Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/243



ALLY! Sally!"

Sally stirred, opened her eyes, and found Zenas standing beside her, tugging excitedly at a fold of her gown. Raising herself upon a stiffened elbow, she stared around her in sleep-drugged bewilderment.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"Here i' the tap room, on the settle!" Zenas told her impatiently. "Do ye not remember, Sally? The officers did give ye their coats last night and ye lay down here and went to sleep—and I on another settle yonder! But now," the boy's voice deepened, tis dawn, Sally—and the enemy hath indeed been discovered across the river, gathering i' great numbers for an attack upon the Town!"

"Aye?" Sally sprang to the floor; but she staggered sleepily and dragged the back of her hand across her eyes. For a moment, as on that dreadful morning in Marshal Cunningham's office, months ago, everything seemed dreamlike—the gray, reluctant light stealing churlishly through the tap-room windows, the furniture standing ghostlike about,