"I trust," the Bishop answered, smiling, "that we shall have no need to
make the one, or to fear the other."

"You could hold this," Flavia asked eagerly, "with such men as we
have?"

"Against an army," Cammock answered.

"Against an army!" she murmured, as, her heart beating high with pride,
they resumed their way, Flavia and the Bishop in the van. "Against an
army!" she repeated fondly.

The words had not fully left her lips when she recoiled. At the same
moment the Bishop uttered an exclamation, Cammock swore and seized his
hilt, The McMurrough turned as if to flee. For on the path close to
them, facing them with a pistol in his hand, stood Colonel Sullivan.

He levelled the pistol at the head of the nearest man, and though
Flavia, with instant presence of mind, struck it up, the act helped
little. Before Cammock could clear his blade, or his companions back up
his resistance, four or five men, of Colonel John's following, flung
themselves on them from behind. They were seized, strong arms pinioned
them, knives were at their throats. In a twinkling, and while they
still expected death, sacks were dragged over their heads and down to
their waists, and they were helpless.

It was well, it was neatly done; and completely done, with a single
drawback. The men had not seized Flavia, and, white as paper, but with
rage not fear, she screamed shrilly for help--screamed twice.

She would have screamed a third time, but Colonel Sullivan, who knew
that they were scarcely two furlongs from the meeting-place, and from
some hundreds of merciless foes, did the only thing possible. He flung
his arms round her, pressed her face roughly against his shoulder,
smothered her cries remorselessly. Then raising her, aided by the man
with the musket, he bore her, vainly struggling--and, it must be owned,
scratching--after the others out of the driftway.

The thing done, the Colonel's little band of Frenchmen knew that they
had cast the die, and must now succeed or perish. The girl's screams,
quickly suppressed, might not have given the alarm; but they had set
nerves on edge. The prick of a knife was used--and often--to apprise
the blinded prisoners that if they did not move they would be piked.
They were dragged, a seaman on either side of each captive, over some
hundred paces of rough ground, through the stream, and so into a path
little better than a sheep-track which ran round the farther side of
the hill of the tower, and de