The Amateur Gentleman

"And now I'm going--alone. Stand aside, and let me pass."

"No, madam."

"Let me pass, I warn you!"

For a minute they fronted each other, eye to eye, very silent and

still, like two antagonists that measure each other's strength; then

Barnabas smiled and shook his head. And in that very instant, quick

and passionate, she raised her whip and struck him across the cheek.

Then, as she stood panting, half fearful of what she had done,

Barnabas reached out and took the whip, and snapped it between his

hands.

"And now," said he, tossing aside the broken pieces, "pray let us go."

"No."

"Why, then," sighed Barnabas, "I must carry you again."

Once more she shrank away from him, back and back to the crumbling

wall, and leaned there. But now because of his passionless strength,

she fell a-trembling and, because of his calmly resolute eyes and

grimly smiling mouth, fear came upon her, and therefore, because she

could not by him, because she knew herself helpless against him, she

suddenly covered her face from his eyes, and a great sob burst from

her.

Barnabas stopped, and looking at her bowed head and shrinking figure,

knew not what to do. And as he stood there within a yard of her,

debating within himself, upon the quiet broke a sudden sound--a small,

sharp sound, yet full of infinite significance--the snapping of a dry

twig among the shadows; a sound that made the ensuing silence but

the more profound, a breathless quietude which, as moment after

moment dragged by, grew full of deadly omen. And now, even as

Barnabas turned to front these menacing shadows, the moon went out.