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Letting his grasp slip down to the unresisting hand of the stranger, he half-dragged, half-led him, brushing against the wall, into the open door of the deserted bar-room he had just quitted, locked the inner door, poured a glass of whiskey from a decanter, gave it to him, and then watched him drain it at a single draught.
"Come alonger me, darling," continued the woman. She took Mary's arm, and half-dragged, half-led her into the room above. The child's hat had fallen off, and the light streamed down upon her bright yellow hair and her frightened brown eyes, as she raised them timidly to the dark faces round her. The woman started and gave a quick significant glance at her husband.
Throwing a white veil over her head, they broke into a joyful pæan of song, and half-led, half-carried her from the chamber to enthrone her in the palace of the goddess, which was henceforth to be her home.
Seeing that fair words wouldn't do, I got the tackle ready myself, and then with the marlinespike in one hand, I went up to the first poor shivering fellow I came to, and half-led, half-dragged him to his place; Mr Vallance followed suit with another; and one way and another we got them to work again; and though not so quickly as we did the day before, we sent over the side tons and tons of that solid iron each pillar on being cut loose darting over the bulwark with a crash, and tearing no end of the planking away, but easing the vessel, so that now we could feel the difference; and towards night, though the weather was bad as ever, I began to feel that we might have a chance; for the ship seemed to ride over the waves more, instead of dipping under them, and shuddering from stem to stern.
"I can't!" she gasped. "I can't!" Nick's voice answered her in a quick, confident whisper. "Yes, you can, dear. It's all right. Hang on to me. I won't let you go." She obeyed him blindly. There was nothing else to do. And so, half-led, half-carried, she tottered from the room. A glare of sunlight smote upon her from a passage-window with a brilliance that almost hurt her.
This afternoon a good lunch was brought me, but the moment after I took it I knew that I had been drugged. In a sort of dream I remember being half-led, half-carried to the carriage; in the same state I was conveyed to the train. Only then, when the wheels were almost moving, did I suddenly realize that my liberty lay in my own hands.
Philander took a long, light but very tough line from his pocket. It had a series of running nooses in it, and he slipped one of these about the wrist of each native, drawing it tight. Then he half-led, half-dragged them out of the stockade, to the mine entrance, and down the drift to the rise they had to climb to get to the stope Hanlon's crew was to work.
A silence fell upon the gallery so deep that the receding voices and footsteps of Grant and his hostess in the long passage were distinctly heard until they reached the end. Then Fletcher arose with an inarticulate exclamation. Clementina instantly put her finger to her lips, glanced around the gallery, extended her hand to him, and saying "Come," half-led, half-dragged him into the passage.
He was half-led, half-pushed, down the companion ladder, but in such a good-humoured, friendly way that he did not know how to resist; and then the fair-haired young man opened a door and said, "He's here, sir!" in a tone of triumph, which was certainly not ill bestowed.
I beseech you, don't think of it," began the woman; but Lady Trevlyn seemed not to hear her, and something in the stern pallor of her face awed the woman into submission. Wrapping the slight form of her mistress in a warm cloak, Hester half-led, half-carried her to the state room, and left her on the threshold.
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