Rain and wind passed away in the course of the night, and next morning the sun shone softly brilliant. After a hastily demolished breakfast Burgo took his stick and portfolio--the latter in his assumedrôleof a wandering artist--and sallied forth. He retained sufficient recollection of the geography of the place to know in which direction Garion Keep lay, and thereby spare himself the necessity of an appeal to a native. But, first of all, he strolled down the one straggling street of the village to the little harbour, with its miniature jetty, at the extreme end of which was a tiny wooden erection, the harbour-master's office, to wit, surmounted by a lamp which turned a blood-red eye seawards during the dark hours. Everything was on a small scale, for Crag End was one of those places which never grow. As it was now so it had been as far back as the memory of its oldest inhabitant could stretch, and so it would continue to be. This morning the little harbour wore quite a deserted look, for its boats had gone northward, following in the wake of the herrings, and were not expected back for an uncertain time to come.
The hamlet nestled cosily in its narrow valley, which, in point of fact, was nothing more than a gully, or break in the sea frontage of the line of low cliffs which shut it in on the north and south. It was to the south cliff that Burgo presently addressed himself, climbing it by means of a zigzag footway which led almost directly from the harbour. Scarcely had he set foot on the short and slippery turf which crowned its summit when he saw looming before him, at a distance of a mile and a half, the grey weather-worn tower, scarred with the storms of more winters than men could reckon, because its age was known to none, which was all that now remained of the ancient Border stronghold, of which at one time it had formed a component part, known as Garion Keep.
As his eyes fell on it Burgo paused, less to gather breath after his climb than because he could no longer delay answering a certain awkward question which till now he had found no difficulty in putting aside. The question which thus intrusively thrust itself to the front was: "And now that I am here, within a mile of my uncle, what am I to do next? In what way am I nearer him than I was when I stood at the door of his London house and was refused admittance? Lady Clinton, having once succeeded in getting rid of me, will take very good care that I am never allowed to cross my uncle's threshold again, either in town or country." He had told himself that when he should once have succeeded in finding his uncle, he must let himself be guided by circumstances as to what his future course should be. But what if there were no circumstances to guide him? It would be the easiest thing in the world for Lady Clinton to set him and all his plans and schemes at defiance. Never had he realised his helplessness so clearly as at that moment.
He strolled slowly on in the direction of the Keep in a thoroughly downcast mood, till he was within a quarter of a mile of it. There, on a big rounded boulder, half embedded in the soil, and not improbably a relic of the ice period, he sat down to rest, for his ankle still pained him. From where he now was he had not only a near-at-hand view of the tower itself, but also of the more modern building (said to date no further back than the era of William and Mary), which was divided from it by a space of, some fifty or sixty yards, and had lately been renovated and made habitable by Sir Everard's orders.
Although the two structures were entirely distinct from each other they were both classed together, and had never been known by any other title than that of Garion Keep.
The modern building, which was long and low, being only two storeys in height, was constructed of large, roughly-hewn blocks of a stone indigenous to the district. The walls were of great thickness, and the high-pitched roof was covered with what looked less like slates than heavy flagstones; but on that coast the winter storms are often terrific in their force and fury, and people are wise enough to build accordingly. Although to an outsider it presented a somewhat gloomy and repellent appearance, Burgo called to mind that the interior, even as it was when he saw it, had pleased him far better than the exterior, and there was no doubt that only taste and the means were needed in order to convert it into a very charming home during the summer months. What it would be like as a dwelling-place in winter was another matter. On the landward side the house was shut in by a high wall with wrought-iron gates, enclosing a gravelled carriage sweep and a court paved with small round pebbles, and ornamented with a number of laurels and rhododendrons in green tubs. On the opposite side, between the drawing-room windows and the edge of the cliff, from which the house stood some way back, there stretched a pleasant space of lawn, interspersed with fancifully-shaped beds of the gayest flowers. Sir Everard's improvement to-this part of the house was a bow window with glass doors opening directly on the lawn.
Burgo was still seated on the boulder, trying in vain to hit upon some means of communicating with his uncle, his eyes bent vacantly on a distant steamer, when, happening to turn his head, he saw, to his surprise, the landlord of the "Golden Owl" advancing along the footpath over the cliff as if coming direct from the inhabited part of the Keep. In one hand he carried a small basket.
"Good-morning, sir," he said to Burgo, carrying a finger to his forehead as he came up. "Going to sketch the old tower, I presume. Never a summer goes by without somebody doing the same thing. There must be a lot of likenesses of it up and down the country. I've just left the Keep, sir. Her ladyship is glad to take all the eggs I can coax my hens into laying. My boy Teddy brings 'em over every morning, only to-day he happens to be a bit out of sorts, which is the reason you see me here, sir, when I ought to be doing my cellar work at home."
He paused to take off his hat and dab his forehead with his handkerchief.
