CHAPTER XLIX.The Projected Murder.—The Alarm.—The Death-shot.—Ada’s Anguish and Indignation.Ada wasso much shocked at the proposal of Jacob Gray to commit a deliberate and cold-blooded murder, that now for several minutes she remained perfectly silent—a silence which Gray construed into passive acquiescence in his proposition.“You see, Ada,” he continued, “we have no other hope—as you say we cannot starve here—the blood of this man be upon his own head—I do not want his life, Ada; but I must preserve myself and you. You must see all this in its proper light, Ada—you do not speak.”“Hear me then speak now,” said Ada. “In all your knowledge of me, Jacob Gray, what have you found upon which to ground a moment’s thought that I could be as wicked as yourself? Captivity may present horrors to you, from which you would free yourself, even at the fearful price of murder. It may be that this awful deed you contemplate would, if executed, add but another item to a fearful record of crime; but, God of Heaven! What should make me so wicked? Wherefore should I connive at a deed proscribed alike by God and man? Jacob Gray, I am weak and you are strong; I am defenceless and you armed; but as there is a Heaven above us, I will dare all—risk all to prevent this contemplated murder.”“You are wild—mad,” said Gray, in a low tone, which, from its bitterness, was evidently one of intense rage likewise. “The fear of death has hitherto acted upon your mind—let it so act still.”“It was a sufficient motive,” replied Ada, “when I personally was concerned, and had to choose between captivity with hope, and death which would extinguish all but Heaven’s mercy hereafter. But now, Jacob Gray, I cannot, will not purchase life for myself at the price of death to a fellow-creature.”“You will not?”“No; I will not: not if he, whose life you seek, were the veriest wretch on earth—were he even such as you are, Jacob Gray, I would leave him to his God.”“You rave, girl—you rave,”“No, I do not rave—’tis you that with a hollow, hideous sophistry delude yourself.”“Your consent or non-consent is of little moment,” said Gray; “I hold both your life and his in my hands.”“Then you shall take mine first, for I am sickened at such villany, and would rather be its victim than its spectator. From this moment, Jacob Gray, no bond, no promise binds me to you. Take but one decisive step to commit the murder you contemplate, and this place shall echo with my cries.”Gray was evidently unprepared for the dilemma into which he had now brought himself, and he knew not what to say for some moments, during which he glared upon Ada with a fiendish expression of his eyes; which she could just discern in the dim light of the cellar, that was more worthy of some malignant demon than anything human.“You ask me to sacrifice myself?” he at length said.“No, I ask no such thing,” replied Ada; “allow me to ascend from this place and see the man you say waits above. Friend or foe, I will risk the encounter, and I will not betray you.”“No, no,” said Gray; “not yet, not yet, Ada; I cannot part with you yet. Moreover, there would still be danger—great danger. I cannot do as you wish.”“Then you shall incur a greater risk, or commit two murders.”“Hush, hush,” said Gray; “you speak too loud. Let me think again; I will spare him if I can.”Jacob Gray remained in deep thought for about ten minutes; then, as he came to some conclusion satisfactory to him, a dark and singular contortion of the features crossed his face, and his hand was thrust into the breast of his clothing, where he had a loaded pistol, upon which he well knew he could depend in any sudden emergency.“Ada,” he said, “I am resolved.”“Resolved on what?”“To take this man’s life, who is here for the express purpose of taking mine if he can find the opportunity.”“Then I am resolved,” said Ada, “to raise a voice of warning to that man, be he whom he may. If this is to be my last hour, Heaven receive me!”“You shall die,” said Gray.Ada sunk on her knees, and covering her face within her hands, she said,—“Jacob Gray, if Heaven permits you to murder me, I will not shrink. May God forgive you the awful crime!”Gray laughed a bitter, short laugh, as he said,—“No, Ada, you may live. I do not intend to kill you. Possibly, too, I may spare him who keeps watch above for me. Be patient while I go and reconnoitre.”“No, no,” cried Ada, “I cannot be patient here; you are going to murder.”“Listen to me,” said Gray. “There is one more chance. After nightfall we will endeavour to leave the house. If we succeed in doing so unobstructed, all may be well; but if opposition be offered, I must defend myself. You surely cannot deny me that privilege, Ada?”“Jacob Gray, you have not the courage to pursue such a plan,” said Ada.“Girl, are you bent on your own destruction?” cried Gray.“No; but; I know your nature well. The plan you propose is opposite to your usual manner of acting. A darker scheme possesses you, of which the one you have now proposed is but the cloak.”“I waste time upon you,” said Gray, advancing towards the ladder.He slowly and cautiously ascended, and then paused at the top step.Ada bent all her attention to listen if any sound came from the room above, for she was quite resolved, let the consequences to her be what they might, to raise a cry of alarm, should Gray show any decided symptoms of carrying out his project of murdering the man in the house.The few moments that succeeded were intensely agonising to Ada, and her heart beat painfully and rapidly as she kept her eye intently fixed upon the dusky form of Jacob Gray, as it was dimly discernible at the top of the ladder. This state of suspense did not last long, for in a very few minutes the shrill whistling of Elias awakened the echoes of the old mansion, and it was evident that he was in the room from which the panel conducting to the cellar opened.Ada strained her eyes upwards, but still all was darkness. She knew that if Gray were to remove the panel, ever so slightly she must be aware of it, by a ray of light streaming through the aperture; for that ray of light Ada waited, as her signal to raise an alarm, which she was determined to do.Little, however, did Ada suspect that Gray had formed a plan which her very effort to save the man on watch would assist to carry into effect. Such, however, was the fact. Gray fully expected, and was quite prepared for a cry from Ada, whenever he should draw aside the panel.The loud whistling of Elias still continued, when suddenly Gray moved the panel just sufficiently to allow Ada to see from below that he had done so, and then, as he had done once before, he slid down the ladder, and, as Ada thought, disappeared in the darkness which shrouded the further extremity of the cellar. Had she felt inclined Ada could not have stopped herself from uttering a cry, and the instant she saw daylight through the panel, her voice rose clear and loud—“Help—help!” she cried “Help—murder!”Mr. Elias’s whistling immediately ceased, although he was in the middle of a very intricate passage, and he sprung to the opening in the wall.With one effort he tore down the piece of wainscoting and cried in a loud voice,—“Hilloa!”Ada made a rush to the ladder, but an arm suddenly arrested her progress with such violence that she fell to the ground with great force.Ada lay for a moment or two stunned by her fall, and she heard only indistinctly the voice of Elias cry,—“Hilloa! Below there. Oh, here’s a ladder, is there? Well, that’s what I call providential.“Elias was upon the ladder, and cautiously descending backwards, when Ada shrieked,—“Beware!—Treachery!”Elias paused a moment. Then there was a bright flash, a loud report, and a heavy fall, all of which were succeeded by a silence as awful and profound as that of the grave. Ada rose partially from the floor, and a dreadful consciousness of what had occurred came across her mind.“Jacob Gray,” she said, “you are a murderer—a murderer.”“I—I was compelled to do the deed,” said Gray, in a low hoarse voice. “Come away—come away, Ada. Let us fly from hence—come away.”“Not with you, man of blood,” cried Ada. “God sees this deed. Murderer, I cannot go with you.”“’Twas my life or his,” said Gray, creeping out from behind the ladder, where he had been crouching, and through the spokes of which he had shot Elias as he descended with a certainty of effect.“No—no. Such was not the fact,” cried Ada.“I care not,” said Gray, throwing off his low cautious tone, and assuming a high shrill accent of anger; “I care not. Place what construction you will upon me, or my actions, you shall come with me now, or remain here to starve. Refuse to accompany me, and I will remove the ladder and leave you here with the dead.”Ada shuddered.“Whither—oh whither would you lead me?” she said.“To some other place of refuge for a short time, until my purposes are completed. Be quick girl, do you stay or go?”“It may be death to go,” said Ada, “but it is suicide to stay.”“You consent?”“I am in the hand of Providence. To it I commit myself. I will follow you.”“Quick, quick!” cried Gray, and he ascended the ladder with nervous trepidation, followed slowly by the afflicted and terrified Ada. The evening was fast approaching as they gained the room above, and Jacob Gray, seizing Ada by the wrist, led her to the outer door of the old house in which they had lived so long.He turned upon the threshold, and holding up his hand, cried,—“My curse be upon this habitation. Had I the means at hand—yet stay one moment, Ada.”He knelt on the step, and struck a light with materials he always carried about him.Dragging Ada again into the house, he opened the door of a room on the ground floor, on which was a quantity of littered straw and baskets. Throwing the light among the inflammable material, he ground through his set teeth,—“Burn, burn! And may not one brick stand upon another of this hateful place.”He then dragged Ada from the house, and took his course along the fields at a rapid pace.
The Projected Murder.—The Alarm.—The Death-shot.—Ada’s Anguish and Indignation.
Ada wasso much shocked at the proposal of Jacob Gray to commit a deliberate and cold-blooded murder, that now for several minutes she remained perfectly silent—a silence which Gray construed into passive acquiescence in his proposition.
“You see, Ada,” he continued, “we have no other hope—as you say we cannot starve here—the blood of this man be upon his own head—I do not want his life, Ada; but I must preserve myself and you. You must see all this in its proper light, Ada—you do not speak.”
“Hear me then speak now,” said Ada. “In all your knowledge of me, Jacob Gray, what have you found upon which to ground a moment’s thought that I could be as wicked as yourself? Captivity may present horrors to you, from which you would free yourself, even at the fearful price of murder. It may be that this awful deed you contemplate would, if executed, add but another item to a fearful record of crime; but, God of Heaven! What should make me so wicked? Wherefore should I connive at a deed proscribed alike by God and man? Jacob Gray, I am weak and you are strong; I am defenceless and you armed; but as there is a Heaven above us, I will dare all—risk all to prevent this contemplated murder.”
