silence!" she shouted shrilly. "Master Segrave, I adjure you to be silent. . . . I'll not permit you to insult my guest."
Already Lambert had made a quick movement to throw himself on Segrave. The elemental instinct of self-defense, of avenging a terrible insult by physical violence, rose within him, whispering of strength and power, of the freedom, muscle-giving life of the country as against the enervating, weakening influence of the town.
He knew that in a hand-to-hand struggle with the feverish, emaciated townsman, he, the country-bred lad, the haunter of woods and cliffs, the dweller of the Thanet smithy, would be more than a match for his opponent. But even as his whole body stiffened for a spring, his muscles tightened and his fists clenched, a dozen restraining hands held him back from his purpose, whilst Mistress Endicott's shrill tones seemed to bring him back to the realities of his own peril.
"Mistress Endicott," he said, turning a proud, yet imploring look to the lady whose virtues had been so loudly proclaimed in his ears, "Madam, I appeal to you . . . I implore you to listen . . . a frightful insult which you have witnessed . . . an awful accusation on which I scarce can trust myself to dwell has been hurled at me. . . . I entreat you to allow me to challenge these two gentlemen to explain."
And he pointed both to Segrave and to Endicott, The former, after his mad outburst of ungovernable rage, had regained a certain measure of calm. He stood, facing Lambert, with arms folded across his chest, whilst a smile of insulting irony curled his thin lips.
Endicott's eyes seemed to be riveted on Lambert's breast.
At mention of his own name, he suddenly darted forward, and seemed to be plunging his hand — the hand which almost disappeared within the ample folds of the voluminous lace cuff — into the breast pocket of the young man's doublet.
His movements were so quick, so sure and so unexpected that no one — least of all Lambert — could possibly guess what was his purpose.
The next moment — less than a second later — he had again withdrawn his hand, but now everyone could see that he held a few cards in it. These he dropped with an exclamation of loathing and contempt upon the table, whilst those around, instinctively drew back a step or two as if fearful of coming in contact with something impure and terrible.
Endicott's movements, his quick gestures, well aided by the wide lace cuffs which fell over his hand, his exclamation of contempt, had all contributed to make it seem before the spectators as if he had found a few winning cards secreted inside the lining of Richard Lambert's doublet.
"Nay! young sir," he said with an evil sneer, "meseems that explanations had best come from you. Here," he added, pointing significantly at the cards which he had just dropped out of his own hand, "here is a vastly pleasing collection . . . aces and kings . . . passing serviceable in a quiet game of primero among friends."
Lambert had been momentarily dumfounded, for undoubtedly he had not perceived Endicott's treacherous movements, and had absolutely no idea whence had come those awful cards which somehow or other seemed to be convicting him of lying and cheating: so conscious was he of his own innocence, that never for a moment did the slightest fear cross his mind that he could not immediately make clear his own position, and proclaim his own integrity.
"This is an infamous plot," he said calmly, but very firmly. "Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse," he added, turning to face his employer, who still stood motionless and silent in the background, "in the name of Heaven I beg of you to explain to these gentlemen that you have known me from boyhood. Will you speak?" he added insistently, conscious of a strange tightening of his heartstrings as the man on whom he relied, remained impassive and made no movement to come to his help. "Will you tell them, I pray you, sir, that you know me to be a man of honor, incapable of such villainy as they suggest? . . . You know that I did not even wish to play . . ."
"That reluctance of yours, my good Lambert, seems to have been a pretty comedy forsooth," replied Sir Marmaduke lightly, "and you played to some purpose, meseems, when you once began. . . . Nay! I pray you," he added with unmitigated harshness, "do not drag me into your quarrels. . . . I cannot of a truth champion your virtue."
Lambert's cheeks became deathly pale. The first inkling of the deadly peril of his own situation had suddenly come to him with Sir Marmaduke's callous words. It seemed to him as if the very universe must stand still in the face of such treachery. The man whom he loved with all the fervor of a grateful nature, the man who knew him and whom he had wholly trusted, was proving his most bitter, most damning enemy.
After Sir Marmaduke's speech, his own employer's repudiation, he felt that all his chances of clearing his character before these sneering gentlemen had suddenly vanished.
"This is cruel, and infamous," he protested, conscious innocence within him still striving to fight a hard battle against overwhelming odds. "Gentlemen! . . . as I am a man of honor, I swear that I do not know what all this means!"
"It means, young man, that you are an accursed cheat . . . a thief . . . a liar!" shouted Segrave, whose last vestige of self-control suddenly vanished, whilst mad frenzy once more held him in its grip. "I swear by God that you shall pay me for this!"
He threw himself with all the strength of a raving maniac upon Lambert, who for the moment was taken unawares, and yielded to the suddenness of the onslaught. But it was indeed a conflict 'twixt town and country, the simple life against nightly dissipations, the forests and cliffs of Thanet against the enervating atmosphere of the city.
After that first onrush, Lambert, with marvelous agility and quick knowledge of a hand-to-hand fight, had shaken himself free of his opponent's trembling grasp. It was his turn now to have the upper hand, and in a trice he had, with a vigorous clutch, gripped his opponent by the throat.
In a sense, his calmness had not forsaken him, his mind was as quiet, as clear as heretofore; it was only his muscle — his bodily energy in the face of a violent and undeserved attack — which had ceased to be under his control.
"Man! man!" he murmured, gazing steadily into the eyes of his antagonist, "ye shall swallow those words — or by Heaven I will kill you!"
The tumult which ensued drowned everything save itself . . . everything, even the sound of that slow and measured tramp, tramp, tramp, which was wafted up from the street.
The women shouted, the men swore. Some ran like frightened sheep to the distant corners of the room, fearful lest they be embroiled in this unpleasant fracas . . . others crowded round Segrave and Lambert, trying to pacify them, to drag the strong youth away from his weaker opponent — almost his victim now.
Some were for forcibly separating them, others for allowing them to fight their own battles and loud-voiced arguments, subsidiary quarrels, mingled with the shrill cries of terror and caused a din which grew in deafening intensity, degenerating into a wild orgy as glasses were knocked off the tables, cards strewn about, candles sent flying and spluttering upon the ground.
And still that measured tramp down the street, growing louder, more distinct, a muffled "Halt!" the sound of arms, of men moving about beneath that yawning archway and along the dark and dismal passage with its hermetically closed front door.
CHAPTER XX
MY LORD PROTECTOR'S PATROL
Alone, Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse had taken no part in the confused
