And, to my amazement, he sprang on the strapping servant like a wild-cat, and began to beat, cuff, and belabor him with all the strength of his puny limbs. ’Twas like a scene out of Bedlam. Yet all the while the girl lean’d quietly against the mantelshelf, and softly touched the strings of her instrument; while the servant took the rain of blows and slaps as though ’twere a summer shower, grinning all over his face, and making no resistance at all. Then, as I stood dumb with perplexity, the old gentleman let go his hold of the fellow’s hair, and, dropping on the floor, began to roll about in a fit of coughing, the like of which no man can imagine. ’Twas hideous. He bark’d, and writhed, and bark’d again, till the disorder seem’d to search and rack every innermost inch of his small frame. And in the intervals of coughing his exclamations were terrible to listen to. “He’s dying!” I cried; and ran forward to help. The servant pick’d up the chair, and together we set him in it. By degrees the violence of the cough abated, and he lay back, livid in the face, with his eyes closed, and his hands clutching the knobs of the chair. I turn’d to the girl. She had neither spoken nor stirr’d, but now came forward, and calmly ask’d my business. “I think,” said I, “that your name is Killigrew?” “I am Delia Killigrew, and this is my father, Sir Deakin.” “Now on his way to visit his estates in Cornwall?” She nodded. “Then I have to warn you that your lives are in danger.” And, gently as possible, I told her what I had seen and heard downstairs. In the middle of my tale, the servant stepp’d to the door, and return’d quietly. There was no lock on the inside. After a minute he went across, and drew the red curtains. The window had a grating within, of iron bars as thick as a man’s thumb, strongly clamp’d in the stonework, and not four inches apart. Clearly, he was a man of few words; for, returning, he merely pull’d out his sword, and waited for the end of my tale. The girl, also, did not interrupt me, but listen’d in silence. As I ceas’d, she said—— “Is this all you know?” “No,” answer’d I, “it is not. But the rest I promise to tell you if we escape from this place alive. Will this content you?” She turn’d to the servant, who nodded. Whereupon she held out her hand very cordially. “Sir, listen: we are travelers bound for Cornwall, as you know, and have some small possessions, that will poorly reward the greed of these violent men. Nevertheless, we should be hurrying on our journey did we not await my brother Anthony, who was to have ridden from Oxford to join us here, but has been delayed, doubtless on the King’s business——” She broke off, as I started: for below I heard the main door open, and Captain Settle’s voice in the passage. The arch villain had return’d. “Mistress Delia,” I said hurriedly, “the twelfth man has enter’d the house, and unless we consider our plans at once, all’s up with us.”