“You are wild—mad,” said Gray, in a low tone, which, from its bitterness, was evidently one of intense rage likewise. “The fear of death has hitherto acted upon your mind—let it so act still.”
“It was a sufficient motive,” replied Ada, “when I personally was concerned, and had to choose between captivity with hope, and death which would extinguish all but Heaven’s mercy hereafter. But now, Jacob Gray, I cannot, will not purchase life for myself at the price of death to a fellow-creature.”
“You will not?”
“No; I will not: not if he, whose life you seek, were the veriest wretch on earth—were he even such as you are, Jacob Gray, I would leave him to his God.”
“You rave, girl—you rave,”
“No, I do not rave—’tis you that with a hollow, hideous sophistry delude yourself.”
“Your consent or non-consent is of little moment,” said Gray; “I hold both your life and his in my hands.”
“Then you shall take mine first, for I am sickened at such villany, and would rather be its victim than its spectator. From this moment, Jacob Gray, no bond, no promise binds me to you. Take but one decisive step to commit the murder you contemplate, and this place shall echo with my cries.”
Gray was evidently unprepared for the dilemma into which he had now brought himself, and he knew not what to say for some moments, during which he glared upon Ada with a fiendish expression of his eyes; which she could just discern in the dim light of the cellar, that was more worthy of some malignant demon than anything human.
“You ask me to sacrifice myself?” he at length said.
“No, I ask no such thing,” replied Ada; “allow me to ascend from this place and see the man you say waits above. Friend or foe, I will risk the encounter, and I will not betray you.”
“No, no,” said Gray; “not yet, not yet, Ada; I cannot part with you yet. Moreover, there would still be danger—great danger. I cannot do as you wish.”
“Then you shall incur a greater risk, or commit two murders.”
“Hush, hush,” said Gray; “you speak too loud. Let me think again; I will spare him if I can.”
Jacob Gray remained in deep thought for about ten minutes; then, as he came to some conclusion satisfactory to him, a dark and singular contortion of the features crossed his face, and his hand was thrust into the breast of his clothing, where he had a loaded pistol, upon which he well knew he could depend in any sudden emergency.
“Ada,” he said, “I am resolved.”
“Resolved on what?”
“To take this man’s life, who is here for the express purpose of taking mine if he can find the opportunity.”
“Then I am resolved,” said Ada, “to raise a voice of warning to that man, be he whom he may. If this is to be my last hour, Heaven receive me!”
“You shall die,” said Gray.
Ada sunk on her knees, and covering her face within her hands, she said,—
“Jacob Gray, if Heaven permits you to murder me, I will not shrink. May God forgive you the awful crime!”
Gray laughed a bitter, short laugh, as he said,—
“No, Ada, you may live. I do not intend to kill you. Possibly, too, I may spare him who keeps watch above for me. Be patient while I go and reconnoitre.”
“No, no,” cried Ada, “I cannot be patient here; you are going to murder.”
“Listen to me,” said Gray. “There is one more chance. After nightfall we will endeavour to leave the house. If we succeed in doing so unobstructed, all may be well; but if opposition be offered, I must defend myself. You surely cannot deny me that privilege, Ada?”
“Jacob Gray, you have not the courage to pursue such a plan,” said Ada.
“Girl, are you bent on your own destruction?” cried Gray.
“No; but; I know your nature well. The plan you propose is opposite to your usual manner of acting. A darker scheme possesses you, of which the one you have now proposed is but the cloak.”
“I waste time upon you,” said Gray, advancing towards the ladder.
He slowly and cautiously ascended, and then paused at the top step.
Ada bent all her attention to listen if any sound came from the room above, for she was quite resolved, let the consequences to her be what they might, to raise a cry of alarm, should Gray show any decided symptoms of carrying out his project of murdering the man in the house.
The few moments that succeeded were intensely agonising to Ada, and her heart beat painfully and rapidly as she kept her eye intently fixed upon the dusky form of Jacob Gray, as it was dimly discernible at the top of the ladder. This state of suspense did not last long, for in a very few minutes the shrill whistling of Elias awakened the echoes of the old mansion, and it was evident that he was in the room from which the panel conducting to the cellar opened.
Ada strained her eyes upwards, but still all was darkness. She knew that if Gray were to remove the panel, ever so slightly she must be aware of it, by a ray of light streaming through the aperture; for that ray of light Ada waited, as her signal to raise an alarm, which she was determined to do.
Little, however, did Ada suspect that Gray had formed a plan which her very effort to save the man on watch would assist to carry into effect. Such, however, was the fact. Gray fully expected, and was quite prepared for a cry from Ada, whenever he should draw aside the panel.
The loud whistling of Elias still continued, when suddenly Gray moved the panel just sufficiently to allow Ada to see from below that he had done so, and then, as he had done once before, he slid down the ladder, and, as Ada thought, disappeared in the darkness which shrouded the further extremity of the cellar. Had she felt inclined Ada could not have stopped herself from uttering a cry, and the instant she saw daylight through the panel, her voice rose clear and loud—
“Help—help!” she cried “Help—murder!”
Mr. Elias’s whistling immediately ceased, although he was in the middle of a very intricate passage, and he sprung to the opening in the wall.
With one effort he tore down the piece of wainscoting and cried in a loud voice,—
“Hilloa!”
Ada made a rush to the ladder, but an arm suddenly arrested her progress with such violence that she fell to the ground with great force.
Ada lay for a moment or two stunned by her fall, and she heard only indistinctly the voice of Elias cry,—
“Hilloa! Below there. Oh, here’s a ladder, is there? Well, that’s what I call providential.“
Elias was upon the ladder, and cautiously descending backwards, when Ada shrieked,—
“Beware!—Treachery!”
Elias paused a moment. Then there was a bright flash, a loud report, and a heavy fall, all of which were succeeded by a silence as awful and profound as that of the grave. Ada rose partially from the floor, and a dreadful consciousness of what had occurred came across her mind.
“Jacob Gray,” she said, “you are a murderer—a murderer.”
“I—I was compelled to do the deed,” said Gray, in a low hoarse voice. “Come away—come away, Ada. Let us fly from hence—come away.”
“Not with you, man of blood,” cried Ada. “God sees this deed. Murderer, I cannot go with you.”
“’Twas my life or his,” said Gray, creeping out from behind the ladder, where he had been crouching, and through the spokes of which he had shot Elias as he descended with a certainty of effect.
“No—no. Such was not the fact,” cried Ada.
“I care not,” said Gray, throwing off his low cautious tone, and assuming a high shrill accent of anger; “I care not. Place what construction you will upon me, or my actions, you shall come with me now, or remain here to starve. Refuse to accompany me, and I will remove the ladder and leave you here with the dead.”
Ada shuddered.
“Whither—oh whither would you lead me?” she said.
“To some other place of refuge for a short time, until my purposes are completed. Be quick girl, do you stay or go?”
“It may be death to go,” said Ada, “but it is suicide to stay.”
“You consent?”
“I am in the hand of Providence. To it I commit myself. I will follow you.”
“Quick, quick!” cried Gray, and he ascended the ladder with nervous trepidation, followed slowly by the afflicted and terrified Ada. The evening was fast approaching as they gained the room above, and Jacob Gray, seizing Ada by the wrist, led her to the outer door of the old house in which they had lived so long.
He turned upon the threshold, and holding up his hand, cried,—
“My curse be upon this habitation. Had I the means at hand—yet stay one moment, Ada.”
He knelt on the step, and struck a light with materials he always carried about him.
Dragging Ada again into the house, he opened the door of a room on the ground floor, on which was a quantity of littered straw and baskets. Throwing the light among the inflammable material, he ground through his set teeth,—
“Burn, burn! And may not one brick stand upon another of this hateful place.”
He then dragged Ada from the house, and took his course along the fields at a rapid pace.
