night-dress--having no more sense in the
terror--a long silver coat of some animal shot by my father in his
wanderings, and the light upon the stairs glistened round it. Having no
time to think, I was turning to flee and jump out of my bedroom window,
for which I had made some arrangements, according to the wisdom of the
Councillor, when the flash of some light or the strain of my eyes showed
me the body of Thomas Pring, our faithful old retainer, lying at the
foot of the broken door, and beside it his good wife, creeping up to
give him the last embrace of death. And lately she had been cross to
him. At the sight of this my terror fled, and I cared not what became
of me. Buckling the white skin round my waist, I went down the stairs as
steadily as if it were breakfast time, and said:

"Brutes, murderers, cowards! you have slain my father; now slay me!"

Every one of those wicked men stood up and fixed his eyes on me; and if
it had been a time to laugh, their amazement might have been laughed
at. Some of them took me for a spirit--as I was told long afterward--and
rightly enough their evil hearts were struck with dread of judgment.
But even so, to scare them long in their contemptuous, godless vein was
beyond the power of Heaven itself; and when one of my long tresses fell,
to my great vexation, down my breast, a shocking sneer arose, and words
unfit for a maiden's ear ensued.

"None of that! This is no farmhouse wench, but a lady of birth and
breeding. She shall be our queen, instead of the one that hath been
filched away. Sylvia, thou shalt come with me."

The man who spoke with this mighty voice was a terror to the others, for
they fell away before him, and he was the biggest monster there--Carver
Doone, whose name for many a generation shall be used to frighten unruly
babes to bed. And now, as he strode up to me and bowed,--to show some
breeding,--I doubt if the moon, in all her rounds of earth and sky
and the realms below, fell ever upon another face so cold, repulsive,
ruthless.

To belong to him, to feel his lips, to touch him with anything but a
dagger! Suddenly I saw my father's sword hanging under a beam in the
scabbard. With a quick spring I seized it, and, leaping up the stairs,
had the long blade gleaming in the moonlight. The staircase would not
hold two people abreast, and the stairs were as steep as narrow. I
brought the point down it, with the hilt against my breast, and there
was no room for anoth