Already their clutches were upon the struggling Puritan, when I swung high the gleaming knife in both my hands.

For one terrible second I met her unflinching gaze, a glance which will abide with me until my dying day--then the keen steel fell, barely deflected from the heart, slashing open the bosom of her dress, yet--thanks be to a kind God!--finding harmless sheath, not within her quivering flesh but in the hard-packed earth.

It was scarcely less than a miracle that I was thus able to turn the blow, but, even as I aimed it, putting to the hilt my full strength that I might send it surely home, there came into my vision a sudden flash of bright color against the dark, skin-draped wall, and I knew the Queen had come..