CHAPTER L.The Ruin at Night.—The Fire.—Gray’s Behaviour.—A Challenge.—Old Westminster Again.Ada madeno remark upon these proceedings of Jacob Gray. She had made up her mind to a particular course of action. She had wound up her feelings and her courage to a certain pitch and she resolved not to say another word to Jacob Gray, until she had an opportunity of acting, as she had now considered it her sacred duty to act.Gray himself seemed suspicious and annoyed at her pertinacious silence, and he addressed her in a fawning, trembling voice, as if he would fain restore her to her usual confidence in addressing him. The calm of Ada’s manner alarmed him. He would ten times rather she had spoken to him in terms of reproach and abhorrence; but now that she said nothing, he trembled for what might be the nature of her thoughts regarding him.“Ada,” he said, as he crept along by her side, or rather one pace before her towards the inner side. “Ada, all that I have often pictured to you of riches and honour shall soon be yours. You will enjoy all that your young and ardent imagination can hope for; but there are some few things yet to be done ere I can place you in such a position as would make you the envy of all.”These few things, in Jacob Gray’s mind, consisted in efficient preparations for his own departure from England; the secreting of his confession, and the extortion of a yet further sum of money from the fears of Learmont.“You do not hear me, Ada,” as she made no reply.The young girl shuddered, and shrank from him as far as he would permit.“You shrink from me now,” said Gray, “and yet I am the only person who can and will place you in a position to enjoy every pleasure—to gratify every taste. Ada, you will be much beholden now to Jacob Gray.”Still Ada would not speak, and they were rapidly nearing some stairs, at which plied wherries between Battersea and Westminster. Gray now looked cautiously around him, and being quite satisfied that no one was within heating, he stooped his mouth close to Ada’s ear, and said, in a voice of suppressed yet violent passion,—“Girl, I am a desperate man. Do not tempt me beyond what I can resist to do a deed which I fain would not do. Hear me, Ada—I swear to have your life if you play me false. Be obedient to what I shall command, and all will be well; but have a care—have a care, for I am desperate, and you know what I can do.”Jacob Gray then walked on in silence until he reached the stalls, at which there was no one but a boy, who immediately cried to him, “Boat, your honour—going across, sir?”“Yes,” said Gray.The boy ran into the water to steady the beat while Gray handed in Ada, who submitted passively. Then he stepped on board himself, and the boy, clambering in after him, pushed the boat out into the stream.“Where to, your honour?” said the boy, as he settled the sculls in the rollocks, and gave, a sweep that turned the boat’s head from the shore.“To the stairs at Westminster-bridge,” said Gray.The boy nodded, and the boat, under his good management, was soon gliding up the stream in the wished-for direction.The sun was now rapidly sinking, and tall dark shadows lay upon the surface of the Thames, making the waters look as if they were composed of different kinds of fluids of varying colours and densities. Then the last edge of the sun’s disc, which had been reposing on the horizon for a moment, suddenly disappeared, and a cold wind on the instant swept across the face of the river, curling it up into small wrinkles, and giving a gentle, undulating motion to the boat.Not a word was spoken, and the small wherry might have been occupied by the dead, for all the signs of life or animation given by Gray or Ada.That Gray’s thoughts partook of the apprehensive might have been guessed by the nervous manner in which he clutched the side of the boat, and the distracted movement of the fingers of his other hand with which he held the collar of his cloak across the lower part of his face.Ada was pale as a marble statue; but there was an intellectuality and determination about her small, compressed lips and commanding brow that would have won admiration from all, and enraptured a poet or a painter. She sat calm and still. There was no nervousness, no trembling, no alarm; and it was the absence of all those natural and feminine feelings which cast a cold chill to the heart of Jacob Gray, and filled him with a terror of he knew not what.He could not for more than one instant of time keep his eyes off Ada’s face. There was a something depicted there that while he dreaded, he seemed, by some supernatural power, compelled to look upon. Like one fascinated by the basilisk eye of a serpent, he could not withdraw his gaze; although pale, firm, and slightly tinged with a death-like hue by the strange colours that lingered in the sky from the sunset, that young and lovely face brought to his recollection one which the mere thought of was an agony, and the name of whom was engraven upon his heart in undying letters of eternal flame.The fresh breeze caught as it passed the long glossy ringlets of Ada’s hair, and blew them in wanton playfulness across her face, but still she moved not. The night darkened, and the shadows of the buildings and shipping crossed her eyes, but she stirred not. Her whole soul, with all its varied perceptions and powers seemed to be engrossed by some one great idea that would admit of no sort of companionship, and for the time reigned alone within the chambers of her brain.Suddenly now the boy let his oars rest in the water, and the boat no longer urged forward, moved but sluggishly. His eyes seemed to be fixed on something. Now he lifted one hand and shaded them, while he looked earnestly in the direction from whence he had been coming.Gray for a moment did not seem conscious that the boat was making no progress, but in fact slowly turning broadside to the stream, and Ada, if she did notice it, preserved her silence and calmness, for she neither moved nor spoke.“Master,” cried the boy, suddenly, and Gray started as if he had been suddenly aroused by a trumpet at his ear.“What—a—what?” he cried. “Who spoke?”“I spoke, sir,” said the boy. “There’s a famous fire out Battersea way.”“A fire?” said Gray.“Yes,” said the boy, and he pointed with his finger in the direction from whence they came. “It’s a large fire; now it does burn, to be sure. Look, sir, there!”Gray turned half round upon his seat in the boat, and he saw that the heavens were illuminated with a dull, red glare in the direction to which the boy had pointed, and in that one particular spot there was a concentrated body of light from whence shot up in the sky myriads of bright sparks, and now and then a long tongue of flame which lit up the house, the shipping, and the river, with a bright and transitory glow.“It is—the house,” muttered Gray to himself; “my work prospers. Sir Frederick Hartleton, I have but one more wish, and that is, that your flesh was broiling in yon house along with your myrmidon whom you left to his fate.”“It’s a large fire,” remarked the boy. “A famous fire.”“Yes,” said Gray, “a famous fire; can you tell where it is?”“I think,” said the boy, “it lies somewhere over the marshes.”“Indeed.”“Yes; and I should say it was Forest’s old haunted house, only nobody lives there but the ghosts.”“Forest’s house,” repeated Gray, in an assumed careless tone. “Indeed I should not wonder if you were right.”“I hope it is,” said the boy. “It was an old miserable-looking place. You’ve heard about it, sir?”“A little—a little,” replied Gray.“There was a murder there once,” said the boy.“Yes,—yes, I—know,” said Gray.“Forest, you see, sir, lived in the house. He built it, you see, sir, and he wasn’t content with what he had, so he murdered a poor fellow, who they say had a thousand pounds belonging to somebody who employed him to collect rents, you see, sir.”“Yes,” said Gray, licking his lips.“Well, sir, Forest shot him.”“Shot him? Oh, yes. He—he shot him.”“He was hung, though,” added the boy, “and well he deserved it, too. My grandfather saw him hung on the common, not a hundred feet from his own door.—After that no one would live in the house, and, in course, old Forest’s ghost, and, the man’s ghost that he killed, took to being there. Well, it does flare now famously.”The fire seemed now at its height, for the flames rose to a tremendous height into the sky, and the roaring and crackling of the timbers could be distinctly heard, even at that distance from the spot of the conflagration.Now and then a loud sound, resembling the discharge of artillery at a distance, would come booming through the air, indicative of the fall of some heavy part of the ancient building, and then the flame would be smothered for a moment, and dense volumes of smoke terrifically red from the glare beneath, would roll over the sky, to be succeeded again by myriads of sparks, which would, in their turns, give place to the long tongues of flame which shot up from the fallen mass, as it became more thoroughly ignited.Jacob Gray gazed intently on the scene for a few minutes, then turning to the boy, he cried,—“We are in haste.”The lad resumed his oars, and struck them lazily into the glowing stream, that looked like liquid fire from the bright reflection of the sky, and once more the boat was making way towards Westminster.Several times Gray glanced in the face of Ada, to note what effect the burning of the old house had upon her imagination, but not a muscle moved—all was as still and calm as before, and save that the reflection from the reddened sky now cast a glow of more than earthly beauty over her otherwise pale face, to look at her, she might have been supposed some thing of Heaven, summoned by the small casualties and petty commotions of this world, which she had but visited for a brief space, for some specific purpose.The boat glided on, and so intent was the boy upon the fire, that he had several narrow escapes of running foul of barges and other wherries, some of the latter of which were pulling down the stream on purpose to look at the fire, which was causing a great deal of comment and commotion among the gossips of ancient Westminster.Many were the oaths levelled on the head of the boy, by parties who were obliged to ship their oars suddenly to avoid a collision with his boat, and it was not until this happened thrice, that he began to be a little more careful, and look warily about him.The stairs to which Gray directed the boy were through the bridge, and the boat now reached the ancient structure, which looked beautiful and brilliant from the reflection of the fire upon its many rough stones and jagged points of architecture.A wherry, in which sat one person besides the rower, now came rapidly from under the same arch of the bridge, through which the boat containing Ada and Gray was about to proceed.“Hilloa!” cried the man, who was sitting in the boat. “Hilloa there!”“Well, what now?” said the boy.“None of your impertinence, youngster,” cried the man, showing a constable’s staff, which Ada knew no more the meaning of than if he had unfurled the banner of Mahomet.“Well, sir,” said the boy, “I only want to land my passengers.”“You may land your passengers, and be d—d,” replied the man in authority.“Thank you kindly sir,” replied the boy, promptly.The rower in the other boat laughed at this, and the constable cried,—“Come, come, none of this. How far have you pulled up the river, boy?”“From Battersea.”“Oh, hem! From Battersea?”“I told you so.”“Come, come, young fellow—no insolence. Where’s the fire?”“I can’t say exactly.”“Where do you think it is? You say you have pulled up from Battersea, and the fire is at Battersea, we know.”“I think it’s at old Forest’s haunted house,” said the boy.“D—d if I didn’t think so,” cried the officer, who was no other than our old friend Stephy; “I must go and see, though, notwithstanding. Pull away, my man.”The wherries shot past each other, and in a few moments more, Ada and Gray stood on the top of the flight of stone steps conducting from the river to Bridge-street.
The Ruin at Night.—The Fire.—Gray’s Behaviour.—A Challenge.—Old Westminster Again.
Ada madeno remark upon these proceedings of Jacob Gray. She had made up her mind to a particular course of action. She had wound up her feelings and her courage to a certain pitch and she resolved not to say another word to Jacob Gray, until she had an opportunity of acting, as she had now considered it her sacred duty to act.
Gray himself seemed suspicious and annoyed at her pertinacious silence, and he addressed her in a fawning, trembling voice, as if he would fain restore her to her usual confidence in addressing him. The calm of Ada’s manner alarmed him. He would ten times rather she had spoken to him in terms of reproach and abhorrence; but now that she said nothing, he trembled for what might be the nature of her thoughts regarding him.
“Ada,” he said, as he crept along by her side, or rather one pace before her towards the inner side. “Ada, all that I have often pictured to you of riches and honour shall soon be yours. You will enjoy all that your young and ardent imagination can hope for; but there are some few things yet to be done ere I can place you in such a position as would make you the envy of all.”
These few things, in Jacob Gray’s mind, consisted in efficient preparations for his own departure from England; the secreting of his confession, and the extortion of a yet further sum of money from the fears of Learmont.
“You do not hear me, Ada,” as she made no reply.
The young girl shuddered, and shrank from him as far as he would permit.
“You shrink from me now,” said Gray, “and yet I am the only person who can and will place you in a position to enjoy every pleasure—to gratify every taste. Ada, you will be much beholden now to Jacob Gray.”
