“Try it. They’ll rust there before he takes any notice. Lord love you, girl, what are pins to bayonets! He is used to having bayonets stuck into him!” mocked the colonel. “Albert Goldsborough! you basest of all base miscreants! where are you daring to take me?” demanded Elfie, beginning to shake with her increasing sense of shame and rage and terror. “To the green wood, you fairest of all beauties! To the green wood, though it would not be so very green at this season of the year if it were not for the pines and cedars! To the green wood, to be married to Robin Hood, by his chaplain Friar Tuck, and to be Robin’s Maid Marion, and live among his merry men forever!” “If I cannot succeed in killing you before I leave this seat, I’ll do it afterwards! I will, as surely as I am my mother’s daughter!” fiercely exclaimed Elfie, springing once more up from her seat, and seizing her captor’s ears, and trying her very utmost to wring and tear them off. At that moment the clatter of horse’s feet was heard behind, and the next the huge form of Mutchison appeared, galloping rapidly after his chief. Goldsborough halted until his officer came up. “What news?” demanded the colonel. “Good! Our scouts come in and report that the enemy’s cavalry, out in search of us, have gone off on a false scent, that I took care to have laid for them. Our men have divided themselves in small parties and taken separate roads, and will rendezvous at the Black Bear’s Pass, as you ordered. But, good gracious, Colonel, now I look at you, have you been in a battle?” “No—except with this little wildcat here in which she has done all the fighting!” laughed Goldsborough. “Your ears are each one clot of gore!” “I dare say, though they feel to me as if they were each one ball of fire! See here, Mutchison—much as I dislike to restrain a young lady, we shall have to confine her hands, or I shall not have an ear, or a lock of hair left on my head! Take this pocket-handkerchief and tie her hands.” “Pity it hadn’t been done first, colonel! It would have saved your beauty from being spoiled, and mine too. Thunderation! I would as leave try to tie a catamount, with a thousand claws!” exclaimed Mutchison, as he sought to secure the hands of Elfie, who fought, scratched, and bit with so much effect that the guerrilla’s face and eyes came to great grief before he succeeded in binding her. After that they rode on more quietly through the woods, though Elfie did not cease to use her tongue, even if she could not use her hands. “Yes, you murderer! don’t think but what I’ll have you hanged for killing Mim, for I’m _sure_ you have killed him!” Elfie exclaimed, for the first time bursting into tears of passionate sorrow as well as of rage. “_That_ little tiny fellow! What if I did? You didn’t call _him_ a man, did you?” chuckled Mutchison. “Yes, you monster! a thousand times more of a man than you and your master either, ever was!” sobbed Elfie.