"Talking about the Keep," he presently went on, "reminds me that when I was telling you about it last night I forgot to mention one curious circumstance, which is, that while the workmen were engaged on the repairs I told you about, they came across an underground passage right through the body of the cliff, connecting what is now commonly called the Keep with the old tower. Nobody seems to know not merely when the passage was made, or why, but when and by whom it was ordered to be bricked up. However, Sir Everard caused it to be opened up afresh, and had a strong oak door fixed at either end--not, I suppose, that the passage will ever be made use of from one year's end to another."
"There must have been a use for it once on a time," said Burgo, "when people did not live such quiet lives as we do. By the way, I suppose the interior of the tower is in an altogether ruinous condition?"
Both his uncle and he had contented themselves with an outside view of it on the occasion of their brief visit some years before.
"No, sir, it's not quite as bad as that," replied Tyson; "and as I've been over it on two occasions, I ought to know. It is, I believe, a fact that Mr. Josselyn, who owned the tower before it came into the hands of Sir Everard, never made any use of it, buthisuncle--so I've heard say, for it was before my time--used, if all accounts of him are true, almost to live in it. It seems that he was a great man for chemistry and experiments of various kinds, and a bit of an astronomer into the bargain. So he had the place fitted up to suit himself, and would shut himself up in it for weeks at a time--his meals being brought him from the Keep by his old housekeeper--among all the queer things he had got about him to help him in what he wanted to find out. Report has it that the country folk were afraid of him, and that's the reason why, even nowadays, they as often as not speak of the place as the 'Wizard's Tower.' The end of it was that the old man was found dead on the floor of the upper room, and the story goes that he was choked by the fumes of some deadly mixture he had been trying experiments with. Anyhow, there are his rooms to this day, pretty much, I daresay, as he left them, except, of course, that all his rubbish has been carted away long ago!"
"But how are the rooms lighted?" queried Burgo. "Two sides of the tower are visible from where we are, but there are no windows in either of them."
"There is only one window to each room, and they all front the sea."
"If you are going towards home, I think I will turn and walk with you," said Burgo, presently. "My ankle is rather painful this morning, and I'm in no humour for sketching."
"Pleased to have the pleasure of your company, sir," was the landlord's reply.
They had reached the village, and were slowly making their way up the hilly, badly-paved street in the direction of the "Golden Owl," when Tyson, in a guarded tone, suddenly exclaimed, "Ah! here comes the siggnor with his dogs--her ladyship's brother--him that I told you about last night."
They were going up the street and he was coming down, carrying a dog-whip in one hand, while his two muzzled brutes ranged close upon his heels. As he passed them he bent on Burgo a keenly persistent stare. It was not the stare either of idle curiosity or of covert insolence; rather what it seemed to convey was, that, whensoever or wheresoever he might see Burgo again, he should not fail to recognise him.
But the latter did not fail to eye him closely in return. Tyson's account of him had excited his curiosity; but Burgo's stare was that of the trained man of the world which reveals nothing and implies nothing, which seems to take note of nothing while yet allowing nothing to escape it.
Burgo at once detected the Italian's marked likeness to his sister of which Tyson had made mention, coupled with a certain something at once sinister and malign, which, in her case, was merely latent, peeping out at odd times in her glance or her smile, but which in his had acquired the stamp of permanence. To those who had eyes to discern, it revealed him--that is to say, his inner self--after a fashion of which he was wholly unconscious. But how many of us, without being aware of it, reveal ourselves to our fellows in much the same way!
Said Tyson, half a minute later, after a backward glance: "By Jove! Mr. Lumsden, if the siggnor ain't standing stock still and staring after you. It must be after you, because he's seen me many a time afore--as if--well, as if you might just have escaped out of a menagerie, sir."
"He's welcome to stare as long as he likes," remarked Burgo, lightly. "There's no charge for the show." But the landlord's remark had the effect of opening up a new and disturbing train of thought.
What if Lady Clinton, suspicious that, notwithstanding all her precautions, she might be traced and followed, had described him, Burgo, to this brother of hers, with a request to him to keep a sharp look out, and at once report his arrival on the scene to her ladyship? If such were not the case, why should the mere sight of a stranger in the village have betrayed the Italian into such an excess of curiosity? It had been altogether contrary to his wishes and designs that Lady Clinton should become aware of his presence at Crag End. She would be more on her guard than ever, and even more determined than before, if such a thing were possible, that all channels of access to his uncle should be hopelessly barred against him. He felt unequivocally annoyed, but that in no wise altered the facts of the case.
From that time he felt nearly sure that he was being watched and his footsteps dogged wherever he went. There was a shabbily-dressed, slouching fellow, who looked half labourer and half fisherman, but who probably was something very different from either, of whom he caught glimpses in the distance a dozen times a day; who seemed never wholly to lose sight of Burgo in whichever direction his walks might take him, and who, when the latter was indoors, would lounge by the hour together at the corner of a side alley half-way down the street, whence he could take note of every one who entered or left the tavern of the "Golden Owl." The fellow never ventured within talking distance, and whenever Burgo made as though he would approach him, he slunk away more or less rapidly, never failing to maintain a respectful distance between himself and the dark, stern-faced young man, who looked fully capable of administering the thorough thrashing which he probably felt that he richly deserved.