Still Ada would not speak, and they were rapidly nearing some stairs, at which plied wherries between Battersea and Westminster. Gray now looked cautiously around him, and being quite satisfied that no one was within heating, he stooped his mouth close to Ada’s ear, and said, in a voice of suppressed yet violent passion,—
“Girl, I am a desperate man. Do not tempt me beyond what I can resist to do a deed which I fain would not do. Hear me, Ada—I swear to have your life if you play me false. Be obedient to what I shall command, and all will be well; but have a care—have a care, for I am desperate, and you know what I can do.”
Jacob Gray then walked on in silence until he reached the stalls, at which there was no one but a boy, who immediately cried to him, “Boat, your honour—going across, sir?”
“Yes,” said Gray.
The boy ran into the water to steady the beat while Gray handed in Ada, who submitted passively. Then he stepped on board himself, and the boy, clambering in after him, pushed the boat out into the stream.
“Where to, your honour?” said the boy, as he settled the sculls in the rollocks, and gave, a sweep that turned the boat’s head from the shore.
“To the stairs at Westminster-bridge,” said Gray.
The boy nodded, and the boat, under his good management, was soon gliding up the stream in the wished-for direction.
The sun was now rapidly sinking, and tall dark shadows lay upon the surface of the Thames, making the waters look as if they were composed of different kinds of fluids of varying colours and densities. Then the last edge of the sun’s disc, which had been reposing on the horizon for a moment, suddenly disappeared, and a cold wind on the instant swept across the face of the river, curling it up into small wrinkles, and giving a gentle, undulating motion to the boat.
Not a word was spoken, and the small wherry might have been occupied by the dead, for all the signs of life or animation given by Gray or Ada.
That Gray’s thoughts partook of the apprehensive might have been guessed by the nervous manner in which he clutched the side of the boat, and the distracted movement of the fingers of his other hand with which he held the collar of his cloak across the lower part of his face.
Ada was pale as a marble statue; but there was an intellectuality and determination about her small, compressed lips and commanding brow that would have won admiration from all, and enraptured a poet or a painter. She sat calm and still. There was no nervousness, no trembling, no alarm; and it was the absence of all those natural and feminine feelings which cast a cold chill to the heart of Jacob Gray, and filled him with a terror of he knew not what.
He could not for more than one instant of time keep his eyes off Ada’s face. There was a something depicted there that while he dreaded, he seemed, by some supernatural power, compelled to look upon. Like one fascinated by the basilisk eye of a serpent, he could not withdraw his gaze; although pale, firm, and slightly tinged with a death-like hue by the strange colours that lingered in the sky from the sunset, that young and lovely face brought to his recollection one which the mere thought of was an agony, and the name of whom was engraven upon his heart in undying letters of eternal flame.
The fresh breeze caught as it passed the long glossy ringlets of Ada’s hair, and blew them in wanton playfulness across her face, but still she moved not. The night darkened, and the shadows of the buildings and shipping crossed her eyes, but she stirred not. Her whole soul, with all its varied perceptions and powers seemed to be engrossed by some one great idea that would admit of no sort of companionship, and for the time reigned alone within the chambers of her brain.
Suddenly now the boy let his oars rest in the water, and the boat no longer urged forward, moved but sluggishly. His eyes seemed to be fixed on something. Now he lifted one hand and shaded them, while he looked earnestly in the direction from whence he had been coming.
Gray for a moment did not seem conscious that the boat was making no progress, but in fact slowly turning broadside to the stream, and Ada, if she did notice it, preserved her silence and calmness, for she neither moved nor spoke.
“Master,” cried the boy, suddenly, and Gray started as if he had been suddenly aroused by a trumpet at his ear.
“What—a—what?” he cried. “Who spoke?”
“I spoke, sir,” said the boy. “There’s a famous fire out Battersea way.”
“A fire?” said Gray.
“Yes,” said the boy, and he pointed with his finger in the direction from whence they came. “It’s a large fire; now it does burn, to be sure. Look, sir, there!”
Gray turned half round upon his seat in the boat, and he saw that the heavens were illuminated with a dull, red glare in the direction to which the boy had pointed, and in that one particular spot there was a concentrated body of light from whence shot up in the sky myriads of bright sparks, and now and then a long tongue of flame which lit up the house, the shipping, and the river, with a bright and transitory glow.
“It is—the house,” muttered Gray to himself; “my work prospers. Sir Frederick Hartleton, I have but one more wish, and that is, that your flesh was broiling in yon house along with your myrmidon whom you left to his fate.”
“It’s a large fire,” remarked the boy. “A famous fire.”
“Yes,” said Gray, “a famous fire; can you tell where it is?”
“I think,” said the boy, “it lies somewhere over the marshes.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes; and I should say it was Forest’s old haunted house, only nobody lives there but the ghosts.”
“Forest’s house,” repeated Gray, in an assumed careless tone. “Indeed I should not wonder if you were right.”
“I hope it is,” said the boy. “It was an old miserable-looking place. You’ve heard about it, sir?”
“A little—a little,” replied Gray.
“There was a murder there once,” said the boy.
“Yes,—yes, I—know,” said Gray.
“Forest, you see, sir, lived in the house. He built it, you see, sir, and he wasn’t content with what he had, so he murdered a poor fellow, who they say had a thousand pounds belonging to somebody who employed him to collect rents, you see, sir.”
“Yes,” said Gray, licking his lips.
“Well, sir, Forest shot him.”
“Shot him? Oh, yes. He—he shot him.”
“He was hung, though,” added the boy, “and well he deserved it, too. My grandfather saw him hung on the common, not a hundred feet from his own door.—After that no one would live in the house, and, in course, old Forest’s ghost, and, the man’s ghost that he killed, took to being there. Well, it does flare now famously.”
The fire seemed now at its height, for the flames rose to a tremendous height into the sky, and the roaring and crackling of the timbers could be distinctly heard, even at that distance from the spot of the conflagration.
Now and then a loud sound, resembling the discharge of artillery at a distance, would come booming through the air, indicative of the fall of some heavy part of the ancient building, and then the flame would be smothered for a moment, and dense volumes of smoke terrifically red from the glare beneath, would roll over the sky, to be succeeded again by myriads of sparks, which would, in their turns, give place to the long tongues of flame which shot up from the fallen mass, as it became more thoroughly ignited.
Jacob Gray gazed intently on the scene for a few minutes, then turning to the boy, he cried,—
“We are in haste.”
The lad resumed his oars, and struck them lazily into the glowing stream, that looked like liquid fire from the bright reflection of the sky, and once more the boat was making way towards Westminster.
Several times Gray glanced in the face of Ada, to note what effect the burning of the old house had upon her imagination, but not a muscle moved—all was as still and calm as before, and save that the reflection from the reddened sky now cast a glow of more than earthly beauty over her otherwise pale face, to look at her, she might have been supposed some thing of Heaven, summoned by the small casualties and petty commotions of this world, which she had but visited for a brief space, for some specific purpose.
The boat glided on, and so intent was the boy upon the fire, that he had several narrow escapes of running foul of barges and other wherries, some of the latter of which were pulling down the stream on purpose to look at the fire, which was causing a great deal of comment and commotion among the gossips of ancient Westminster.
Many were the oaths levelled on the head of the boy, by parties who were obliged to ship their oars suddenly to avoid a collision with his boat, and it was not until this happened thrice, that he began to be a little more careful, and look warily about him.
The stairs to which Gray directed the boy were through the bridge, and the boat now reached the ancient structure, which looked beautiful and brilliant from the reflection of the fire upon its many rough stones and jagged points of architecture.
A wherry, in which sat one person besides the rower, now came rapidly from under the same arch of the bridge, through which the boat containing Ada and Gray was about to proceed.
“Hilloa!” cried the man, who was sitting in the boat. “Hilloa there!”
“Well, what now?” said the boy.
“None of your impertinence, youngster,” cried the man, showing a constable’s staff, which Ada knew no more the meaning of than if he had unfurled the banner of Mahomet.
“Well, sir,” said the boy, “I only want to land my passengers.”
“You may land your passengers, and be d—d,” replied the man in authority.
“Thank you kindly sir,” replied the boy, promptly.
The rower in the other boat laughed at this, and the constable cried,—
“Come, come, none of this. How far have you pulled up the river, boy?”
“From Battersea.”
“Oh, hem! From Battersea?”
“I told you so.”
“Come, come, young fellow—no insolence. Where’s the fire?”
“I can’t say exactly.”
“Where do you think it is? You say you have pulled up from Battersea, and the fire is at Battersea, we know.”
“I think it’s at old Forest’s haunted house,” said the boy.
“D—d if I didn’t think so,” cried the officer, who was no other than our old friend Stephy; “I must go and see, though, notwithstanding. Pull away, my man.”
The wherries shot past each other, and in a few moments more, Ada and Gray stood on the top of the flight of stone steps conducting from the river to Bridge-street.
