Adam cut in low, raising his blade as he straightened it into line. This forced the other point high. Not giving the man a chance to disengage, Adam went up another step. Both blades were out of line now, the points high. The hilts clacked together.
The men were so close that if either had had a dagger he could have finished the fight with his left hand. Neither did.
Recovered from his surprise, the big man pushed hard, trying to force Adam down the steps. But Adam made the top. He slithered his buttocks around the newel post and sprang backward, disengaging.
The big man attacked. He was fairly fast and had a long reach, but he was wild. He fought contemptuously—not as one who puts no value on his own life but rather as one who puts none on the skill of his adversary. That is, he fought like this at first.
Adam's riposte caught him high on the right arm, near the shoulder. It couldn't have hurt much, but the big man stepped back. He was panting.
"Get that candle over here! How can I see to slice the bastard!"
This upstairs hall was wide and the ceiling was high. When Henry got closer, timorously placing himself about midway between the men as far off on Adam's left as he could get for the railing, Adam for a wild moment thought of snuffing the candle. But he would not be lunging here under the watchful gaze of the man who called himself Carse. This candle was not held in a golden stick stolen out of a galleon, but in the hand of a highly nervous man who might and probably would move it or even drop it if he saw Adam switch his attack. Besides, what if Adam did put it out? What then? Even if in the dark he slipped past the big man and got downstairs and out, how would that help Lillian Bingham?
Adam thought of Lil's mother, the shadow that swung across the wall of the Hearth Cricket ordinary while the woman wailed. He attacked.
He did not go in full-length. He had plenty of time—and indeed the longer he could make this last the better—and he wanted to feel the big man out.
The big man's defense was weak. It could be that he wasn't accustomed to parry, having always been the aggressor. When flustered, he really only had one counter. It would be easy to double-counter.
Adam nodded, and stepped back. Deliberately he put his blade under his left arm, undid all the buttons of his waistcoat, hiked up his breeches, took the sword again, and fell back into guard position.
He attacked.
He made the double-counter neatly enough and hit the big man again on the upper right arm near the shoulder, a much deeper wound this time. But the big man did not give ground. Instead, his blade straight-out, his arm stiff, he attacked.
Here was Adam's meat and gravy. Carse on Providence had spent many an hour teaching him various ways of disarming a man who attacked in this fashion—because, Carse had said, so many of 'em do, especially when they get excited.
Adam smiled. He might have been making the moves in time with directions called out by a master. In low; point high; catch the steel far down on your own; cut out and high until your point's in line again; flip it up.
Obedient as any goshawk to a whistle, the sword leapt from the big man's hand. It turned twice in the air, and fell on the floor at Adam's feet. Adam stepped on it.
The big man was no fool. He hesitated not an instant, but turned and ran.
Henry dropped the candle and ran after him.
There was a door at the end of the hall, a door Adam had not previously hoticed. The two kidnappers went through this, fast.
Adam got his foot in the doorway and pushed.
He might have forced it open, but the candle, on the floor, was guttering out. He ran to the candle, and the door was shoved shut and he heard a bolt thrown. He got to the candle barely in time.
He was about to pick the sword from the floor—not that he wanted it for himself but he didn't care to leave weapons behind him while he explored this house—when a sound from above caused him to straighten, his head lifted.
It could have been the crying of a child, perhaps a small girl.
Sword in hand, holding the candle high, he went upstairs.
He found nothing in the hall above but four doors, each locked. He heard the sound again—from a place still higher.
He went up to the next floor, the top one.
Here the crying was clearly audible, and it was that of a girl. It came from behind a heavy door that was bolted on the hall side.
"Is that yoti, Lillian?"
The sobbing ceased.
He pushed back the bolt. This could be a trap. He footed the door open, then stepped back, the candle held high.
What met his gaze was surely one of the strangest sights any man ever beheld.
This was a large room: it must have taken up the entire top story. Along three sides crumpled figures lay, figures that might have been piles of poked dust except for the faces.
You have looked into a bird's nest soon after a hatching to see that the little ones are all mouth, their eggshell heads, the scrawniness of their bodies being mere appendages to the overwhelmingly urgent part presented—their bills'? So it was here with the eyes. Adam scarcely saw the pale cheeks, the trembling lips, the hands each like a rickle of sticks, much less at first the leathern thongs, the staples, the pails, all the accumulated filth. He only saw the eyes—eyes that screamed in fear.
There was a dry rustling. The faces retreated from Adam for as far as they were able, and beat and bobbed against the wall, giant soft moths that, unlike ordinary moths, battered themselves in an effort to get away from the light.
There was a gibbering such as might have been made by monkeys. No words were distinguishable. This could hardly have been human speech: it was frantic, whittled thin with fear; and it ceased abruptly when Adam, his heart pounding, stepped into the room.
Something was thrown around his knees, locking them together. Something batted his thigh.
"Cuftain Long, it's me! It's Lillian!"
He knelt by her, and put his arms around her, babbling words of reassurance.
Lil had been through hours of hysteria, possibly twelve minutes of true time by a clock. Thrust here by one who from her description must have been the man Adam had just disarmed, the big man, she'd had no more than the briefest conceivable glimpse of the room and its occupants. Then the door had been slammed and locked, leaving her in a darkness crowded with sibilant whispers, with soft squeals and scuffling. She had cringed beside the door, as far from those chittery sounds as she could get. An adult might well have gone mad then.
"I—I'm glad you're here."
"I'm glad I am, too, my beauteous."
"Where's Father and Mother?"
"Your father's gone for help. Your mother's baking a special pie for the party we're going to have when you get back."
He rose, and together they surveyed the prisoners. For these cocoons of squirming rag and skin were no nightmare: they were children. They were not many, or not as many as had at first seemed. Lillian had supposed that there were scores, perhaps hundreds; and even Adam had estimated them at thirty or more. By actual count, now, there were eleven. The oldest might have been fourteen, the youngest about Lil's age, six; though it was difficult to make estimates here, so shriveled were they, so sunken their cheeks, while their eyes watered and blinked, red in the unaccustomed light.
They pressed against the wall, against the floor, whimpering, curs that had been kicked and expected to be kicked again.
Lillian moved, if with timid step, toward them. She held out a hand.
"Don't be afraid," she pleaded, though her voice did quaver. "This is Captain Long. He's from America."
She couldn't have said anything worse. Oh, the cackling that came! Some of the children hid their faces, seeming to strive to dig a hole in the floor. Some, kneeling, vninging their hands, pleaded piteously not to be taken to the plantations.