'Down with you at once,' she said. 'Do you see these rapiers? Do you think I can't run a man through as easy as stick a needle in a pin-cushion? It's not the running in—it's the pulling out is the trouble. There's a button at the end of each blade. I have got only two—so I can pin but two of you, and that shall be the last two that leave the roof.'
She made as though about to scramble on to the top of the van, and away went the men seated there, dropping like ripe pears from a tree.
Zita leisurely reclosed the front of the van, and went out at the back and shut that door also.
'That's a good job done, Jewel,' said she. 'Now run the van backwards into the shed, and you shall return to the stable. Roman candles, Jewel—pop-bang! Roman candles at your nose.'
'Hold there, you Cheap Jack girl!' shouted a broad-shouldered man, coming up and laying his hand on the bit. 'We have taken this conveyance for the Union. It is confiscated.'
'Whether taken and confiscated I cannot say,' said Zita. 'But I know I have paid ten pounds to have it untaken and set at liberty. Return my ten sovereigns if you take from me my van.'
'Yes, you have. And a shame it is that you should rob a poor Cheap Jack girl. Not that she belongs to the general public, save and deliver us!—but she is a working girl, and poor.'
'We have had no money of yours, and we requisition the van. We want to load it in Ely. It will serve our purpose better than a waggon.'
'You shall not have it,' replied Zita. 'Fair trade is fair trade, and he that will not deal honourably I will run through, and leave the button sticking between his shoulders, and that will spoil a good weskit.'
The man sprang back as she threatened him with one of the foils.
'I will tell you what it is,' said Zita; 'you will not believe me till I have made an example of one of you.'
'Where is your ten pounds?' asked Pip Beamish, who had descended from the waggon.
'Ay,' said several of those who stood round; 'that is what we should uncommon like to know.'
'Where are my ten pounds?' repeated Zita. 'That is a fine question for you to put to me, when I'll be bound you have them in your pocket.'
'Bring them out, Pip!' called one of the men.
'I have not got her money. I have not touched it,' protested the commander.