CHAPTER LI.The Alcove on the Bridge.—Gray’s Speech to Ada.—The Flight.—The Hunt.—The Last Refuge.Londonwas not so thronged with passengers at the period of our tale as it is now, and Gray stood with Ada several moments at the corner of Westminster-bridge, without more than three persons passing, and those at intervals apart from each other.Gray appeared to be in deep thought during this time, and then taking Ada by the arm, he said in a trembling voice,—“This way, this way,” and led her to the bridge.Ada made no resistance, but suffered herself to be conducted into one of the little alcoves which now exist. Then, after a pause, Jacob Gray spoke to her in a low, earnest tone, to the following purport:—“Ada, the time is now fast approaching when you will be free—free in action as in thought, and with the means of giving to every thought, however wayward or expensive, the immediate aspect of reality. You will be guided implicitly by me, Ada, for the space of about one month, and no longer—then all that I promise will be fulfilled, and you will be happy. You may then forget Jacob Gray, for you will see him no more. In another country I will spend the remainder of my life. What I am about to do now is, to seek in the very heart of this populous city, a temporary abode for you and myself. I am tired of solitudes and lonely places. Ada, you must for that brief month assume in all appearance the character of my daughter.”Ada shuddered, and shrank back as far as she possibly could into the alcove, for Gray, in the earnestness of his discourse, had brought his face in very close proximity to hers.“For your own sake, as well as for mine,” he continued, “you must pass as a child of mine. When I am gone, you may repudiate the relationship as quickly as you may think proper.”Jacob Gray then paused as if awaiting the answer of Ada, but to his great surprise and aggravation, she preserved the same unbroken silence which she had dictated to herself since the murder at the lone house.“You will not answer me,” said Gray, with bitterness. “Well, be it so. Let no words pass between us. I can construe your silence—you feel that you must obey me, and yet you cannot bring your nature to give me one word of acquiescence. ’Tis as well, Ada—’tis as well. Our conversations have never been so satisfactory that I should wish to urge their continuance. You may preserve your silence, but you must obey me. Before this time I have been placed in desperate straits, and have reflected upon desperate remedies. Now, Ada, remember that if you betray me, or even leave me, until the time I shall please to appoint, you shall die. Remember, young, beautiful as you are, you shall die.”Again Gray paused with the hope that Ada would speak, for although he affected to despise it, the silence of the young girl was an annoyance to him of the first magnitude.His hope, however, was futile. She spoke not.“Come, follow me,” cried Gray, suddenly. “Here, place your arm in mine.”He attempted to draw her arm within his as he spoke, but Ada drew back so firmly and resolutely, that Gray saw she would not walk with him in such apparent amity.“As you please,” he said, “so that you follow me. Come on—come on.”Ada stepped from the alcove onto the bridge, and then Gray paused a moment to see if he was observed, and being satisfied that he was not, he drew aside the collar of his cloak and showed Ada the bright barrel of a pistol, to which he pointed, saying,—“Remember—death, sudden, painful, and violent on the one hand, and on the other, after a short month, unbounded wealth, enjoyment, and delight. Come on—come on.”Side by side, the ill-assorted pair walked in the direction of Parliament-street, it being Gray’s intention to pass through Westminster, and proceed towards the densely populated district north of the Strand, there to seek for a temporary lodging in which he and Ada as his daughter, could remain until he had perfected his arrangements for his own escape, and the utter destruction of Learmont and Britton.Gray had calculated his chances and position well. He stood as free as ever from any attempt against his life by Learmont or the savage smith. Ada, even if she should suddenly leave him, scarcely knew enough to be thoroughly dangerous. Sir Francis Hartleton had but an indistinct knowledge of his person, and even should he meet him in the public streets, he could hardly hit upon him as being the man who had merely flashed across his eyes for a moment. Besides, it was possible to make sufficient alterations in his personal appearance to deceive those who were not very well acquainted with his general aspect and appearance. Then he need not go from home above four times, perhaps, in that whole month, even provided he remained so long in London, and on those occasions it would only be to creep cautiously from his own place of abode to Learmont’s house and back again, so that the risk would be but small of meeting the magistrate or Albert Seyton, who were the only two persons at all interested in his capture.His threats to Ada that he would take her life upon any attempt of hers to escape, were perfectly insincere. To Ada and her existence he clung as to his only hope of mercy, if by some untoward circumstance he should be taken, as well as for his only means of being thoroughly and entirely revenged upon Learmont.Upon the whole, then, Jacob Gray, as he walked down Parliament-street, in the dim, uncertain light from the oil lamps of the period, and saw that Ada followed him slowly, rather congratulated himself upon his extreme cunning and the good position for working out all his darling projects, both of avarice and revenge, in which he was placed.“There is an old proverb,” he muttered, “which says, ‘the nearer to church, the further from Heaven,’ and I have read somewhere a fable of a hunted hare finding a secure, because an unsuspected, place of refuge in a dog-kennel. Upon that principal will I secrete myself for one short month in some place densely inhabited; where two persons make but an insignificant item in the great mass that surrounds them, will I seek security, and then my revenge—my deep revenge!”But few passengers were in Parliament-street; the quantity of persons, however, sensibly increased as they approached Whitehall, and from Charing-cross the lights were just glancing when Ada suddenly paused, and Gray, on the impulse of the moment, got two or three paces in advance of her. There were two persons conversing, about where Scotland-yard stands, and laughing carelessly, while several more people were rapidly approaching from Charing-cross.Gray was sensible in a moment that Ada had stopped, and he hurried immediately to see what were her intentions.As he did so, Ada broke the long silence she had maintained by suddenly exclaiming, in a voice that arrested every passenger, and made the blood retreat with a frightful gush to the heart of Jacob Gray.“Help! Help! Seize him. He is a murderer—a murderer!—Help! Help! Seize the murderer!”For one moment all sense of perception seemed to have left Gray, so thoroughly unexpected was such an act on the part of Ada, and it was well for him that those who were around for about the same space of time remained in a similar undecided and bewildered state, as people do always on any very sudden occasion for instant action.Ada stood pointing with one trembling finger at Gray, while her pale face and long black hair, combined with her rare beauty, made her look like one inspired.“The murderer!” she again cried, and her voice seemed to break the spell which kept both Gray and the chance passengers paralysed.With a cry of terror, Jacob Gray turned and fled towards Charing-cross.Ada’s feelings had been wrought up to too high a pitch of excitement. She had felt it to be her duty to denounce the murderer, and while that duty remained to be done, the consciousness that upon her it devolved, had nerved her to the task, and supported her hitherto—now, however, the words were spoken. At what she supposed the risk of her life, she had announced the crime of Jacob Gray. The revulsion of feeling was too much, and a bystander, who saw her stagger, was just in time to catch her as she fainted, and would otherwise have fallen to the ground.The two persons who had been talking and laughing together at the moment of Ada’s first exclamation, did not seem disposed to let the accused man get off so easily as he appeared upon the point of doing. They raised the cry so awful in the ear of a fugitive through the streets of London, “Stop him! Stop him!” And they both started after Jacob Gray at full speed.Had Gray, when he turned the corner of Northumberland-house, then walked quietly, like an ordinary passenger, the chances were that he would have escaped; but, in his terror, he flew rather than ran up the Strand, at once pointing himself out to all as the one pursued, and tempting every person who had time or inclination to join the exciting chase.The words, “Stop him!” sounded in his ears, and he bounded forward as he heard them, with another cry and a speed that, while it made it very hazardous for every one to oppose him, yet increased the ardour of the pursuit.In the course of a few seconds, fifty persons had joined the chase, and yells and shouts came upon Gray’s affrighted ears.With compressed lips and a face as livid as that of a corpse, he rushed on without the smallest idea of where he was going.“For my life—for my life,” he gasped, and each cry behind him affected him like a shock of electricity, and caused him to give another bound forward in all the wildness of despair.Of the crowd now that followed Gray, not one knew who he was, of what he was accused, or why he was thus hunted, like a wild annual, through the streets. One joined in the cry because he saw others engaged in it. The two young men who had first raised the chase were a long way off, for no one could keep up with the frantic speed of the nearly maddened Gray. Those who followed him the closest were those who had joined the hunten route; although, to the fugitive’s excited imagination, he seemed to be on the point of being overtaken by harder runners than himself.Shouts, cries, hootings, groans, and every wild and demoniac noise of which the human animal is capable, were uttered by the mob, which kept momentarily increasing as each alley, court, or street, sent forth its tribute of numbers to the stream that roared, whooped, hurried, and raced along the Strand.Some began now to throw missiles of all kinds after Gray. Stones and mud showered upon him, and he felt faint and neatly exhausted, as he saw at some distance before him a man apparently intent upon stopping him.Little, however, did he who thought to capture Gray reflect upon the shock he would receive from the speed of the hunted man. As Gray approached him he swerved, more involuntarily than designedly, and coming against the man rather obliquely, he shot him into the roadway with an impetus that sent him rolling over and over in the mud, as if he had been discharged from a cannon. To Gray the shock was severe, but it did not take him off his feet, and the circumstance caused some little diversion in his favour than otherwise; for the mob first trampled upon the prostrate man, and then some fell over him.After this, none were so bold as to stand in the way of a man who was rushing along with so terrible a speed; and Jacob Gray, reeling, panting, his lips running with blood, as he had bitten them in his agony, arrived at Somerset-house.Just beyond the stone front was a small court, and towards this temporary place of refuge from the high street Gray tottered, spinning round and round, like a drunken man.A light, agile man, who had joined the chase by the Adelphi, and who had kept very close upon Gray, now, with a shout of triumph, made a rush forward, and grappled with him at the mouth of the little court.The touch seemed like magic to revive all the fainting energies of Jacob Gray, and he turned and grappled his enemy by the throat with fearful vehemence.The court descended from the street by a flight of stone steps, and in the next instant with a shriek from the man, and a wild cry from Gray, the pursuer and pursued rolled down the stone descent, struggling with each other for life or death.
The Alcove on the Bridge.—Gray’s Speech to Ada.—The Flight.—The Hunt.—The Last Refuge.
Londonwas not so thronged with passengers at the period of our tale as it is now, and Gray stood with Ada several moments at the corner of Westminster-bridge, without more than three persons passing, and those at intervals apart from each other.
Gray appeared to be in deep thought during this time, and then taking Ada by the arm, he said in a trembling voice,—
“This way, this way,” and led her to the bridge.
Ada made no resistance, but suffered herself to be conducted into one of the little alcoves which now exist. Then, after a pause, Jacob Gray spoke to her in a low, earnest tone, to the following purport:—
“Ada, the time is now fast approaching when you will be free—free in action as in thought, and with the means of giving to every thought, however wayward or expensive, the immediate aspect of reality. You will be guided implicitly by me, Ada, for the space of about one month, and no longer—then all that I promise will be fulfilled, and you will be happy. You may then forget Jacob Gray, for you will see him no more. In another country I will spend the remainder of my life. What I am about to do now is, to seek in the very heart of this populous city, a temporary abode for you and myself. I am tired of solitudes and lonely places. Ada, you must for that brief month assume in all appearance the character of my daughter.”
