ed the poet hastily. "She'll come
to harm else. Lord! Look at those drunken beasts. No--no"--the landlord
was about to shut the latticed windows--"run to the door, child. Quick."

A howling sottish mob mad with drink, clamouring, gesticulating, men and
women jostling each other, embracing vulgarly, their eyes glassy, their
faces flushed, was approaching the inn.

The mob was headed by a handsome woman. She was in the plenitude of
fleshly charms. Her dress, disordered, showed her round solidly built
shoulders, her ample bust. Some day unless her tastes and her manner of
life altered she would end in a bloway drab, every vestige of beauty
gone in masses of fat. But at that moment she was the model of a
reckless Bacchante, born for the amusement and aggravation of man.

Her maddening eyes were directed on the Maiden Head inn. Her full lips
were parted in a harsh boisterous laugh; her white teeth gleamed; the
blood ran riot in her veins; she was the embodiment of exuberant,
semi-savage, animal life. She danced up to the open window. The sight of
the sleeping Lance Vane had drawn her thither.

Up to that moment Lavinia Fenton's back was towards the woman. Lavinia
tried to get away without notice, but the Bacchante's escort was too
numerous, too aggressive, too closely packed. They hoped for some fun
after their own tastes.

"Mercy on me," muttered Gay apprehensively, "that impudent hussy, Sally
Salisbury. And drunk too. This means trouble. Dick," he whispered
hurriedly to Leveridge, "you can use your fists if need be. I've seen
you have a set-to in Figg's boxing shed. That girl's in danger. Sally's
bent on mischief. There's murder in her eyes. Come with me."

Leveridge nodded and followed his friend out of the room.

Gay's action was none too prompt. No sooner had Sally
Salisbury--destined to be, a few years later, the most notorious woman
of her class--set eyes on the girl than her brows were knitted and her
lips and nostrils went white. Her cheeks on the other hand blazed with
fury. She gripped the shrinking girl and twisted her round. Then she
thrust her face within a few inches of Lavinia's.

"What do you mean by coming here, you squalling trollop?" she screamed.
"How dare you poach on my ground, you----"

How Sally finished the sentence can be very well left to take care of
itself.

Lavinia despite her terror of the beautiful virago never lost her
self-control.

"You're welcome to this ground every inch of