"By God's Son!" Nigel exclaimed, with a burst of passionate indignation that almost startled Hildebrand. "Go back! lead the men into the open, halt them in three lines and await my order! Tschk!"
Bowing his head and urging his horse he broke through the saplings and galloped to the girl's side.
It needed but his brief "Loose her!" to make her torturers undo the clumsy fastening they had begun, and "Elspeth Reinheit!" for her to fling her arms around his saddle-peak.
"Take me away! Save me! Save me! Captain!"
Nigel unclasped her arms and bade her once more sit down upon the low bench. "Fear no more, maiden!" he added with such decision in his voice as poured fresh courage into her. Then he faced sternly up at the Pastor and asked him--
But the Pastor, full to overflowing with spiritual drunkenness, shouted--
"The Lord hath delivered into our hands her paramour also! Behold him that sinned with the damsel. Now shall the lying devil come out of her and she shall confess!"
"What say you?" was Nigel's response, hurled at the minister in a voice that spoke of his indignation.
"That you, Captain of the host of the Evil One, did'st lie with the damsel at Magdeburg! Deny it not!"
Before the Pastor knew what he did, Nigel had leaned over in his stirrups and, seizing him by the raiment, tumbled him to the ground and struck him two shrewd blows with the flat of his sword, which completed his confusion.
The men of the assembly sprang up, and with one accord were making for the bold intruder, but the immediate appearance of Hildebrand and his men caused every one to stand stark still.
"Know all men!" shouted Nigel in the temporary silence, "this maiden, Elspeth Reinheit, is as pure as snow. Your Pastor lies foully when he says other. It is true she succoured me when I was in sore need in Magdeburg. But do not your Scriptures say--'If thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink'? This did she, and for this I spared not only her life, but the life of her slanderer, Pastor Rad. Is this true, maiden?"
"Nevertheless, I leave her not here to your ruthlessness and your religion! Maiden!"
She sprang up at the word! Nigel lifted her upon his saddle, and giving his horse the spur, bore her to the regiment, who, understanding nothing of what had gone before, manifested a jovial indifference not unmingled later with some rough jokes, which would perhaps have put Nigel to the blush. For a woman, especially a woman in her youth, not ill-looking, was the ordained prey of the soldier of fortune, who having abducted her in one hour, as willingly dropped her in the next to patch up her life and the rags of her honour as she would.