CHAPTER VI

A RESCUE

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain.

-SHAKESPEARE.

MANSUR'S mood was rapidly approaching exasperation. He was amazed that Yerington persisted in his whim now that the sun was higher in the heavens, and that the West End was beginning to manifest itself occasionally in a sedan-chair on its way to the Exchange. A peer of the realm might disport himself after so whimsical a fashion if he chose, but he, Mansur, could not afford it. The plainly dressed city crowd, in its brown and snuffcolour, intent upon its day's occupation, filled him with irritation second only to his annoyance with Yerington, who was acting like a boy or a drunkard, he told himself. He had already learnt that that nobleman, once launched upon an idea, however trivial, persisted in it with the determination worthy of a conviction. He drifted down each branch road of life, and treated it with a seriousness becoming a highway. Mansur, who set himself to grim goals, toward which he laboured over years, found this quality in Lord Yerington a heavy tax upon his patience, even when it furthered his own ends. He was contemptuous of it, failing to perceive in it the shadow-side of a virtue, a capacity for concentration which properly directed might make for devotion to a cause, a comrade or a love. Lord Yerington had hitherto felt no impulse at the helm of his life, save that of his own unconsidered fancies.

"And what now?" asked Mansur, as they were once more upon their rambles.

Yerington had paused now, and was gazing meditatively up a dark alley almost deserted, above which but a narrow irregular line of sky was visible. A dirty kennel guttered down its middle and a gaunt, uncarved pump stood in its midst.

"I'm in mind to try this," he said.

"You're in mind to have a knife in your ribs," retorted Mansur. "I've no appetite for such neighbourhoods."

"I confess it outsmells my bergamot," said Yerington, taking a few steps up the narrow way.

Mansur followed him, after conquering an obstinacy so strong that it warned him against himself.

Yerington sauntered up the alley, glancing from side to side as he went. The street seemed uninhabited. Most of the windows of the houses were broken and the panes stuffed with rags. Only once, through a half-open door, the dance of a flame upon a hearth was visible.

"If 'twere plague time," he mused, "I'd swear we'd find death rotting behind these casements."

He stopped before one house, about which there still lingered indications of former wealth. The balconies were richly carved, and although the knocker of the heavy door, which was ajar, had been wrenched away, one flambeau extinguisher, dark with smoke, stood out from the wall beside it.

Yerington studied the stone escutcheon graven above the portal with interest.

""Tis that of the Ponsonbys," he said. tunes of a neighbourhood may change!"

"How the for

As he stood idly regarding the house, a sudden crash of glass sounded above him, and splintered crystal fragments tinkled at his feet. He glanced up in time to see a hand, white and small, which had been thrust through the panes, withdrawn. There was a suddenness in the

movement that suggested violence. A scream came to
him, anguished, smothered, but distinguishable.
"Help, for God's sake, help!"

Yerington's apathy vanished, his eyes were alert.
Mansur stood unmoved.

"There's mischief afoot," said Yerington eagerly. "Let us within."

"Madness!" ejaculated Mansur. "Would you risk your life or perish in some brawl for a Have-at-all '?" Yerington wheeled round toward him. "There was real anguish in that cry. When a woman is in danger, I do not stop to question of her character before I offer help. Will you in with me or no?"

He was half across the road as he spoke, his sword in his hand.

"Not I," said Mansur coolly. "I'm no Bedlamite." Yerington was now a cautious foot within the house, and he turned upon Mansur, over his shoulder, a look so fixed in contempt and repudiation that that gentleman changed his purpose and entered the house behind. him.

"That's better," said Yerington, a hint of relief in his whisper. "I could not have believed it of thee, Phil."

In the street without, nobody had stirred. It may be that a cry such as that which had just rung through its brooding shadows held no unfamilar note.

Within the house Lord Yerington and Mansur found themselves in a hall lighted faintly from above and pervaded by that curious melancholy odour which hangs in the air of rarely inhabited houses. A sink-staircase wound up to the next floor. An uglier position from which to resist a possible rush from above could scarcely have been devised. This fact Lord Yerington recognised in a flash as he set his foot on the first step.

The zest of adventure was beginning to mingle with

his impulse of protection, and he smothered a laugh in his throat, as he turned to Mansur below him.

"Don't press too close behind me," he whispered, "there is scarce room for sword-play in this cage, and I'll get in a swinging blow, if I can.'

Mansur came on a few cautious paces to the rear. As they neared the top of the staircase, Lord Yerington paused and listened.

"I hear their voices," he said. "The devil's in this, I'll lay."

The light flooded down from above and another gleam came to them from the end of the hall to which they were ascending, and upon which several doors opened. Lord Yerington stole cautiously to the front of the house, and turned the handle of the door which, according to his calculations, led into the room from which the scream had come. Mansur's head and shoulders only were visible above the stairway where he stood and watched.

With a quick, stealthy movement Yerington pushed back the door.

The room was empty.

A few bottles stood upon the mantelpiece. A chair, upholstered in leather, one leg missing, was tipped crazily against the wall. The shattered pane at the window told him that he was in the room he sought, and below it, upon the floor, he saw a few drops of blood. He stole to the door connecting this apartment with the one behind it. It was of strong oak, unpanelled, with hinges of wrought iron extending half across it. No entrance was to be obtained there.

He returned to the hall, feeling peculiarly helpless, and the sound of a girl's voice raised in violent, sobbing protest reached his ears.

"Zounds!" he exclaimed, " Phil, are we to be baffled?" He strained at the strong door behind which he heard

the voices. It scarcely quivered, even when he threw his whole weight and added force against it. But at the sound of his impact there came an exclamation in a woman's voice, followed by a waiting silence.

"Open!" cried Yerington, knocking sharply with the hilt of his sword.

A feminine voice cried out suddenly, then ceased with a smothered quaver, that clearly told the story of a hand pressed upon her lips.

That quaver moved Yerington.

"Mansur," he said, "a shoulder here!"
"Let me warn you- began Mansur.

"A shoulder," interrupted Yerington impatiently, "or no shoulder-which is it?"

"You'll repent this," said Mansur, but he approached and heaved with a will, confident of the unyielding oak and the probably doubly-shot iron lock.

Yerington, unaccustomed to situations that did not yield readily to his desires, for an instant stood lost in thought. The sound of that girl's smothered cry was echoing and re-echoing within him. Then his eyes wandered to a window at the end of the hall opening upon roofs. It suggested to him a possible solution of the difficulty. He went down and unhasped it.

A moment later he was out upon the slates, calling to Mansur to follow him. That Mansur did not, he scarcely heeded, so intent was he upon his purpose. He saw, with something like dismay, that the sharp peak of the roof was intercepted at the corner by a stack of high chimneys, round which he would be obliged to climb before he could ascertain whether, after all, this way held the key to the difficulty. He clung to their smoky, grimy sides, ascending partly by their help and partly upon his knees to the peak of the sharply inclined roof. This point of vantage gained, he rounded the obstruction and