By the time Burgo had been three days at Crag End it was impossible for him any longer to doubt that he was being "shadowed."
In the interim he had seen nothing further of the Italian.
Meanwhile day was succeeding day without advancing him one iota nearer the attainment of the object which had brought him so far; neither, cudgel his brains as he might and did by day and night, was any scheme or suggestion forthcoming which would serve to help him a single step on the way he wanted to go. For anything he could see to the contrary, he might just as well take the next train back to town. His journey had been utterly futile of results. His uncle was beyond the power of any help from without. He (Burgo) had no grounds for interference. Such evidence as he could have brought to bear against her ladyship was wholly inferential, and would certainly never have been accepted by any one in authority as sufficient to warrant the arm of the law in intervening between husband and wife. No; his uncle was a doomed man--doomed to slowly fade and grow weaker day by day, till at length the flame of life, reduced to a mere glimmer, would flicker out of its own accord. He was at the mercy of a vampire, who knew not the meaning of the word, and who would never let go her hold on him while there was a breath left in his body. Burgo's consciousness of his helplessness half maddened him. It was as an ever-present nightmare from which it was hopeless to rid himself. It tortured him during the dark hours, and mocked him when the sun was high. There were times when he was so wrought up that it would have been bad for her ladyship to be within reach of his hands. At such moments he could have strangled her without compunction. And by this time the 12th of October was drawing ominously near.
The afternoon of the fifth day brought heavy rain, but with the rising of the moon the wind rose and swept the heavier clouds out to sea, leaving nothing but a thin filmy lacework where they had been, as though in their hurried flight they had left a portion of their garments behind them. Burgo felt stifled indoors. The lower part of the tavern was filled with men drinking and smoking rank tobacco, the fumes of which seemed to permeate every corner of the place. Taking up his hat and stick, he went quietly downstairs, and let himself out by the side door unknown to any one, leaving the candles alight in his sitting-room. Taking no heed which way he was going, he found himself before long, after climbing out of the hollow in which the village was built, at a point where the road from Oakbarrow station debouched into the Coast Road, as it was called, which latter, a little way further on, left Garion Keep a hundred yards or more on its right, and keeping a tolerably straight course for several miles further, finally lost itself in the outskirts of a town of some importance.
After pausing for a moment at the sign-post, Burgo decided on keeping to the Coast Road. He would stroll on as far as the Keep, and see how the old house looked by moonlight. It was between nine and ten o'clock, and at that hour the country road was as lonely as a churchyard. Since leaving the last house of the village he had neither met nor seen a creature, and yet more than once it had seemed to him as if he were being dogged at a distance by some one who was desirous of remaining unseen. When, however, he turned to look, it was only to see the empty road behind him as in front; but the moonlight was too faint and diffused to permit of his distinguishing anything at a greater distance than twenty or thirty yards. All he could do was to shrug his shoulders and keep on his way, while telling himself that if anybody was following him, it must be that "skulking hound" whom he had already detected watching him, and who had doubtless been set on purposely to spy and report on all his comings and goings.
A little way further, and he came in full view of the Keep, that is to say, of the land front of it. As already stated, it stood somewhat back from the road, a short carriage drive, fringed on either side by an ornamental plantation of young firs and larches, leading up to the wrought-iron gates which gave admission to the courtyard.
It was the first time since his arrival at Crag End that Burgo had been so close to the Keep, his previous points of view having been from the cliff beyond the tower, but his memory retained a good general recollection of the outward appearance of the house during the years which had intervened since he had seen it last. He had strolled up the drive, which was open to the high road, and was gazing through the scroll-work of the gates, trying in the indistinct light to make out the different features of the building, when the sudden deep-mouthed baying of a couple of dogs warned him that his presence had become known to those faithful guardians. Without a doubt they were the dogs he had seen following the Italian, which Tyson had told him were always left loose and unmuzzled during the night.
As it seemed unlikely that they would cease their baying so long as he remained where he was, and as he had no desire to disturb the household, he turned and began slowly to retrace his steps. In the press of other thoughts he had forgotten all about his notion that he was being followed, nor, now that he had turned to go back, was there anything to recall it to his mind. At the point where the drive merged into the high road he halted, while he took one last look at the Keep. Dark, gloomy, and forbidding it looked, fit home for the slow tragedy which, he could hardly doubt, was at that very moment advancing by stealthy, but imperceptible degrees, to its preordained catastrophe. His heart bled for the old man who was being gradually done to death behind those sombre walls; yet here stood he, Burgo Brabazon, burning to rescue him, but as powerless to do so as a newborn babe. Oh, it was horrible, horrible!
