Amber felt an agonizing terror that seemed to freeze blood and muscle, but somehow in spite of herself she ran on at full speed through the roomful of dumfounded patrons. She had just reached the door to the street when a man sprang up from one of the tables and started after her, shouting that he would bring her back. It was Black Jack. They got safely to the Sanctuary where he told the story to everyone with shouts of laughter —but Amber refused to stir out of the Friars again for more than a fortnight. She had felt the gallows noose too plain that time.

But in spite of all these activities she was not able to save much money. She had to have numerous gowns and cloaks, so that she could not come to be recognized by what she wore, and though she bought them second-hand in Houndsditch or in Long Lane and soon sold them again, she spent a good deal. She also had to defer the cost of her lodging and food and other incidental expenses. And every time Mrs. Chiverton brought the baby in she had a dozen gifts for him. She had come to feel that there was a wall around Alsatia over which it would never be possible to climb—most who came there, she knew, stayed.

Black Jack was himself a good example.

Whatever his real name, he was the son of a country-squire and had come to London eleven years before to attend the Middle Temple. At that time the King had just been beheaded and the Puritans were rabidly punishing vice and praising virtue; but the young men nevertheless contrived to live very much the same carefree reckless lives they always had. A hypocritical cloak of modesty served its purpose for them. Thus he ran himself into debt, far beyond his father’s ability to pay even had the old man wished to do so. It was never permissible for impecunious gentlemen to beg of their relatives and friends, and so when his creditors became too pressing he moved into Whitefriars to avoid arrest. And there he had found, as did many another bankrupt young man of good family, that the King’s highway offered an easy and exciting livelihood.

“When it’s so easy to steal money,” he said, “a man’s a fool to work for it.” Amber was half inclined to agree with him —or would have had she been able to keep all and not merely a small part of what she took.

Early in June Black Jack went back to the roads again. Winter was the gay social season in London and many of the nobility returned to their country homes to spend the summer months. Then the roads swarmed with highwaymen and numerous innkeepers were in their pay; but in spite of the well-known dangers most persons rode without sufficient protection.

Amber’s part was a simple and safe one. With Bess, who went along dressed as her serving-woman, she would ride out to the inn from which Mother Red-Cap had had information and there make the acquaintance of the traveller and his family. Pretending to be a lady of quality just going out of or coming into town, she would tell them that her coach had been overturned and wrecked; and when they offered to let her ride with them she could manage the time of departure to Black Jack’s advantage. For though many inn-keepers were willing to give information, very few would allow a robbery on the premises—too many such incidents would put them out of business. Amber was well satisfied with this arrangement, but Bess was not—for she had been accustomed to acting the part of lady herself and was furiously resentful at having been demoted.

There was seldom any scuffle when the bandits appeared, for even if all members of a party were armed they usually preferred giving up the master’s valuables to risking a wound. One man, however, told Black Jack that he would never have got the money if he had not taken him unawares, and Black Jack offered to shoot it out with him. Armed with pistols, they walked into the nearby field, counted off ten paces, and fired. The man dropped dead. Amber, who had been watching with anxiety and trying to think what she should do if Black Jack was killed, felt a passionate relief—but afterward she was more in awe of him than she had been.

But he was a good-natured thief and always left the coachman half-a-crown to drink his health. Once he robbed an old Parliamentarian just returning from a trip into the country with his whore, stripped them both naked and tied them to a tree, back to back; over their heads he put a sign informing all passers-by that here were two Adamites.

As the summer weeks passed Amber’s savings began to mount; by mid-August she had accumulated two hundred and fifty pounds. They had had no new scares and she became brazenly confident and almost began to enjoy the life she was living. She still had an uneasy restlessness to leave Alsatia, a feeling that she was missing something of great importance going on out in the real world, but the days faded one into another and she was half content.

Then one day she got a rude and sickening shock.

Coming into the parlour she found Black Jack standing between Blueskin and Jimmy the Mouth—leaning with his great arms upon their shoulders—while they looked at something laid out on the table before them. Their backs were to her and she could not see what it was but they were talking together in low voices which now and then burst into a laugh.

