creamed Bethuel down the stair after him: "you can
manage him; he is alone."

Then, setting all the doors wide open, so that escape would be easy, he
ran out to saddle Marcher.

Down below, in the cellar, Stephen had caught hold of Royce's arm.
Royce, full in the narrow entranceway, stood glaring at Eliot, and
minding Stephen's hold no more than the foot of a fly. The light from
the horizontal door above streamed in and showed Eliot's dark face and
Honor's dilated eyes. The girl stood near her cousin, but slightly
behind him as though she feared his gaze.

"You are the man I want," said Royce; "I recognize you!" His strong
voice came in among their previous whispers and bated breath, as his
face came in among their three faces--Honor's ivory-pallid cheeks, the
outlaw's strained attention, and Stephen's gray fatigue, more and more
visible now as he gained breath and sight. "Yield yourself up. We are
two to your one."

"We are two to _your_ one," answered Eliot: "that man beside you is for
me."

Royce looked down with surprise upon his cousin, who still held his arm.

"No mistaken lenity now, Stephen," he said curtly, shaking his arm free.
"I must have this man; he shot Allison."

"How are you going to do it?" said Eliot jeeringly, putting his hands
deep down in his pockets and squaring his shoulders. "Even Honor here is
a match for two Yankees."

"Miss Dooris, I will let _you_ pass," said Royce impatiently. "Go up
stairs. This is no place for a girl like you."

"Say lady!" cried Eliot. "She is a Southern lady, sir!"

"Bah!" said Royce; "you are a fine person to talk of ladies.--_Are_ you
going, Miss Dooris?"

Great tears stood in Honor's eyes; she did not stir.

"She will not go, John," said Wainwright, "because that man is her
cousin--he is an Eliot."

"He is a murderer!" said Royce, filling up the doorway again, and
measuring with his eye the breadth of his opponent's shoulders and
muscle. "Now, then, are you with me or against me, Stephen? If against
me, by Heaven! I will fight you both."

"You do not understand, John. It is Honor's cousin: that is why _I_ am
anxious to save him."

"And what is her cousin or anybody's cousin to me?" cried Royce angrily.
"I tell you that man shot Allison, and he shall swing for it."

He sprang forward as if to close with Eliot, then sprang back again. He
remembered that it was more important that he should guard the door:
there was no other way of escape. If Stephe