A groan broke from his lips, he flung up his arms for a moment as if appealing to Heaven, then his head drooped forward on his open palms. "Is there no way--none?" he cried aloud, despairingly.
He was standing with his back to one of the plantations which lined the drive. So absorbed was he that he did not hear the sound of stealthy footsteps behind him, nor was he aware of two figures which crept out from the shadows of the trees, till the hard breathing of one of them betrayed their presence. He turned quickly, but it was too late. In the very act of doing so, he fell headlong to the ground, struck down by a crashing blow on the back of his skull.
It was daylight when Burgo next opened his eyes, and asked himself what had happened to him and where he was. He tried to satisfy himself on the latter point first, because not to have done so would have involved an effort of memory such as just then he scarcely felt equal to. So without attempting to move hand or foot, he proceeded to stare about him, his eyes wandering from side to side, and taking in one detail after another of the unfamiliar quarters in which he now found himself.
Imprimis, he was stretched at full length on a couch which he afterwards found to be made of mahogany, with old-fashioned cushions and a pillow of horsehair considerably the worse for wear. The only other furniture comprised a small octagonal table, and a couple of straight-backed chairs of unpolished oak, apparently of some antiquity. Stay, though; in one corner was placed a common washstand and toilet service, such as in middle-class households are reserved for servants' cubicles. The room itself was neither very large nor very lofty, but it was undeniably bare-looking, walls and ceiling being alike washed a dull creamy white. The room was lighted by one long, narrow window, with leaded lozenge-shaped panes of thick greenish glass, but placed so high up in the wall that a man had need to be full six feet high for his eyes to be on a level with its lowest panes. As the room had but one window, so it had but one door, which, like the table and the chairs, seemed to be of substantial oak.
But although he had satisfied himself as to the kind of place in which he was, that did not help him to solve the question of where he was. His ears were filled with a long, low, murmurous wash, which now struck his consciousness for the first time. He at once recognised it for what it was. "It is the noise of the incoming tide," he said to himself. "And this place? Is it--can it be that I have been brought to the Wizard's Tower?"
Everything was clear to him now, without any mental groping backward, up to the moment when he was struck down as he stood by the edge of the plantation. He had been the object of a foul and cowardly attack, and it was not difficult to guess to whose instigation he owed it. More than ever did he realise at that moment with how resolute and unscrupulous an antagonist he had to deal.
But why was he lying there? At once he sprang to his feet, but as he did so an involuntary "Ah!" escaped him, and the same instant he clapped both his hands to the back of his head. He had not known till then that he was wounded. But with the change in his position the pain made itself sharply felt, and presently his fingers informed him that the hair round the wound had been cut away, and the place itself covered with strips of sticking-plaster. To such an extent had he been tended and cared for. Just then, however, his wound was a matter of quite secondary importance. Having, as he believed, rightly guessed to what place he had been conveyed while unconscious, the all-important question at once put itself to him: "Am I a prisoner?"
His heart foreboded the answer but too surely. He crossed to the door and turned the handle. It was enough.
While he stood staring at the door like a man half dazed, he noticed that in the upper half of it there was a panel, about a couple of feet square, which looked as if it were movable, and on trying it with his hand he found that it slid back in a groove, leaving an aperture of its own size, of which Burgo at once proceeded to avail himself as a peep-hole. But what he could discern through it scarcely repaid him for his trouble--merely another space of whitewashed wall, as it might be that of a landing, with the two topmost steps of a flight of stone stairs leading to unknown regions below. Then it struck Burgo that the aperture might perchance be available for another purpose. Putting one arm through it up to the shoulder he proceeded to search for the bolt or key which held him prisoner, but neither one nor the other could he find. Whoever had locked him in had been careful to remove the key. Well, he had hardly expected anything else.
He now bethought himself to look at his watch. It was close on seven o'clock. It had been somewhere about ten o'clock when he was struck down, so that his unconsciousness had lasted for nearly nine hours. No wonder that his head smarted as it did.
It was not till later, when he had ample leisure for thinking things over, that there seemed to come over him a sort of dim consciousness that in the course of the night something had been given him to swallow, and that in his ears there had been a faint, confused murmur of voices, as of people talking a long way off; but it had all been so vague and unreal that he could never feel sure it was aught but a dream.
Having pushed the sliding panel back into its place, he crossed to the window, and found that, after stretching himself to his fullest height, his eyes were just on a level with the lowermost panes. It was evident that by standing on a chair his range of vision would be considerably enlarged, and that was what he at once proceeded to do. As he had quite expected it would, the window looked directly on the sea, and on nothing else. Whichever way he turned his eyes not a strip of land was visible. He could no longer doubt that he was shut up in the Wizard's Tower. Now that he had, as it were, explored his tiny domain, he sat down to think, but as yet his brain was so crowded with impressions, all more or less vivid, which involved the putting of so many more or less unanswerable questions, that to attempt to evolve therefrom any definite and consistent line of thought was for the present an impossibility.