Ada shuddered, and shrank back as far as she possibly could into the alcove, for Gray, in the earnestness of his discourse, had brought his face in very close proximity to hers.
“For your own sake, as well as for mine,” he continued, “you must pass as a child of mine. When I am gone, you may repudiate the relationship as quickly as you may think proper.”
Jacob Gray then paused as if awaiting the answer of Ada, but to his great surprise and aggravation, she preserved the same unbroken silence which she had dictated to herself since the murder at the lone house.
“You will not answer me,” said Gray, with bitterness. “Well, be it so. Let no words pass between us. I can construe your silence—you feel that you must obey me, and yet you cannot bring your nature to give me one word of acquiescence. ’Tis as well, Ada—’tis as well. Our conversations have never been so satisfactory that I should wish to urge their continuance. You may preserve your silence, but you must obey me. Before this time I have been placed in desperate straits, and have reflected upon desperate remedies. Now, Ada, remember that if you betray me, or even leave me, until the time I shall please to appoint, you shall die. Remember, young, beautiful as you are, you shall die.”
Again Gray paused with the hope that Ada would speak, for although he affected to despise it, the silence of the young girl was an annoyance to him of the first magnitude.
His hope, however, was futile. She spoke not.
“Come, follow me,” cried Gray, suddenly. “Here, place your arm in mine.”
He attempted to draw her arm within his as he spoke, but Ada drew back so firmly and resolutely, that Gray saw she would not walk with him in such apparent amity.
“As you please,” he said, “so that you follow me. Come on—come on.”
Ada stepped from the alcove onto the bridge, and then Gray paused a moment to see if he was observed, and being satisfied that he was not, he drew aside the collar of his cloak and showed Ada the bright barrel of a pistol, to which he pointed, saying,—
“Remember—death, sudden, painful, and violent on the one hand, and on the other, after a short month, unbounded wealth, enjoyment, and delight. Come on—come on.”
Side by side, the ill-assorted pair walked in the direction of Parliament-street, it being Gray’s intention to pass through Westminster, and proceed towards the densely populated district north of the Strand, there to seek for a temporary lodging in which he and Ada as his daughter, could remain until he had perfected his arrangements for his own escape, and the utter destruction of Learmont and Britton.
Gray had calculated his chances and position well. He stood as free as ever from any attempt against his life by Learmont or the savage smith. Ada, even if she should suddenly leave him, scarcely knew enough to be thoroughly dangerous. Sir Francis Hartleton had but an indistinct knowledge of his person, and even should he meet him in the public streets, he could hardly hit upon him as being the man who had merely flashed across his eyes for a moment. Besides, it was possible to make sufficient alterations in his personal appearance to deceive those who were not very well acquainted with his general aspect and appearance. Then he need not go from home above four times, perhaps, in that whole month, even provided he remained so long in London, and on those occasions it would only be to creep cautiously from his own place of abode to Learmont’s house and back again, so that the risk would be but small of meeting the magistrate or Albert Seyton, who were the only two persons at all interested in his capture.
His threats to Ada that he would take her life upon any attempt of hers to escape, were perfectly insincere. To Ada and her existence he clung as to his only hope of mercy, if by some untoward circumstance he should be taken, as well as for his only means of being thoroughly and entirely revenged upon Learmont.
Upon the whole, then, Jacob Gray, as he walked down Parliament-street, in the dim, uncertain light from the oil lamps of the period, and saw that Ada followed him slowly, rather congratulated himself upon his extreme cunning and the good position for working out all his darling projects, both of avarice and revenge, in which he was placed.
“There is an old proverb,” he muttered, “which says, ‘the nearer to church, the further from Heaven,’ and I have read somewhere a fable of a hunted hare finding a secure, because an unsuspected, place of refuge in a dog-kennel. Upon that principal will I secrete myself for one short month in some place densely inhabited; where two persons make but an insignificant item in the great mass that surrounds them, will I seek security, and then my revenge—my deep revenge!”
But few passengers were in Parliament-street; the quantity of persons, however, sensibly increased as they approached Whitehall, and from Charing-cross the lights were just glancing when Ada suddenly paused, and Gray, on the impulse of the moment, got two or three paces in advance of her. There were two persons conversing, about where Scotland-yard stands, and laughing carelessly, while several more people were rapidly approaching from Charing-cross.
Gray was sensible in a moment that Ada had stopped, and he hurried immediately to see what were her intentions.
As he did so, Ada broke the long silence she had maintained by suddenly exclaiming, in a voice that arrested every passenger, and made the blood retreat with a frightful gush to the heart of Jacob Gray.
“Help! Help! Seize him. He is a murderer—a murderer!—Help! Help! Seize the murderer!”
For one moment all sense of perception seemed to have left Gray, so thoroughly unexpected was such an act on the part of Ada, and it was well for him that those who were around for about the same space of time remained in a similar undecided and bewildered state, as people do always on any very sudden occasion for instant action.
Ada stood pointing with one trembling finger at Gray, while her pale face and long black hair, combined with her rare beauty, made her look like one inspired.
“The murderer!” she again cried, and her voice seemed to break the spell which kept both Gray and the chance passengers paralysed.
With a cry of terror, Jacob Gray turned and fled towards Charing-cross.
Ada’s feelings had been wrought up to too high a pitch of excitement. She had felt it to be her duty to denounce the murderer, and while that duty remained to be done, the consciousness that upon her it devolved, had nerved her to the task, and supported her hitherto—now, however, the words were spoken. At what she supposed the risk of her life, she had announced the crime of Jacob Gray. The revulsion of feeling was too much, and a bystander, who saw her stagger, was just in time to catch her as she fainted, and would otherwise have fallen to the ground.
The two persons who had been talking and laughing together at the moment of Ada’s first exclamation, did not seem disposed to let the accused man get off so easily as he appeared upon the point of doing. They raised the cry so awful in the ear of a fugitive through the streets of London, “Stop him! Stop him!” And they both started after Jacob Gray at full speed.
Had Gray, when he turned the corner of Northumberland-house, then walked quietly, like an ordinary passenger, the chances were that he would have escaped; but, in his terror, he flew rather than ran up the Strand, at once pointing himself out to all as the one pursued, and tempting every person who had time or inclination to join the exciting chase.
The words, “Stop him!” sounded in his ears, and he bounded forward as he heard them, with another cry and a speed that, while it made it very hazardous for every one to oppose him, yet increased the ardour of the pursuit.
In the course of a few seconds, fifty persons had joined the chase, and yells and shouts came upon Gray’s affrighted ears.
With compressed lips and a face as livid as that of a corpse, he rushed on without the smallest idea of where he was going.
“For my life—for my life,” he gasped, and each cry behind him affected him like a shock of electricity, and caused him to give another bound forward in all the wildness of despair.
Of the crowd now that followed Gray, not one knew who he was, of what he was accused, or why he was thus hunted, like a wild annual, through the streets. One joined in the cry because he saw others engaged in it. The two young men who had first raised the chase were a long way off, for no one could keep up with the frantic speed of the nearly maddened Gray. Those who followed him the closest were those who had joined the hunten route; although, to the fugitive’s excited imagination, he seemed to be on the point of being overtaken by harder runners than himself.
Shouts, cries, hootings, groans, and every wild and demoniac noise of which the human animal is capable, were uttered by the mob, which kept momentarily increasing as each alley, court, or street, sent forth its tribute of numbers to the stream that roared, whooped, hurried, and raced along the Strand.
Some began now to throw missiles of all kinds after Gray. Stones and mud showered upon him, and he felt faint and neatly exhausted, as he saw at some distance before him a man apparently intent upon stopping him.
Little, however, did he who thought to capture Gray reflect upon the shock he would receive from the speed of the hunted man. As Gray approached him he swerved, more involuntarily than designedly, and coming against the man rather obliquely, he shot him into the roadway with an impetus that sent him rolling over and over in the mud, as if he had been discharged from a cannon. To Gray the shock was severe, but it did not take him off his feet, and the circumstance caused some little diversion in his favour than otherwise; for the mob first trampled upon the prostrate man, and then some fell over him.
After this, none were so bold as to stand in the way of a man who was rushing along with so terrible a speed; and Jacob Gray, reeling, panting, his lips running with blood, as he had bitten them in his agony, arrived at Somerset-house.
Just beyond the stone front was a small court, and towards this temporary place of refuge from the high street Gray tottered, spinning round and round, like a drunken man.
A light, agile man, who had joined the chase by the Adelphi, and who had kept very close upon Gray, now, with a shout of triumph, made a rush forward, and grappled with him at the mouth of the little court.
The touch seemed like magic to revive all the fainting energies of Jacob Gray, and he turned and grappled his enemy by the throat with fearful vehemence.
The court descended from the street by a flight of stone steps, and in the next instant with a shriek from the man, and a wild cry from Gray, the pursuer and pursued rolled down the stone descent, struggling with each other for life or death.
