her then to express at once her horror of her
own attempt and of the man who held her. That horror mounting until it
overpowered her, she sank suddenly against him in a swoon.
Instinctively his arms went round her, and a moment he held her thus,
recalling the last occasion on which she had lain against his breast,
on an evening five years and more ago under the grey wall of Godolphin
Court above the river. What prophet could have told him that when next
he so held her the conditions would be these? It was all grotesque and
incredible, like the fantastic dream of some sick mind. But it was all
true, and she was in his arms again.
He shifted his grip to her waist, heaved her to his mighty shoulder,
as though she were a sack of grain, and swung about, his business at
Arwenack accomplished--indeed, more of it accomplished than had been his
intent, and also something less.
"Away, away!" he cried to his rovers, and away they sped as fleetly
and silently as they had come, no man raising now so much as a voice to
hinder them.
Through the hall and across the courtyard flowed that human tide; out
into the open and along the crest of the hill it surged, then away down
the slope towards the beach where their boats awaited them. Sakr-el-Bahr
ran as lightly as though the swooning woman he bore were no more than a
cloak he had flung across his shoulder. Ahead of him went a half-dozen
of his fellows carrying his gagged and pinioned brother.
Once only before they dipped from the heights of Arwenack did Oliver
check. He paused to look across the dark shimmering water to the woods
that screened the house of Penarrow from his view. It had been part
of his purpose to visit it, as we know. But the necessity had now been
removed, and he was conscious of a pang of disappointment, of a hunger
to look again upon his home. But to shift the current of his thoughts
just then came two of his officers--Othmani and Ali, who had been
muttering one with the other. As they overtook him, Othmani set now
a hand upon his arm, and pointed down towards the twinkling lights of
Smithick and Penycumwick.
"My lord," he cried, "there will be lads and maidens there should fetch
fat prices in the sok-el-Abeed."
"No doubt," said Sakr-el-Bahr, scarce heeding him, heeding indeed little
in this world but his longings to look upon Penarrow.
"Why, then, my lord, shall I take fifty True-Believers and make a raid
upon them? It were an easy task, all unsusp
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