Not long had he sat before his attention was caught by a faint grating noise, as it might be the turning of a rusty key, which was presently followed by the sound of shuffling footsteps ascending the stone stairs from below. Then the sliding panel was thrust back, and, framed by the aperture, Burgo beheld the yellow, wrinkled visage of a very old and very unprepossessing female, who stood for some seconds, gazing at him with weak and watery eyes, before she spoke.
"If you please, sir, I've brought you your breakfus," she said at length in a thin quavering treble, "so, m'appen you'll please to take the things as I hands 'em to you."
Burgo crossed to the door, and from the tray the old lady had brought with her, which she had placed on the floor before opening the slide, she handed to him, one by one, the various concomitants of a fairly good and substantial breakfast.
"And now, mother, if you will tell me what place this is, I shall be much obliged to you," said Burgo, as, last of all, he took from her hand a small coffee-pot.
The old woman favoured him with what to most people would have seemed a cunning leer, but which she may have intended for an amiable grin. "I can tell by the motion of your lips as you're a-talking to me," she piped; "but I couldn't hear a word you say, no, not even if you shouted ever so. I've been stone deaf for the last dozen years. I'll fetch the breakfus things away when I brings your dinner." And, with a parting nod, she shut the slide and shuffled her way downstairs. Then came a muffled sound, as it might be the shutting of a heavy door, followed by the same grating noise as before.
Burgo was hungry, and was glad to be able to stay his appetite. He had a few cigarettes left in his case, and it may be that he enjoyed smoking a couple of them after breakfast none the less because his fortunes just then were at such a desperate pass. It was over his second cigarette that he came to the sensible conclusion to no longer badger his brains with a lot of vain surmises and questions which he had no means of answering, but rather to await the course of events quietly, and with such philosophy as he could summon to his aid. Any other course would be both futile and unmanly. Lady Clinton had got him into her power, and for the present he could but submit to that which it was out of his power to help.
In pursuance of this more cheerful way of looking at things he presently stretched himself on the sofa, and before long was fortunate enough to forget all his anxieties in sleep.
It was noon when he awoke. After a stare round he rose and shook himself. "I'm neither a Monte Cristo nor a Jack Sheppard," he said, "but I may as well satisfy myself whether there is or is not the remotest chance of my being able to escape from this confounded hole." So he again turned his attention to the door. It was very heavy and strong, and, judging from appearances, could not have been less than a century old, while, although the lock was probably of a very simple kind, it would obviously be impossible for him to pick it without adequate tools. He had a pocket-knife with three blades, which fortunately had not been taken from him. Would it be possible by its means to cut away sufficient of the woodwork round the lock--it was of tough old oak--to allow of his forcing the bolt? But even should he prove so far successful, what then? At the foot of the stairs he would find himself confronted by another door, most likely by two, for he had not forgotten what Tyson had told him about the opening up of the underground passage from the Keep. Nor had he forgotten what the door which opened from the tower on to the cliff was like. It was twice as massive, and would prove twice as formidable an obstacle to overcome as the door of his chamber. Not much hope of escape could he perceive that way. Still, the subject was one which might repay careful thought by-and-by--for he had already concluded that the tower would have to be his home for some time to come--when he should have become familiar with the daily routine of his prison life, and knew for how many hours he could depend upon being left unvisited by any one.
The window as a possible means of escape proved hopeless from the first. It was narrow to begin with, and was rendered altogether impassable for any one bigger than a child of six by a couple of massive upright bars. In one corner of the room was an open fireplace with a chimney, but when Burgo stared up the murky throat of the latter, he felt that he would have to be reduced to very desperate straits indeed before he ventured to explore it.
At half-past two the same old woman brought him his dinner, passing the dishes to him one by one as before, and receiving in return the breakfast things left from morning. "If you please, sir," she said, "I was to tell you that if there's anything you specially want, would you write it down on a piece of paper and give it to me." Thereupon she handed him through the aperture pen, ink, and a couple of sheets of paper.
Burgo gave vent to a low whistle of surprise. Then, after considering for a few moments, he sat down and wrote as under:
"If it be your intention to detain me here for any length of time, you may, if you please, add to the burden of my obligations by letting me have my portmanteau and contents, which will be found at the inn of the 'Golden Owl,' in Crag End. If, at the same time, you will settle my little bill there, I will recoup you the amount.
"I enclose a note to the landlord authorising him to give up my chattels to whomsoever you may send for them."
The note to Tyson which he enclosed was signed "Burgo Lumsden."
The old woman took the notes, favoured him with another leer, and went.
