The Muggletonian tossed his arms into the air. "The cause! the cause! Cursed be he that putteth his hand to the plough and finisheth not the furrow! Ride on! Ride on! though it were over the bodies of a thousand painted Jezebels such as this!" "Time presses!" cried the branded man. "Woodson may come!" They closed in upon the three who stood at bay. In their dark faces were a passion and an exaltation—they saw in the woman fallen into their hands, a sacrifice bound to the altar. Trail alone looked uneasy and held back, muttering between his teeth. Landless stepped in front of Patricia and faced them with a still and deadly eye, and with the hand that held the knife drawn back against his breast, Knowing them, he saw no use in any appeal; also he saw that it was indeed her life or theirs. On the one hand, the downfall of all their hopes, the death or perpetual enslavement of many, and for himself surely the gibbet and the rope; on the other— He made a gesture of command. "Thou shalt do no murder!" he cried. "It is not murder; it is sacrifice." "There must be another way!" cried Havisham. "Find it!" Havisham turned to the prisoner. "Madam, will you swear to be silent concerning what you have heard?" The Muggletonian laughed wildly. "Who trusts a woman’s oath!" "You shall have no need," said the lady of the manor calmly. She paused and her eyes went to the door in an intent and listening gaze, then came back to the faces about her with a strange light in their depths. "Rebel servants," she said in a clear, low voice, "I defy you! And you, false slave, stand from before me. I need not your hateful aid." In the moment of ominous silence that followed, she swayed towards the door, her hand at her throat, her soul in her eyes. Suddenly she cried out, "My father! Charles! help!" From without came an answering cry, followed by a rush of men through the door, and in an instant the room was filled with struggling forms as the two parties threw themselves upon each other. The newcomers were half a dozen blacks, the two overseers and Sir Charles Carew. The overseers had pistols and Sir Charles his sword. With it he met the rush of the youth with the hectic cheek, who came towards him in long, hound-like leaps, brandishing a piece of wood above his head, and drove the blade deep into the chest of the fanatic. The wretched man staggered and fell, then rose to his knees. Flinging his arms above his head, he turned his worn face towards the flood of sunshine pouring in through the door, and cried in a loud voice, "I see!" A stream of blood gushed from his lips, his arms dropped, and without a groan he fell back, dead.