hung in splinters from the hinges, and a double throng kept pouring

in and out through the entrance, seeking and carrying booty.

Meanwhile, in the upper storeys, some resistance was still being

offered to the pillagers; for just as Dick came within eyeshot of

the building, a casement was burst open from within, and a poor

wretch in murrey and blue, screaming and resisting, was forced

through the embrasure and tossed into the street below.

The most sickening apprehension fell upon Dick. He ran forward

like one possessed, forced his way into the house among the

foremost, and mounted without pause to the chamber on the third

floor where he had last parted from Joanna. It was a mere wreck;

the furniture had been overthrown, the cupboards broken open, and

in one place a trailing corner of the arras lay smouldering on the

embers of the fire.

Dick, almost without thinking, trod out the incipient

conflagration, and then stood bewildered. Sir Daniel, Sir Oliver,

Joanna, all were gone; but whether butchered in the rout or safe

escaped from Shoreby, who should say?

He caught a passing archer by the tabard.

"Fellow," he asked, "were ye here when this house was taken?"

"Let be," said the archer. "A murrain! let be, or I strike."

"Hark ye," returned Richard, "two can play at that. Stand and be

plain."

But the man, flushed with drink and battle, struck Dick upon the

shoulder with one hand, while with the other he twitched away his

garment. Thereupon the full wrath of the young leader burst from

his control. He seized the fellow in his strong embrace, and

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