It may appear an incredible motion of my mind, but I could have cried out for joy at a diversion which, then befalling, served to turn Idonia from these crazed memories; albeit the cause was one properly, and at another time wholly, to be feared. For chancing to lift my eyes to one of the houses that be here builded by the water's edge, and serve doubtless for the storage of marine stores and tackle, I saw a man, and after, another, and then a whole posse of men armed with cuirass and halberd, that advanced directly towards us. Idonia saw them almost at the same moment, and seeming to recover her wits in the suddenness of the danger, she broke off, and turned to me with a swift glance of inquiry. "Quick," I whispered; "down by the piles to the beach," and helped by the darkness of the night we scrambled off the path on to the ribbon of wet bank beneath it, where we crouched, perfectly concealed from the soldiers. "Halt!" cried a voice above our heads, and the trampling footsteps ceased. "We be thirty men strong, and none too many for this business. Anthony, take you twelve and post them before the door. Six men go with Will Huet; see that none escape by the windows. There is a light burns at one yet. I will take the complement and go within. Now mark me well: our warrant is principally to the capture of Skene, alias Cleeve, and one Guido Malpas, that was of the Earl of Pembroke's household, but since discharged. He is a tall black man and a dangerous. It standeth upon us to apprehend the whole sort that here congregate together. They will make resistance and you will defend yourselves, but for the rest I have it in my authority that no blood be wasted needlessly. A live captive may prove useful; a dead villain is nothing worth. The password is _At last_. Set on." Idonia had half risen from her place; she watched the retreating men as they filed along towards the Inn. "I must warn him," she cried impetuously, and had clambered on to the turf path ere I could let her. "What madness is this?" I urged, aghast. "You would yourself be arrested or ever you could get sight of that devil." "Devil or no," she panted, while she struggled to unclasp my restraining arms, "devil or no, he is my guardian. Denis, I cannot stand by idle and see him taken." "Sweetheart," I entreated her, "you can do nought, indeed. They be all armed men..." "Hinder me no more!" "Idonia!" "Oh, it is cowardly, cowardly!" "Listen," I said, appealing. "Ah, Denis, let me not thus, or you will kill me.... See! they are close to the house already. A little while and..." Her voice rose to a scream of absolute terror that I vainly sought to stifle against my heart. She flung her head back; her hair, shaken from the filet and caught by the wind, streamed betwixt us like a cloud. We stood long thus.