Amber walked up and saw that it was a large sheet of paper with his Majesty’s coat-of-arms and two long lines of printing upon it. She frowned, suddenly suspicious.

“What’s that?”

They looked around, surprised to find her there.

“Black Jack’s a famous man,” said Blueskin. “He’s been named first in a proclamation for taking twenty-two highwaymen.” Black Jack grinned, pleased with the honour.

But Amber stared, open-mouthed and horrified. She wanted violently to live, and at a time like this, when she saw how close death stood beside her, she grew frantic with terror.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Black Jack, a kind of sharpness in his voice.

“You know what’s the matter! They’re looking for you and they’ll catch you! They’ll catch all of us, and hang us! Oh, I wish I’d never come to this damned place! I wish I was still in Newgate! There at least I was safe!”

“And so do I wish you were still in Newgate! Of all the complaihing jades I’ve ever known—What the hell did you expect when I brought you here? You’d better get it through your head the whole world doesn’t function for your benefit! But you can stop worrying about your neck! A woman’s always got one alibi—you can plead your belly. Why,” he continued—and now his voice had turned sarcastic, his eyes went over her with mocking amusement—“I once knew a woman put off the hangman for ten years—no sooner was she delivered of one brat than they found her quick again.”

Amber scowled and her mouth gave a sneer of repugnance. “Oh, did she, indeed? Well, that’s all very well—but not for me!” She finished the sentence with a shout, leaning toward him, fists clenched and the cords in her throat straining. “I’ve got other things to do with my life, I’ll have you know—!”

At that moment Bess came in the door, and saw that there was trouble between them. She grinned maliciously. “What’s the quarrel here? Sure, now, Jack, you’ve not fallen out with our fine Mrs. Fairtail?”

Amber turned, her nostrils flaring with anger, and gave her a sweeping glance of lazy insolence. “Marry come up, Bess Columbine, but you’re as jealous as a wife of her husband when she lies-in!”

“Jealous? Me jealous of you!” yelled Bess. “I’ll be damned if I am, you scurvy wench!”

“Don’t call me names!”

Suddenly Amber reached out, grabbed her by the hair, and gave a violent jerk. With a shriek of rage Bess seized a fistful of curls and the two women would have flown into deadly battle—but for the unexpected appearance of Mother Red-Cap. The men merely stood looking on and smiling, but she rushed forward, took them by the shoulders and gave each a vigorous shake.

“Stop!” she cried. “I won’t have any brawling under my roof! Just once more, Bess Columbine, and out you go!”

“Out I go!” protested Bess, while Amber, with a superior smile, reached up to pin back the long heavy curls that had come loose. “What about her! What about that—”

“Bess!”

For a long moment Bess and Mother Red-Cap stood with locked stares, but Bess was finally forced to yield. Nevertheless, as she turned to leave the room she knocked into Amber, giving her a hard jar. Without an instant’s hesitation Amber turned her head and spat onto her gown. Bess stopped abruptly, the two women once more face to face like a pair of bristling cats; but at another warning from Mother Red-Cap Bess whirled around and stalked out.

For several days after that Black Jack ignored Amber as though she did not exist, and Bess was insultingly triumphant; she flouted his preference whenever they met. But however little Amber cared for Black Jack or his company, she did not intend to let Bess get the better of her. She began a new flirtation with him which was presently successful—and after that Bess’s hatred was so intense and so sullen that she half expected to get a knife stuck into her ribs. She believed, and with good reason, that it was only Bess’s fear of Black Jack which secured her own life.


Early in September Bess, convinced that she was pregnant, told Black Jack about it and asked him outright to marry her. He gave her an insulting snort.

“Marry you? You must take me for a dommerer. I suppose you think I don’t know every man that’s come into this house has had a lick at you!”

He was sitting at the dinner-table, as he always did, long after everyone else had left, gnawing at a chicken-leg he had in one hand and washing it down with swallows from a wine-bottle held in the other. He was slumped far down on his spine, perfectly easy and relaxed and unconcerned, not even troubling to glance up at her.