Blood was thrust by his guards into the courtyard, where Pitt and
Baynes already waited. From the threshold of the hall, he looked
back at Captain Hobart, and his sapphire eyes were blazing. On his
lips trembled a threat of what he would do to Hobart if he should
happen to survive this business. Betimes he remembered that to
utter it were probably to extinguish his chance of living to execute
it. For to-day the King's men were masters in the West, and the
West was regarded as enemy country, to be subjected to the worst
horror of war by the victorious side. Here a captain of horse was
for the moment lord of life and death.

Under the apple-trees in the orchard Mr. Blood and his companions
in misfortune were made fast each to a trooper's stirrup leather.
Then at the sharp order of the cornet, the little troop started
for Bridgewater. As they set out there was the fullest confirmation
of Mr. Blood's hideous assumption that to the dragoons this was a
conquered enemy country. There were sounds of rending timbers,
of furniture smashed and overthrown, the shouts and laughter of
brutal men, to announce that this hunt for rebels was no more than
a pretext for pillage and destruction. Finally above all other
sounds came the piercing screams of a woman in acutest agony.

Baynes checked in his stride, and swung round writhing, his face
ashen. As a consequence he was jerked from his feet by the rope
that attached him to the stirrup leather, and he was dragged
helplessly a yard or two before the trooper reined in, cursing him
foully, and striking him with the flat of his sword.

It came to Mr. Blood, as he trudged forward under the laden
apple-trees on that fragrant, delicious July morning, that man - as