As Burgo sat eating his dinner to the accompaniment of an excellent bottle of claret, having agreed to thrust his cares aside for a while, his thoughts went wandering hither and thither as they listed, touching now on things serious and now on others which were just as trivial. Among other matters which thus casually claimed his thoughts he found himself wondering again what purpose the sliding panel in the door had been originally intended to serve. But after a time a light broke on him. "This must have been one of the rooms occupied by the old fellow Tyson told me about, who used to shut himself up in the tower for weeks at a time, and it was doubtless put to the same use by him that it is put to now. His laboratory was sacred ground; no foot save his own must cross its threshold; and his food was handed to him through the aperture as mine is to-day." In the lack of all possibility of getting at the facts of the case, it seemed as likely an explanation as could have been arrived at.
Burgo got through the afternoon as he best could. He spent a considerable portion of the time resting his elbows on the window-sill, his head supported by his hands, gazing out at the heaving expanse of water which bounded the whole visible line of his horizon, watching with his eyes, while far away in thought, an occasional moving pennon of smoke on the line where sky and water seemed to meet, or the gleam of a white sail in the offing. In his ears was the soft, murmurous thunder of the tide, for ever either coming or going. A portion of the lower half of the window formed a casement which was now flung wide open. The autumn airs blew soft and sweet; in their caresses lingered a memory of departed summer.
As he stood thus he could not help telling himself that all which had befallen him since he left the "Golden Owl" at nine o'clock the previous night was more like a fragment of some distempered dream than the grim reality it had proved itself to be. That he should have been assaulted, kidnapped, and locked up in an old border tower was an incident such as might well have happened even as lately as a hundred years ago, but which seemed an anachronism, and altogether out of keeping with the prosaic realities of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. And yet, incredible as it might be deemed, it had happened to him. He was there a prisoner, and when or in what way his imprisonment would end, he could guess no more than the man in the moon. It might be that the design was to keep him safe under lock and key till his uncle's illness should have terminated in the only way it was intended it should terminate, and that, he felt sure, would not be till after the 12th of October. Or, again, it might be that even then steps were being taken to remove his uncle still further away, perhaps to some place abroad, where no helping hand would avail to reach him. It seemed monstrous to imagine that such a hellish plot could be carried out with impunity at this time of day, and all the safeguards which the law has devised against wrong-doing quietly ignored and treated as if they had no existence. Yes, it did indeed seem monstrous; but, as most of us have learnt to our cost, facts are stubborn things.
It was nearly dark before the old woman made her appearance for the third time. Following the unlocking of the door, somewhere below stairs came the sound of a dog's deep baying, mingled with a man's voice addressing some one in imperative accents. Although it was not yet seven o'clock the old lady had brought Burgo his supper. He had not been used to such a primitive arrangement of his meals, but it would have been folly to complain. When he had exchanged his empty dishes for full ones, the woman said: "I've a lot o' things downstairs for you--a lamp, and a couple o' blankits, and a piller, and your porkmantle--which I'll now fetch up; but afore I open the door and give 'em to you, you must pass me your sacred word of honour not to try to leave the room. I can't hear a word, as you know, but if you're ready and willing to swear not to try to escape, sinnify the same by holding up your right hand."
A moment's thought convinced Burgo that no other course was open to him, so up went his right hand.
The old woman leered and nodded; then, beckoning him to go nearer, she said: "Besides, where would be the use of your trying to get away?He'sdown there"--with a jerk of her thumb over her shoulder--"on the watch with one of his big dogs. Eh! but they're dangerous brutes, and he's a dangerous man, and he would think nothing of letting the beast loose to fly at your throat."
With the last word she was gone. But presently she reappeared, dragging Burgo's portmanteau up the stairs, after which she fetched up in turn a couple of blankets, a pillow, and a lamp. Then, not without some difficulty she succeeded in unlocking the door, after which she took in the things, Burgo meanwhile discussing his supper quietly at the table.
"And now, sir, I'll wish you a very good-night and pleasant dreams," said the old girl presently, "for I shan't trouble you any more till I bring your breakfus in the morning." Then in rapid whisper, and with another jerk of her thumb: "He's a devil, that's what he is--a devil!"
Half a minute later the key was turned in the lock, the slide shut, and Burgo was left alone for the night.
Time went on till a week had gone by without anything occurring to break the monotonous tenor of Burgo's life in the Wizard's Tower.
His meals were supplied to him in the way already described, and as they were plentiful and good, he had nothing to complain of on that score.
Once a day old Mrs. Sprowle--for that was her name, she told him-- unlocked the door and entered the room in order to do such humblechoresas were requisite, at which times "that devil," as she persistently termed the Italian, always kept watch and ward below stairs in company with one of his ferocious hounds. Him Burgo never saw, but more than once, as he lay awake, after putting out his lamp, he was conscious of a stealthy footfall on the stairs, and it seemed to him as if the slide were pushed softly back; but what the Italian's motive could be for acting thus--for he did not fail to set it down to him--he was unable to conceive, unless the latter were anxious to satisfy himself that his captive was not utilising the dark hours in an attempt to escape. On the first and second occasions Burgo lay still and made no sign, but the third time he heard the footsteps on the stairs, followed by the faint creak of the sliding panel, impelled by a sudden impulse, he put out his hand, grasped his boot, and aimed it as straight as he could in the dark at the aperture in the door. There was a muttered exclamation--or execration--in a man's voice, and then a sound of retreating footsteps. Burgo broke into a burst of genuine laughter. He could hardly remember the time when he had laughed last, it seemed so long ago.
