De Rothan seemed to know all the lanes, paths, and by-roads as though he had been born in those parts and had played the smuggler on many a night. He cast a half circle round Westfield village, and took the road that led toward Icklesham and Guestling, riding a little ahead of his men, his right arm supporting Nance. She was still smothered up in the blanket, and unable to move her arms.
The country was fairly open, with the road climbing low hills and dropping down into valleys. The moon painted everything in a broad effect of black and greys, and showed the road as a white thread before them. De Rothan was not playing for concealment. It was a question of speed, and of a dash for the shore along Pett Level where the Rye boat would be waiting to take them on board.
When they had covered a mile or more De Rothan pulled up on the top of a hill, looked back, and listened. His men drew in and waited in silence. The night seemed still and empty of all sound, and there was no rattle of hoofs to tell of pursuit.
De Rothan turned his horse and rode on.
"How is it with you, sweet Nance?"
She would not answer him.
"Frightened and outraged, eh? Come, come, you must make allowances for the spirit of adventure. If I have to cover your beauty with a blanket, it is to keep you from making the moon jealous. I thought all the world loved a pirate, a highwayman, and a gentlemanly villain! Once on board the lugger, eh! You shall see me in a red cap and big sea boots, and with a belt full of cutlasses and pistols. Ha—ha! That is the stage cry, eh? Ha—ha! Your friends are finding some little affairs to keep them about my house."
Nance shivered, and felt a wild desire to cry out. She had come by a blind horror of the man, a horror that was quickened by her own physical helplessness. Already her heart had accused him of Jasper Benham's death, for those words of Gaston's still haunted her.
De Rothan appeared to divine her emotions.
"You are longing to ask questions, my Nance, and you feel like a fly in a web? What has become of Mr. Benham and of your good father? Well, I will try to put your mind at rest. Mr. Benham is having his irons knocked off, and is drinking a pot of beer. Your father may be scolding the moon. And Brick House is burning."
He felt her body quiver. She was overstrung with suspense, incredulity, and fear.
"Why did we set the house alight? Well, you see, sweet one, it was an excellent trick for distracting the bull. They could not leave Mr. Benham there to be burned. When they have finished yonder, we may have them after us. But then, you see, they may not know where to find us."
She wondered whether he was speaking the truth, or merely talking to reassure her. His triumphant playfulness had all the glittering hardness of a well-cut stone. It was useless to appeal to him, and there was nothing that she could do to help herself.
The minutes seemed to gallop and to keep pace with the horses. They appeared to be mounting some rising ground, and to be moving over grassland by the dull thudding of the horses' hoofs. Presently De Rothan drew in, and his men came round him, making a black blur upon the summit of a hill.
To the right rose the long black ridge that climbed up to Fairlight Down, and before them lay the sea; a tranquil, summer sea under the moon. The shore was like a dark fringe to a silver robe.
De Rothan and his men were at gaze, looking for something that should have been visible out yonder. For some moments there was silence, and Nance felt the thread of hope breaking beneath the weight of her suspense.
"Hum—we are a little early. Let us go down to the shore."
The horses were tinned into a narrow, high-banked lane that descended steeply toward the flats between the high ground and the sea. Loose stones rolled and scattered under the horses' hoofs. Nance had a feeling that De Rothan's mood had changed. His arm seemed to hold her more tightly. He was grimmer, less pleased with the chances of the night.
In another minute they had reached the bottom of the hill, and loose stones gave place again to grass. They moved on for another two hundred yards or more before De Rothan reined in.
Nance felt herself lifted down from De Rothan's horse. The scarf that fastened her arms was untied, and the blanket taken away. She found herself standing on rough grassland that ended in the shingle of the beach. The place was very lonely, with masses of furze and of bramble screening the shore and covering much of the ground between the sea and the hills. The tide was making a faint splashing along the shingle banks, the broken water catching the moonlight and turning it into a thousand glimmering scales.
De Rothan was standing on a little hillock and looking out to sea. His profile was visible to Nance, hard, intent, and a little scornful. The man was anxious, but not afraid.
He tinned to her with an air of cynical courtesy.
"Will it please you to walk a little way along the shore with me? I have certain things to say to you."
She was afraid of being alone with him, and De Rothan saw it.
"Come, come, I am not going to cut your throat, or be violent. Gaston, keep yourselves and your horses under cover of that furze. We shall not have long to wait. Now, Nance, I am ready."
The stretch of coarse grass divided the furze banks and the shingle, and De Rothan set off eastward along it with Nance at his side. The girl was white and on the alert. The splashing of the sea upon the shingle was full of a sinister and shivering suggestiveness.
"My Nance, you are still very young. Why are you so afraid of me and of the future that I offer you?"
The triumphant tenderness in his voice made her shudder.
"Need you ask me such questions?"
"It is all bold adventure, is it not, and am I not a man to gallop off with a girl's heart?"
"Adventure! I hate the word!"
He laughed.
"Poor Nance, after all, it does not suit the click of knitting needles. It is only pleasant in books, eh? Well, well, why not some pretty château across the water, with swans on the moat, and a fine old-time garden? You would not quarrel with such quiet, homely things."
Her very dread of him made her passionately impatient. She turned to one side and sat down on a low bank in the full light of the moon.
"I'll not answer you."
"Mr. Benham is a homely young man, eh? He smells more of the fireside and the kitchen? Whereas I am a gallant, and one of the best swordsmen in France."
