche. At another window a few feet away, hidden
from their eyes by a high d