“You have seen one of yourselves smitten down with the plague under your very eyes,” he was ranting. “And so shall others be smitten to pay for the sin of harlotry with which this city is corrupt.” Now, for all the fear that was besetting the naturally stout spirit in her frail white body, Miss Farquharson’s wits were not at all impaired. This fanatic--to judge him by the language he used--represented himself as moved to wrath against her by something that had lately happened in Paul’s Yard. His words implied that his denunciation was prompted by that latest sign of Heaven’s indignation at the sins of the City. But since he had been on the watch in Salisbury Court to observe her going forth, and had followed her all the way thence, it was clear that the facts were quite otherwise, and that he acted upon a premeditated design. And now the knaves who had joined him were hustling the chairmen with greater determination. The chair was tossed alarmingly, and Miss Farquharson flung this way and that within it. Others from amongst the spectators--from amongst those upon whom she had almost been depending for ultimate protection--began to press upon the heels of her more immediate assailants and insults were being flung at her by some of the women in the crowd. Hemmed about by that hostile mob, the chair came at last perforce to a standstill just opposite the Paul’s Head, on the steps of which Colonel Holles was at that moment standing. He had been in the act of coming forth upon the errand of finding a purchaser for his jewel, when his attention was drawn by the hubbub, and he stood arrested, frowning and observant. The scene nauseated him. The woman they were persecuting with their insults and menaces might be no better than that dirty fanatic was pronouncing her. But she was a woman and helpless. And apart from this there was in all the world no vice that Holles found more hideous than virtue driven to excess. Over the heads of the crowd he saw the wildly rocking chair set down at last. Of its occupant he had but a confused glimpse, and in any case the distance at which he stood would hardly have permitted him to make out her face distinctly. But so much wasn’t necessary to conceive her condition, her peril, and the torment of fear she was suffering at the hands of those ignoble persecutors. Colonel Holles thought he might find pleasant distraction, and at the same time perform a meritorious deed, in slitting the ears of that black fanatic who was whipping up the passions of the mob.