Among the contents of his portmanteau were a meerschaum pipe and a pound packet of Latakia. He had been a smoker for years, and what such things could do towards solacing his imprisonment, they did. Another treasure was a volume containing some half-dozen of Shakespeare's plays, which he had brought with him as a refuge againstennuiin case of bad weather, or when he could not sleep of nights. Under similar circumstances a French novel would have recommended itself to the majority of Mr. Brabazon's friends. But in many ways Burgo was unlike the majority of his friends, and in none more, perhaps, than in his love of reading. It was true that hardly any one ever saw him with a book in his hands, but he was one of those men who can do with very little sleep, and, notwithstanding his multifarious engagements as a man about town, he generally contrived to devote at least a couple of hours out of the twenty-four to good solid reading. It was a fact which would have greatly surprised his club friends had they been told it, which they never were; and yet therein lay the answer to a question which young Hylton propounded one night in the smoking-room after Burgo had just gone: "Can any of you chappies tell me how it is that Brabazon seems to know such a lot about such a lot of things, you know?" But the chappies, one and all, shook their heads. They admitted ungrudgingly that Brabazon did know a lot, but that how he came by his knowledge was a mystery.
That Burgo should have crammed a volume of the Bard into his portmanteau before leaving town vouches something for his taste and quality.
When Mother Sprowle brought him his breakfast on the third morning of his incarceration, she brought with her aTimesnewspaper two days old, and each morning afterwards she did the same thing. It was a boon for which Burgo felt sufficiently grateful, enabling him, as it did, to while away many an hour--for, barring a few matters as to which he found it impossible to feign the most tepid interest, he read it from beginning to end--which, but for it, would probably have proved tedious in the extreme. He could not but regard it as a proof that there was an unspoken but clearly implied desire on the part of some one to render his captivity as little irksome to him as possible. Was that some one her ladyship, or whom?
But oh--but oh, to be free!
It was the eighth dinner Mother Sprowle had brought him, and Burgo, whose appetite was beginning to fail him for lack of fresh air and exercise, took the dishes from her languidly, like a man who would just as lief have sent them back untasted as not. But when, last of all, the old dame thrust under his nose a tiny envelope addressed "Burgo Brabazon, Esq.," in a feminine hand, there came a flash into his eyes and a look into his face which seemed to make another man of him. Seizing the note, he tore it open, saying to himself in a breathless whisper: "From her ladyship, of course. What can she have to write me about? Not----"
But the note was not from her ladyship, as his first startled glance at it sufficed to tell him.
"Miss Dacia Roylance presents her compliments to Mr. Brabazon," it ran, "and begs to inform him that she purposes calling upon him (unless unforeseen circumstances should intervene) between eight and nine o'clock this evening, as for some time past Miss Roylance has been extremely desirous of making Mr. Brabazon's acquaintance."
Burgo read the note twice over, so dumfounded was he, before he could feel sure that he had taken in the sense aright. Then he held up a finger to the old woman, who was regarding him with one of her equivocal leers, as a signal that she was to remain, after which he stood for a long two minutes with his eyes bent on the floor.
He remembered the name of Dacia Roylance as that of a young lady of whom Tyson had made casual mention as being her ladyship's ward or niece, and as having made her appearance at Garion Keep a few days after the arrival of the family. Since then she had scarcely found a moment's place in his thoughts. She was nothing to him, nor he to her; they had never even met; he had felt neither curiosity about her, nor the wish to meet her. Now, however----
The old woman coughed; a hint, evidently, that he must not keep her waiting much longer.
Surely so polite a note necessitated an answer similar in kind. He had still the pen and ink which had been brought him the first day, and in his portmanteau were paper and envelopes. Getting together his materials without another moment's delay, he cleared a space on the table and wrote as under:
"Mr. Brabazon presents his compliments to Miss Roylance, and in reply to her note just received begs to assure Miss Roylance that it will afford him infinite pleasure to be waited upon by her at whatever hour may best suit her convenience."
Then he put the note into an envelope, fastened it up, addressed it, and gave it to Mrs. Sprowle, who took it with a nod as one who knew.
It is almost needless to say that to Burgo the afternoon seemed to drag its wearisome length along even more slowly than usual. He waited the coming of evening with impatience, asking himself meanwhile a hundred questions, although fully aware of the futility of doing so, seeing that to none of them was any answer forthcoming. By-and-by the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and then a great bank of cloud crept down from the middle sky, and shut out as with a curtain the flaming splendours of the western heavens. And therewith twilight came at a bound.
