CHAPTER XIX.
"_In breathless quiet, after all their ills._" ARNOLD A body of these wretches, fresh from some act of rapine and pillage, had seen Mrs.Franklin, hastening home, and, opening the hue and cry, had started in full chase after her.

Struck by sticks and stones that darkened the air, twice down, fleeing as those only do who flee for life, she gained her own house, thinking there to find security.

Vain hope! the door was battered in, the windows demolished, the puny barriers between the room in which they were gathered and the creatures in pursuit, speedily destroyed,--and these three turned to face death.
By chance, Surrey had his sword at his side, and, tearing this from its scabbard, sprang to the defence,--a gallant intent, but what could one weapon and one arm do against such odds as these?
He was speedily beaten down and flung aside by the miscreants who swarmed into the room.

It was marvellous they did not kill him outright.

Doubtless they would have done so but for the face propped against the pillows, which caught their hungry eyes.