"
At this crisis, when safety seemed at hand, as fate would have it,
Margaret, who had borne up so bravely till now, began to succumb, partly
from loss of blood.
"Oh, my beloved, fly!" she gasped. "Leave me, for I am faint."
"No! no!" cried Gerard. "Death together, or safety. Ah! the mule! mount
her, you, and I'll run by your side."
In a moment Martin was on Ghysbrecht's mule, and Gerard raised the
fainting girl in his arms and placed her on the saddle, and relieved
Martin of his bow.
"Help! treason! murder! murder!" shrieked Ghysbrecht, suddenly rising on
his hams.
"Silence, cur," roared Gerard, and trode him down again by the throat as
men crush an adder.
"Now, have you got her firm? Then fly! for our lives! for our lives!"
But even as the mule, urged suddenly by Martin's heel, scattered the
flints with his hind hoofs ere he got into a canter, and even as Gerard
withdrew his foot from Ghysbrecht's throat to run, Dierich Brower and
his five men, who had come back for orders, and heard the burgomaster's
cries, burst roaring out of the coppice on them.
CHAPTER XXI
Speech is the familiar vent of human thoughts; but there are emotions so
simple and overpowering, that they rush out not in words, but eloquent
sounds. At such moments man seems to lose his characteristics, and to
be merely one of the higher animals; for these, when greatly agitated,
ejaculate, though they cannot speak.
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