She rested her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her two hands.
"What kind of man are you to treat me like this? If you had one shred of honour in you——"
"Honour? I have as much honour in me as Mr. Benham, and much more in the way of brains."
"At least I have my pride left me and my scorn for you."
"Dear Nance, do you think you will speak to me like this when we are over the water? I think not—I think not."
There was something of menace in his eyes, the exultation of fierce desire. He watched her a moment, and then began to pace up and down, throwing sharp glances at the moonlit hills and toward the sea. It was plain that a savage impatience was growing in him, and that even his insolent complacency could not save him from suspense. Now again he paused to listen, fancying he heard the sound of galloping upon the hills.
"Devil take the man! Why is he not here with the boat?"
Nance watched him narrowly as his long shadow went to and fro over the grass. A glimpse of hope had risen in her, a determination to try some last desperate trick. She strained her ears, trying to catch some sound above the moist playing of the water on the shingle. If Jeremy only knew the road they had taken. If he and Jasper could only arrive in time.
Her heart would have leapt in her could she have seen a long, lithe figure squirming away amid the furze bushes. It was the figure of a man who had crept down to reconnoitre, and who was making his way back toward the higher ground above.
Half way up the hillside there was a thicket of dwarf, wind-twisted oaks. The man made for this, keeping in the shadow of the furze bushes. He gained the thicket and disappeared into it, to be surrounded almost instantly by a crowd of eager men.
"What news, Tom?"
"They be down yonder; t' three chaps wid the horses, and Miss Durrell and the French blackguard a little way along t' shore."
There was a murmuring of voices, and the clicking of pistol locks.
"Look to your priming, men. Now, listen to me."
They had left their horses on the other side of the hill, crept over the brow under the shadow of a hedge, and taken cover in the oak thicket. Tom Stook had been sent out to reconnoitre.
Jeremy told off Steyning and Parsloe with the four men to creep down and overpower De Rothan's three French servants. He himself with Jasper, Stott, and Tom Stook took a line a little more to the east so as to strike the shore where De Rothan and Nance were waiting. Jeremy ordered Stott to lead, but took second place himself. He had to hold Jasper by the arm, and plead with him fiercely.
"Am I going to let you spoil all my plans by getting hurt at the last moment? You have the pluck, but a man who has been in irons for three weeks is not fit to face a swordsman like De Rothan. Moreover, I want the surgeon at my elbow. He is a devil with a pistol, and will keep De Rothan marked."
Jasper knew that Jeremy talked sound sense.
"It goes against the grain, Jeremy."
"I know, lad, I know. I shall love you the more for giving in to me."
They started down through the furze, Steyning, Parsloe, and their men giving them a short start, since Jeremy's party had farther to go. Tom Stook led, winding in and out among the furze bushes. Jeremy and Stott followed close on him, with Jasper in the rear. Jeremy had given him his sword to carry, having unbuckled it before their advance upon the beach.
Stook paused from time to time. The noise of the sea washing along the shingle smothered any slight sound they made in brushing through the grass or against the bushes. In five minutes they were close to the shore, and could hear De Rothan speaking.
"My Nance, it is no use your putting up your pretty hands against fate. Come now and kiss me, and let us forgive."
"Only let me be!"
They heard De Rothan's laugh, and then Nance's voice in sudden alarm.
"Look, there is a boat."
"Where?"
"Away yonder. I can see the sail."
Jeremy had risen from behind the furze, and Stott followed him. They saw that De Rothan had turned and was looking out to sea. Nance had played her poor little trick on him, and it had answered. She picked up her skirts and made a dash toward the furze.
Jeremy leapt out on to the grass, shouting.
"Run, Nance, run, into the bushes for your life."
She was still in the moonlight, though nearing the banks of shadow. De Rothan had twisted about, raised an arm, and taken aim. Jeremy's voice rang out, fiercely, warningly.
"Not at the girl, not at the girl, De Rothan!"
Then Stott's pistol cracked, and De Rothan's hat went whirling, but left him unhurt. Whether the shot startled him, or whether he drew the trigger purposely, his pistol belched flame. Nance was some thirty yards from him. She gave a curious cry, staggered on a few steps, and then fell face forward into the furze.
A man's cry echoed Nance's. Jeremy swung round and caught Jasper round the middle.
"No, no, lad! Leave him to us."
"Let go, Jeremy, damn you, let go."
"Tom Stook—quick! Take hold here."
They held Jasper between them, mastering him with some ease, for he was weak despite his wild anger against De Rothan. Stott had marched forward several paces, and was calmly covering De Rothan with his second pistol.
"I've missed ye once, ye damned coward. Stand fast, or I'll put a bullet through you."
Jeremy had left Jasper to Tom Stook after wrenching his sword out of Jasper's hand. He joined Stott, sword and pistol ready, his eyes looking grimly at De Rothan.
"See to the girl, Stott. I'll deal with this gentleman."
Stott threw his pistol down and ran toward Nance, who lay half hidden in the furze. De Rothan was standing stiff and erect like a black pillar outlined by the moon. His one pistol was empty, and he had nothing left him but his sword.
He threw his head back suddenly and shouted to his men.
"Gaston, à moi—Gaston——"
His cry came too late. Steyning, Parsloe, and their men had crept down and overpowered the three Frenchmen without their firing a shot. Their exultant shouts came with the swish of the water on the shingle.