They heeded her as little as before. Not only did they press steadily onward, but they even quickened their pace, stumbling over the rough cobbles of the street in the darkness that pervaded it. Alarm awoke in her. “Nathaniel,” she called shrilly, leaning forward, and vainly seeking to grasp the shoulder just beyond her reach. “Nathaniel!” Her alarm increased. Was this really Nathaniel or was it some one else? There was something sinisterly purposeful in the stolid manner in which the fellow plodded on unheeding. The tall man ahead who led them, little more than a dark outline now, had slackened his step, so that the chair was rapidly overtaking him. She attempted to rise, to force up the roof of the chair, to thrust open the apron in front of her. But neither yielded to her exertions. And in the end she realized that both had been fastened. That made an end of any doubt with which she may still have been deluding herself. She yielded to terror and her screams for help awoke the silent echoes of the street. The tall man halted, turned, rapped out an oath, and authoritatively commanded the men to set down. But even as he issued the order the flare of a link suddenly made its appearance at the corner of Paul’s Chains, and in the ring of yellow light it cast they could discern the black outlines of three or four moving figures. Light and figures paused a moment there, checked by the girl’s cries. Then abruptly they flung forward at clattering speed. “On! On!” Holles bade the chairmen curtly, and himself went forward again, the chair now following with Miss Farquharson steadily shrieking for help and beating frenziedly upon roof and apron. She, too, had seen those Heaven-sent rescuers rushing swiftly to meet them, and she may have caught in the torchlight the livid gleam of swords drawn for her deliverance. They were a party of three gentlemen lighted by a link-boy, on their homeward way. They were young and adventurous, as it chanced, and very ready to bare their blades in defence of a lady in distress. But it happened that this was a contingency for which Holles was fully prepared, one, indeed, which he could not have left out of his calculations. The foremost of those hastening gallants was suddenly upon him, his point at the level of the Colonel’s breast, and bawling dramatically: “Stand, villain!” “Stand yourself, fool,” Holles answered him in tones of impatient scorn, making no shift to draw in self-defence. “Back--all of you--on your lives! We are conveying this poor lady home. She has the plague.” That checked their swift advance. It even flung them back a little, treading on one another’s toes in their sudden intimidation. Brave enough against ordinary men and ordinary lethal weapons, they were stricken with instant panic before the horrible, impalpable foe whose presence was thus announced to them.