CHAPTER LII.The Dark Court.—A Deed of Blood.—The Pursuit Continued.—The Mother and the Child.Bruisedand bleeding. Gray and the adventurous stranger who had essayed to capture him, arrived at the bottom of the flight of stone steps, and for one or two seconds it was doubtful if either of them were in a condition to make any further effort either offensive or defensive.The fear of capture and death, however, was sufficiently strong in the mind of Jacob Gray to overcome for the moment the sense of pain arising from personal injury; and with an energy, lent to him by despair alone, he rose on his knees and felt about for his antagonist. His hand touched the man’s face, and now he began to move. With something between a shriek and a shout, Gary laid hold of his head by the hair on each side. He lifted it as far as he could from the stones and then brought it down again with a sinking awful crash. One deep hollow groan only came from the man, and again Gray lifted the head, bringing it down as before with frightful violence. The skull cracked and smashed against the hard stones. The man was dead, but once more was the bleeding and crashed head brought into violent contact with the stones, and that time the sound it produced was soft, and Jacob Gray felt that he held but loose pieces of bone, and his hands were slimy and slippery with the blood that spouted on to them.Faltering, dizzy, and faint, he then rose to his feet, and from the open throughfare there came to his ears shouts, cries, and groans. Then he cast his eyes to the dim opening of the court, and he heard several voices cry,—“He is hiding down here. Let’s hunt him out. Lights—lights!”In a state of agony beyond description Gray now turned to seek shelter further down the dark court, and in doing so he trod upon the dead body of the man he had just hurried from existence.Recoiling then, as if a serpent had been in his path, he crept along by the wall until he thought he must have passed the awful and revolting object which now in death he dreaded quite as much as he did in life.He then plunged wildly forward, heedless where his steps might lead, so that it was away from his pursuers. A few paces now in advance of him he descried a dim faint ray of light, and hastening onwards he found himself at the entrance of a court running parallel with the Strand, and consisting of mean, dirty, squalid-looking houses inhabited by the very dregs of the poorer classes.Some of the half-broken dirty parlour windows in this haunt of poverty were converted into shops by being set open, and a board placed across in the inside displaying disgusting messes in the shape of eatables, mingled with wood, old bones, rags, &c.Gray hesitated a moment and cast his eyes behind him. A loud yell met his affrighted ears, and lights began to flash in the direction he had left behind him. With a groan of despair, he rushed into the dark open passage of one of the houses.Breathing hard from his exertions and the fright he was in, Gray groped his way along by the damp clammy walls of the passage until he came to some stairs—he hesitated not a moment, but slowly and cautiously ascended them.As he crept stair after stair up the dark flight of steps the sound of pursuit seemed to come nearer and nearer, and he could hear the hum of many voices, although he could not distinguish exactly what was said. Only one word came perpetually as clearly and distinctly to his ears as if it had been spoken at his side, and that word was murder!“They—they have found the body,” he gasped. “Yes, they have found the body now. My life hangs on a thread!”The cold perspiration of fear rolled down his face, and notwithstanding his great exertions which would ordinarily have produced an intolerable sense of heat, he was as cold and chilled as if he had suddenly awakened from sleep in the open air. His teeth chattered in his head, and his knees smote each other. He was fain to clutch with both hands the crazy banisters of the staircase for support, or he must inevitably have fallen.“This is dreadful,” he whispered to himself, “to die here. They have hunted me to death—I—I feel as if a hand of ice was on my heart. This must be death.”Slowly the cold sensation wore off, and like the flame of a taper, which suddenly renews its origin most unexpectedly, when apparently upon the point of dissolution, Gray gradually revived again, and his vital energies came back to him.With a deep sigh he spoke,—“’Tis past—’tis past. They have not killed me as yet. It was, after all, but a passing pang. They have not killed me yet.”Again the cry of murder echoed in the court, and, with a start, Jacob Gray set his teeth hard, and continued to ascend the dark staircase. Suddenly, now, he paused, for a sound from above met his ears—it was some one singing. How strangely the tones jarred upon the excited senses of Jacob Gray: the sound was low and plaintive, and to him it seemed a mockery of his awful situation.He now by two more steps gained the landing, and he was sure that the singing proceeded from some room on that floor. The voice was a female’s, and by the softness and exquisite cadences of it evidently proceeded from some person not far advanced in life.Gray held by the banisters at the top of the stairs, and for some minutes he seemed spell-bound, and to forget the precarious situation in which he stood as those low, soft strains came upon his ear.The female was evidently singing to a child, for occasionally she would pause to express some words of endearment to the little one, and then resume her song.The few short lines of which the song was composed came fully to Gray, and there was a something about their very simplicity and innocence that rooted him to the spot, although they brought agony to his heart:The Mother’s Choice.“My babe, if I had offers three,From gentle heavenly powers,To bless thee, who, with aching heart,I’ve watched so many hours,I’d choose that gift should make thee greatIn true nobility—That greatness of the soul which leavesThe heart and conscience free.Gold should not tempt me, gentle babe,It might not bring thee rest;Nor power would I give to thee,’Tis but an aching breast.But I would ask of Heaven, my babe,A boon of joy to thee,To make thee happy in this life,From sin and sorrow free.Nor gold nor silver should’st thou have,Nor power to command,But thou should’st have a guileless heart,An open, unstained hand.So should thou happy be, my babe,A thing of joy and light;While others struggled for despair,You’d wish but to be right.”The song abruptly ceased, for the loud tones of men reached the ears of the singer, crying,—“Murder!—Hunt him—secure the murderer! This way—this way!”Those sounds roused Gray from his temporary inaction: he started forward as if he had received some sudden and irresistible shock.More from impulse than any direct design or preconcerted plan, Jacob Gray made towards the door of the room in which was the mother and her infant child.At the moment, then, a sudden thought struck his mind that possibly he might convert the affection of the mother for her infant into a means of saving himself: it was a hope, at all events, although a weak and forlorn one. Time, however, was precious, and Jacob Gray, with his pale, ghastly face, torn apparel, bleeding-hands, and general dishevelled look, made his appearance in the room.By the remains of a miserable fire sat a young female scarcely above the age of girlhood, and in a cot at her feet slept a child, the face of which she was regarding with that rapt attention and concentrated love which can only be felt by a mother.So entirely, in fact, were all the faculties of the young mother wound up in the contemplation of her sleeping child, that Gray’s entrance into the room failed to arouse her, and he had time to glance around the room and be sure that he and the mother, with the child, were the only occupants of the place before he spoke.He then drew the pistol he still retained from his breast, and suddenly cried,—“One word, and it shall cost you your life! Be silent and obedient, and you are safe.”A cry escaped the lips of the young female, and she stood panic-stricken by Gray’s strange appearance, as well as his threatening aspect and words.“Listen to me,” he said, in a low, hoarse voice; “you love your child?”“Love my child?” re-echoed the mother, in a tone that sufficiently answered the question of Gray, who added,—“I am a desperate man. I do not wish to do you harm; but, betray me to those who are seeking my life, and your child shall die by my hands.”“No—no—my child—no,” cried the mother, in a voice of alarm.“Hush!” cried Gray, advancing; and pointing the muzzle of his pistol towards the sleeping form of the child. “Such another outcry, and I will execute my threat.”The young mother stood paralysed with terror, while Gray hastily added,—“I am hunted, I tell you. Have you no place of concealment? Speak!”“Concealment? Good Heaven! How can I aid you? What have I done that you should menace my child? You cannot, dare not be so wicked.”A loud shout at this moment rang through the court, and the flashing beams of several torches blazed through the murky windows of the miserable abode of poverty.“What sounds are those?” cried the female.“My pursuers,” said Gray. “Now, hear me; I dare not leave this place. They are on my track—your infant is sleeping—place its cot as nigh to the wall as you can, and I will hide beneath it. If this room is entered by my enemies, you must on the plea of not disturbing your child, prevent a search from taking place.”“I cannot.”“You must—you shall! Betray me by look, word, or gesture, and your child shall die, if the next moment were my last. By all hell I swear it!”The mother shuddered.“Quick—quick!” cried Gray; “my life is now counted by moments!”“Hunt him—hunt him! Hurrah!” cried the voices of the pursuers. “Hunt the murderer!”“You hear!” cried Gray. “Quick—quick!”With a face of agonised terror the mother drew the cot, without awakening the fastly-slumbering child, towards the wall.“Now,” cried Gray, “remember—your child’s life is at stake: if I escape, it escapes. If I am taken, it dies.”“But I may not be able to save you,” said the mother, in imploring accents.“The child then dies,” said Gray.“Guard the entrance to the court well,” cried a loud, authoritative voice from the outside of the house. “Search every one of these hovels, from top to bottom.”“You hear?” said Gray, trembling with terror, and scarcely able to speak from the parched state of his lips.“I do,” she said.“Give me some water.”She handed him a small, earthen pitcher, from which he took a copious and refreshing draught.“Now,” he said, “sit you by the fire, and sing that song you were singing. It will seem then as if you had been undisturbed, and remember you are playing a game in which the stake is the life of your child.”“Heaven aid me!” said the mother.“Hush! To your seat!—To your seat!”“Oh! Even be you what you may, I will do my best to save you, if you will allow me to sit here.”She pointed to the side of the cot.“No, no,” said Gray; “the child shall be nearer to me than to you.”“Why—oh, why?”“Because it will then be out of your power to prevent its doom.”“I swear—”“Pshaw! I trust no oaths. Away to your seat—to your seat, or—”He pointed the pistol again to the sleeping babe, and with a shudder the young mother sat down by the fire-side.The tramp of men was now heard below in the passage, and a voice cried, “Detain any one who attempts to leave the house. Should you meet with resistance, cut him down at once.”“The song!” cried Gray.He then insinuated himself between the wall and the cot, so that no part of him was visible, and in a hissing whisper, he again cried to the trembling agonised mother,—“The song! The song!”A confused sound on the staircase now announced the approach of the persons and once more from his place of concealment, Gray hissed between his teeth,—“Curses on you! Will you do as I bid you, or must I do the deed?”“Spare him! Spare him!” said the mother. “Oh, spare him!”“The song!” cried Gray.
The Dark Court.—A Deed of Blood.—The Pursuit Continued.—The Mother and the Child.
Bruisedand bleeding. Gray and the adventurous stranger who had essayed to capture him, arrived at the bottom of the flight of stone steps, and for one or two seconds it was doubtful if either of them were in a condition to make any further effort either offensive or defensive.
