Rafael Sabatini

“ A moment Coote looked at him perplexed. Then a glimmer, a half-suspicion of what it might be flashing through his mind, he advanced.
“Give it me,” he demanded hoarsely. Ashton held up his hand, as if to ward him off.
“No, no,” he repeated. “It concerns thee not.”
“Give it me,” the other insisted. He was mad with the night's happening, and ripe for any violence. Ere the old man knew it, the paper was in Coote's fingers, and he was reading Kate's note:
Save yourself. ”

“ A while the old man listened carefully, anon desultorily, for so interlarded with texts and proverbs was the Puritan's speech as to grow wearisome even in the ears of one of his own persuasion. And while he sat and listened the old man's eyes were attracted by a slip of paper at his feet. Idly he took it up. It was Kate's note to Masefield, which the Cavalier had dropped there as he fled. A cry of anguish burst from Ashton to interrupt the speaker.
“What is't?'” quoth Coote. ”

“ An ensign and six men, having already ransacked Coote's dwelling, were come to act upon the information that he might be found at Master Ashton's. The ensign was courteous but firm, and his men searched the house, while Masefield, reappearing, engaged his brother officer in conversation.
Their duty done, they departed to seek elsewhere. But morning was to prove that the spy had made good his escape, a matter at which Sir Geoffrey shrugged his massive shoulders. They were overstrong at Dorchester to be in fear of the small force that lay at Wallingford with Lambert. ”

“ To arms! We are beset.”
Then she understood what was taking place. Masefield had given the alarm, and the Royalists were rising to defend themselves. Meanwhile Lambert came not. If he should come now, she realized, he would find the tables turned, and would come to his destruction. In a very frenzy she fell on her knees by the open window, and, with her eyes to the stars, she prayed God to pardon the evil that unwittingly she had wrought, prayed God that Lambert might not come at all, and while she knelt there in prayers and self-reviling, she heard the half-hour strike. ”

“ To-morrow, at dead midnight, Lambert makes a camisade upon them, and, taking them by surprise, shall wreck them as utterly as was that Babylon whence they belong. His force is slight, but half that of these malignants. Hence his need to take them in their beds. And to the end that none may escape am I come to enjoin all true followers of the Lord, all godly men that dwell in Dorchester, to arm and rise, once the attack has been delivered, and, joining forces with us, see to it that no man of them all escapes the hell for which he is overripe. ”

“ Come with me,” he snarled at Kate, “thou drab, thou——”
“Father—— " she began appealingly.
“Come with me,” thundered the Puritan, striding to the door. He flung it open, turned, and stood waiting. “Must I drag thee hence?” he asked, and, seeing that she stirred not, he strode to her and caught her fiercely by the wrist. At that, old Ashton was moved to anger. With a growl, he sprang at Coote, who met his onrush with a blow that felled him. Then, seizing the half-fainting girl in his arms, he carried her bodily from the house. In the street he came upon a dozen fugitive Roundheads. ”

“ Master Coote's name was never mentioned between them, but Masefield had a suspicion that in the present conflict her betrothed was on the other side—at least in sympathies. He remembered that on the day after the arrival of the Royalists at Dorchester, a man of that name had applied to Sir Geoffrey for a safe conduct, giving out that he wished to visit a sick brother at Wallingford. From that alleged errand of mercy he returned a week after Masefield's avowal to Kate, and Harry met him at his host's house, whither he was come to pay his duties to Master Ashton and to Kate. ”

“ Many of the ungodly malignants kept late hours, and sat till midnight at their dice and cards and other deviltries. And so, to his undoing, he had been prevailed upon to delay the attack until one o'clock, when they should be more certain of finding the malignants in their beds.
Instead, the Royalists were up, and waiting for them as they crept into Dorchester town. The Roundheads had butchered the outposts, and gone forward without interruption till Lambert halted them in the market-place, there to give his officers their last instructions. ”

“ He halted them with a shout.
“Here is the wanton that hath sold us unto Egypt; here is the traitress!” he screamed, “We go not hence without her.”
Over Shillingford Bridge a party of frenzied, fugitive Roundheads made their panic-stricken way. ”