At the outer gate was another guard to be passed, but they opened for us
without question, cursing Ephraim under their breath, that he did not
take the pains to let his own men out. Then the wicket of the great gates
swung-to behind us, and we went into the open again. As soon as we were
out of sight we quickened our pace, and the weather having much bettered,
and a fresh breeze springing up, we came back to the Bugle about ten in
the forenoon.
I believe that neither of us spoke a word during that walk, and though
Elzevir had not yet seen the diamond, he never even took the pains to
draw it out of the little parchment bag, in which it still lay hid in his
pocket. Yet if I did not speak I thought, and my thoughts were sad
enough. For here were we a second time, flying for our lives, and if we
had not the full guilt of blood upon our hands, yet blood was surely
there. So this flight was very bitter to me, because the scene of death
of which I had been witness this morning seemed to take me farther still
away from all my old happy life, and to stand like another dreadful
obstacle between Grace and me. In the Family Bible lying on the table in
my aunt's best parlour was a picture of Cain, which I had often looked at
with fear on wet Sunday afternoons. It showed Cain striding along in the
midst of a boundless desert, with his sons and their wives striding
behind him, and their little children carried slung on poles.
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