The fear of capture and death, however, was sufficiently strong in the mind of Jacob Gray to overcome for the moment the sense of pain arising from personal injury; and with an energy, lent to him by despair alone, he rose on his knees and felt about for his antagonist. His hand touched the man’s face, and now he began to move. With something between a shriek and a shout, Gary laid hold of his head by the hair on each side. He lifted it as far as he could from the stones and then brought it down again with a sinking awful crash. One deep hollow groan only came from the man, and again Gray lifted the head, bringing it down as before with frightful violence. The skull cracked and smashed against the hard stones. The man was dead, but once more was the bleeding and crashed head brought into violent contact with the stones, and that time the sound it produced was soft, and Jacob Gray felt that he held but loose pieces of bone, and his hands were slimy and slippery with the blood that spouted on to them.
Faltering, dizzy, and faint, he then rose to his feet, and from the open throughfare there came to his ears shouts, cries, and groans. Then he cast his eyes to the dim opening of the court, and he heard several voices cry,—
“He is hiding down here. Let’s hunt him out. Lights—lights!”
In a state of agony beyond description Gray now turned to seek shelter further down the dark court, and in doing so he trod upon the dead body of the man he had just hurried from existence.
Recoiling then, as if a serpent had been in his path, he crept along by the wall until he thought he must have passed the awful and revolting object which now in death he dreaded quite as much as he did in life.
He then plunged wildly forward, heedless where his steps might lead, so that it was away from his pursuers. A few paces now in advance of him he descried a dim faint ray of light, and hastening onwards he found himself at the entrance of a court running parallel with the Strand, and consisting of mean, dirty, squalid-looking houses inhabited by the very dregs of the poorer classes.
Some of the half-broken dirty parlour windows in this haunt of poverty were converted into shops by being set open, and a board placed across in the inside displaying disgusting messes in the shape of eatables, mingled with wood, old bones, rags, &c.
Gray hesitated a moment and cast his eyes behind him. A loud yell met his affrighted ears, and lights began to flash in the direction he had left behind him. With a groan of despair, he rushed into the dark open passage of one of the houses.
Breathing hard from his exertions and the fright he was in, Gray groped his way along by the damp clammy walls of the passage until he came to some stairs—he hesitated not a moment, but slowly and cautiously ascended them.
As he crept stair after stair up the dark flight of steps the sound of pursuit seemed to come nearer and nearer, and he could hear the hum of many voices, although he could not distinguish exactly what was said. Only one word came perpetually as clearly and distinctly to his ears as if it had been spoken at his side, and that word was murder!
“They—they have found the body,” he gasped. “Yes, they have found the body now. My life hangs on a thread!”
The cold perspiration of fear rolled down his face, and notwithstanding his great exertions which would ordinarily have produced an intolerable sense of heat, he was as cold and chilled as if he had suddenly awakened from sleep in the open air. His teeth chattered in his head, and his knees smote each other. He was fain to clutch with both hands the crazy banisters of the staircase for support, or he must inevitably have fallen.
“This is dreadful,” he whispered to himself, “to die here. They have hunted me to death—I—I feel as if a hand of ice was on my heart. This must be death.”
Slowly the cold sensation wore off, and like the flame of a taper, which suddenly renews its origin most unexpectedly, when apparently upon the point of dissolution, Gray gradually revived again, and his vital energies came back to him.
With a deep sigh he spoke,—
“’Tis past—’tis past. They have not killed me as yet. It was, after all, but a passing pang. They have not killed me yet.”
Again the cry of murder echoed in the court, and, with a start, Jacob Gray set his teeth hard, and continued to ascend the dark staircase. Suddenly, now, he paused, for a sound from above met his ears—it was some one singing. How strangely the tones jarred upon the excited senses of Jacob Gray: the sound was low and plaintive, and to him it seemed a mockery of his awful situation.
He now by two more steps gained the landing, and he was sure that the singing proceeded from some room on that floor. The voice was a female’s, and by the softness and exquisite cadences of it evidently proceeded from some person not far advanced in life.
Gray held by the banisters at the top of the stairs, and for some minutes he seemed spell-bound, and to forget the precarious situation in which he stood as those low, soft strains came upon his ear.
The female was evidently singing to a child, for occasionally she would pause to express some words of endearment to the little one, and then resume her song.
The few short lines of which the song was composed came fully to Gray, and there was a something about their very simplicity and innocence that rooted him to the spot, although they brought agony to his heart:
The Mother’s Choice.
“My babe, if I had offers three,
From gentle heavenly powers,
To bless thee, who, with aching heart,
I’ve watched so many hours,
I’d choose that gift should make thee great
In true nobility—
That greatness of the soul which leaves
The heart and conscience free.
Gold should not tempt me, gentle babe,
It might not bring thee rest;
Nor power would I give to thee,
’Tis but an aching breast.
But I would ask of Heaven, my babe,
A boon of joy to thee,
To make thee happy in this life,
From sin and sorrow free.
Nor gold nor silver should’st thou have,
Nor power to command,
But thou should’st have a guileless heart,
An open, unstained hand.
So should thou happy be, my babe,
A thing of joy and light;
While others struggled for despair,
You’d wish but to be right.”
The song abruptly ceased, for the loud tones of men reached the ears of the singer, crying,—
“Murder!—Hunt him—secure the murderer! This way—this way!”
Those sounds roused Gray from his temporary inaction: he started forward as if he had received some sudden and irresistible shock.
More from impulse than any direct design or preconcerted plan, Jacob Gray made towards the door of the room in which was the mother and her infant child.
At the moment, then, a sudden thought struck his mind that possibly he might convert the affection of the mother for her infant into a means of saving himself: it was a hope, at all events, although a weak and forlorn one. Time, however, was precious, and Jacob Gray, with his pale, ghastly face, torn apparel, bleeding-hands, and general dishevelled look, made his appearance in the room.
By the remains of a miserable fire sat a young female scarcely above the age of girlhood, and in a cot at her feet slept a child, the face of which she was regarding with that rapt attention and concentrated love which can only be felt by a mother.
So entirely, in fact, were all the faculties of the young mother wound up in the contemplation of her sleeping child, that Gray’s entrance into the room failed to arouse her, and he had time to glance around the room and be sure that he and the mother, with the child, were the only occupants of the place before he spoke.
He then drew the pistol he still retained from his breast, and suddenly cried,—
“One word, and it shall cost you your life! Be silent and obedient, and you are safe.”
A cry escaped the lips of the young female, and she stood panic-stricken by Gray’s strange appearance, as well as his threatening aspect and words.
“Listen to me,” he said, in a low, hoarse voice; “you love your child?”
“Love my child?” re-echoed the mother, in a tone that sufficiently answered the question of Gray, who added,—
“I am a desperate man. I do not wish to do you harm; but, betray me to those who are seeking my life, and your child shall die by my hands.”
“No—no—my child—no,” cried the mother, in a voice of alarm.
“Hush!” cried Gray, advancing; and pointing the muzzle of his pistol towards the sleeping form of the child. “Such another outcry, and I will execute my threat.”
The young mother stood paralysed with terror, while Gray hastily added,—
“I am hunted, I tell you. Have you no place of concealment? Speak!”
“Concealment? Good Heaven! How can I aid you? What have I done that you should menace my child? You cannot, dare not be so wicked.”
A loud shout at this moment rang through the court, and the flashing beams of several torches blazed through the murky windows of the miserable abode of poverty.
“What sounds are those?” cried the female.
“My pursuers,” said Gray. “Now, hear me; I dare not leave this place. They are on my track—your infant is sleeping—place its cot as nigh to the wall as you can, and I will hide beneath it. If this room is entered by my enemies, you must on the plea of not disturbing your child, prevent a search from taking place.”
“I cannot.”
“You must—you shall! Betray me by look, word, or gesture, and your child shall die, if the next moment were my last. By all hell I swear it!”
The mother shuddered.
“Quick—quick!” cried Gray; “my life is now counted by moments!”
“Hunt him—hunt him! Hurrah!” cried the voices of the pursuers. “Hunt the murderer!”
“You hear!” cried Gray. “Quick—quick!”
With a face of agonised terror the mother drew the cot, without awakening the fastly-slumbering child, towards the wall.
“Now,” cried Gray, “remember—your child’s life is at stake: if I escape, it escapes. If I am taken, it dies.”
“But I may not be able to save you,” said the mother, in imploring accents.
“The child then dies,” said Gray.
“Guard the entrance to the court well,” cried a loud, authoritative voice from the outside of the house. “Search every one of these hovels, from top to bottom.”
“You hear?” said Gray, trembling with terror, and scarcely able to speak from the parched state of his lips.
“I do,” she said.
“Give me some water.”
She handed him a small, earthen pitcher, from which he took a copious and refreshing draught.
“Now,” he said, “sit you by the fire, and sing that song you were singing. It will seem then as if you had been undisturbed, and remember you are playing a game in which the stake is the life of your child.”
“Heaven aid me!” said the mother.
“Hush! To your seat!—To your seat!”
“Oh! Even be you what you may, I will do my best to save you, if you will allow me to sit here.”
She pointed to the side of the cot.
“No, no,” said Gray; “the child shall be nearer to me than to you.”
“Why—oh, why?”
“Because it will then be out of your power to prevent its doom.”
“I swear—”
“Pshaw! I trust no oaths. Away to your seat—to your seat, or—”
He pointed the pistol again to the sleeping babe, and with a shudder the young mother sat down by the fire-side.
The tramp of men was now heard below in the passage, and a voice cried, “Detain any one who attempts to leave the house. Should you meet with resistance, cut him down at once.”
“The song!” cried Gray.
He then insinuated himself between the wall and the cot, so that no part of him was visible, and in a hissing whisper, he again cried to the trembling agonised mother,—
“The song! The song!”
A confused sound on the staircase now announced the approach of the persons and once more from his place of concealment, Gray hissed between his teeth,—
“Curses on you! Will you do as I bid you, or must I do the deed?”
“Spare him! Spare him!” said the mother. “Oh, spare him!”
“The song!” cried Gray.