ss than a week!
Poor Brandon!

Jane, who had called him up, and was the cause of his following them,
began to weep.

"Sir," said she, "forgive me; it was not my fault; she had just
said--" Slap! came Mary's hand on Jane's mouth; and Jane was marched
off, weeping bitterly.

The girls had started up toward East Cheap when they left Grouche's,
intending to go home by an upper route, and now they walked rapidly in
that direction. Brandon continued to follow them, notwithstanding what
Mary had said, and she thanked him and her God ever after that he did.

They had been walking not more than five minutes, when, just as the
girls turned a corner into a secluded little street, winding its way
among the fish warehouses, four horsemen passed Brandon in evident
pursuit of them. Brandon hurried forward, but before he reached the
corner heard screams of fright, and as he turned into the street
distinctly saw that two of the men had dismounted and were trying to
overtake the fleeing girls. Fright lent wings to their feet, and their
short skirts affording freedom to their limbs, they were giving the
pursuers a warm little race, screaming at every step to the full limit
of their voices. How they did run and scream! It was but a moment till
Brandon came up with the pursuers, who, all unconscious that they in
turn were pursued, did not expect an attack from the rear. The men
remaining on horseback shouted an alarm to their comrades, but so
intent were the latter in their pursuit that they did not hear. One of
the men on foot fell dead, pierced through the back of the neck by
Brandon's sword, before either was aware of his presence. The other
turned, but was a corpse before he could cry out. The girls had
stopped a short distance ahead, exhausted by their flight. Mary had
stumbled and fallen, but had risen again, and both were now leaning
against a wall, clinging to each other, a picture of abject terror.
Brandon ran to the girls, but by the time he reached them the two men
on horseback were there also, hacking away at him from their saddles.
Brandon did his best to save himself from being cut to pieces and the
girls from being trampled under foot by the prancing horses. A narrow
jutting of the wall, a foot or two in width, a sort of flying
buttress, gave him a little advantage, and up into the slight shelter
of the corner thus formed he thrust the girls, and with his back to
them, faced his unequal foe with drawn sword. Fortunately