e had said, "None shall touch thee
this night"; and he would maintain his word not because he wanted to,
but because he must.

"Keep your hands off her!" he said savagely, as Hito stooped. His hands
were clenched, his black brows lowering, his mood, plainly, was not to
be trifled with. That he should pay for his temerity he knew as well as
Hito; but since he was lost in any case, he considered that a little
more or less would make small difference.

"What have you to say about it?" Hito snarled. "Did I not send you for
the girl? Quartus! Sporus! Come back, ye knaves, and bind me this
fellow!"

But Nicanor, with a bound like a tiger cat's, flung himself on the door,
slammed it shut, and locked it. And he had need of all his quickness,
for he was playing fast and loose with death. Hito yelled and started
for the second door through which he had come and near which the girl
was crouching. But again Nicanor was too quick. He got between Hito and
the door and stood ready to shut it,--erect, defiant, every muscle tense
to spring. He would die, that was certain, but he would give somebody
trouble first. Now Hito was fat and scant of breath, and Hito was soft
with good living and much ease; and when he was cornered, he turned not
rat, but rabbit. Moreover, he had seen this lean devil of a slave in
action before and he remembered it. So he stopped and merely yelled
again for Quartus and Sporus.

Without taking his eyes off the overseer, Nicanor put out his hand and
pulled the girl to him.

"If you swoon, I shall kill you!" he muttered, stooping until he could
whisper in her ear. "Go to Thorney in the Fords, and find there
Nicodemus the One-Eyed, who keeps a wine-shop. Tell him I sent you. I
cannot hold our friend here for long, but it is all that I can do. You
know what it will mean to be caught and brought back." He raised his
voice somewhat, so that Hito should hear apparently without his meaning
it. "Go to your room and lock yourself in. We shall see what our lord
has to say to such doings!"

He held the door ajar, and pushed the girl through, and closed it, but
in the lock there was no key. Hito sneered.

"Clever lad! 'Go to your room and lock yourself in!' Hast thought what
will happen when she must come out? 'See what our lord has to say to
such doings!' Hast thought that what he will say will be through me?
What else didst tell the girl? Answer, son of an ill-famed mother, or
the rack shall question for me!"

N