He left the rest of the words unspoken. His veins leaped with fire. A single sweep of his powerful arms and he had forced himself through the innermost line of spectators. Within a dozen feet of him stood Strang's wife, her beautiful hair disheveled, her face deadly white, her bosom heaving as if she had been running. In a moment her eyes had taken in the situation--the man at the stake, the upraised lash--and Nathaniel. With a sobbing, breathless cry, she flung herself in front of MacDougall and threw her arms around the kneeling man, her hair covering him in a glistening veil. For an instant her eyes were raised to Nathaniel and he saw in them that same agonized appeal that had called to him through the king's window. The striking muscles of his arms tightened like steel. One of the guards sprang forward and caught the girl roughly by the arm and attempted to drag her away. In his excitement he pulled her head back and her hair trailed in the dirt. The sight was maddening. From Nathaniel's throat there came a fierce cry and in a single leap he had cleared the distance to the guard and had driven his fist against the officer's head with the sickening force of a sledge-hammer. The man fell without a groan. In another flash he had drawn his knife and severed the thongs that held the man at the stake. For a moment his face was very near the girl's and he saw her lips form the glad cry which he did not wait to hear. He turned like an enraged beast toward the circle of dumfounded spectators and launched himself at the second guard. From behind him there sounded a shout and he caught the gleam of naked shoulders as the man who had been at the stake rushed to his side. Together they tore through the narrow rim of the crowd, striking at the faces which appeared before them, their terrific blows driving men right and left. "This way, Neil!" shouted Nathaniel. "This way--to the ship!" They raced up the slope that led from the town to the forest. Even the king's officer, palsied by the suddenness of the attack, had not followed. From a screened window in the king's building two men had witnessed the exciting scene near the jail. One of these men was Strang. The other was Arbor Croche. At another window a few feet away, hidden from their eyes by a high desk and masses of papers and books, Winnsome Croche was crumpled up on the floor hardly daring to breathe through fear of betraying her presence. From these windows they had seen the girl run from behind the jail; they had watched her struggle through the line of spectators, saw Nathaniel leap forward--saw the quick blow, the gleaming knife, and the escape. So suddenly had it all occurred that not a sound escaped the two astonished men. But as Nathaniel and Neil burst through the crowd and sped toward the forest Strang's great voice boomed forth like the rumble of a gun. "Arbor Croche, overtake those men--and kill them!"