Then Burgo lighted his lamp, and sat down resolutely to read--and wait. But for once Shakespeare's magic proved of no avail. He read a page and turned over to the next, but, although his eyes mechanically took in the words, his mind remained a blank as far as their meaning was concerned. At length he flung the volume aside, and began to pace the room as he had paced it hundreds of times before, glancing every few minutes at his watch, while sneering cynically at himself for being so weak-minded. "I might be a big school-girl waiting for her first ball-dress to be brought home," he muttered contemptuously; and then he looked at his watch again.
Mother Sprowle had brought him his supper--which he did not touch--and had gone again, and night had settled down in earnest, before Burgo's alert ear heard the key turned in the lock belowstairs. He drew himself up, his eyes brightened, and a dark flush mounted to his cheeks. What was he about to see? Some "vision beatific," or some ordinary "young person," the bearer it might be, of some message from Lady Clinton? That Miss Roylance should dare to visit him of her own initiative, and without the consent or sanction of her ladyship, was too much to expect. Still, youth sometimes abounds with sweet audacities.
He listened without moving to the sound of nearing footsteps as they climbed the stairs one by one. These were certainly not the flying footsteps of a young girl. They were slow and somewhat laboured, with a peculiar tapping accompaniment which at once brought to Burgo's mind that morning in his uncle's house, when he had been puzzled by a somewhat similar sound, which proved to be the tap-tap of the crippled caretaker's stick on the oaken stairs as he ascended from the regions below. Burgo had pushed back the slide some time ago. Drawing nearer to it he now stood with his eyes fixed intently on the black square in the door. The tapping became more audible, and then the darkness outside the door was illumined by a faint light, which began to creep up the whitewashed wall of the landing, and a second or two later there appeared a white hand holding aloft a small shaded lamp--involuntarily Burgo drew a step or two nearer--and then a face came into view, and so, by degrees, the figure to which it pertained. Then, with a thrill, Burgo saw that this dark-robed young woman, who had thus strangely elected to visit him, was supported under her left arm by a slender crutch, as also that she was slightly humpbacked, and that one shoulder had the appearance of being somewhat higher than the other. A great wave of pity swept over him as these things forced themselves, as it were, on his notice.
Miss Roylance's face broke into a smile, then the smile merged into a musical laugh as her eyes met those of Burgo fixed so intently on her. "Confess, now, Mr. Brabazon, that my note took you considerably by surprise, and that my audacity in coming, under such circumstances, to see a young man who is an utter stranger to me, has surprised you still more. But, to be sure, there is a locked door between us." Her voice was a low rich contralto.
"In any case, the surprise is a charming one," responded Burgo, reciprocating her smile. "I have been here so long without a soul to speak to, that I intended to begin spouting Shakespeare aloud to-morrow, so as to keep my tongue from getting rusty."
"I am glad you did not try to make me believe that you were not surprised, because that shows a quite uncommon degree of candour on the part of so young a man, and I like candour, even although I may not always be able to practise it myself. In any case, Mr. Brabazon, you can't be nearly as much surprised at me as I am at myself. 'And yet she is here!' you are saying to yourself. I feel sure of it."
"Then, for calm, Miss Roylance, your perspicacity is at fault," retorted Burgo, laughingly. "Just then my thoughts were far differently engaged, I assure you."
She knew that as well as he--she had read it in his eyes--but she was not going to let him think so. "Perhaps, as there is no place to stand it on but the floor, you will take charge of my lamp for me during the very few minutes to which my stay must be limited."
This brought them closer together than they had yet been, and so enabled Burgo to scan more clearly the features of his fair visitor, framed as they now were by the aperture in the door.
And fair she undoubtedly was, her complexion by that half-light giving her features the appearance of being carved out of ivory; but never, except in some rare moments of excitement, did more than the faintest tinge of colour glow through the clear pallor of her cheeks. But it was the pallor of perfect health, as no one with eyes to see could doubt, although Miss Roylance did walk with a crutch.
She had blue-gray eyes, large and luminous, in which, sometimes as in a mirror, her every changing mood and emotion would be faithfully reflected--but only sometimes. Hard necessity--the atmosphere of falsehood and double-dealing, in which a considerable part of her young life had been spent--had taught her how to discharge her eyes of all expression without detracting in any degree from their brilliancy. At such times they betrayed nothing. An impalpable film seemed to have been drawn over their inner depths. You gazed into them, and you beheld there--yourself.
Miss Roylance's hair, of which she had a great quantity, was of the colour of dead gold. There were some people who went so far as to call it red, which merely went to prove, either that they were partially colour-blind, or else that they belonged to that unpleasant but numerous class of people with whom envy and detraction go hand-in-hand. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were some shades darker than her hair--of the darkest chestnut they might be termed--and claimed to be clearly-defined items in theensembleof her features.
But of her face, as a whole, what shall be said? Merely that it owed whatever charm it possessed--and for many people it had a quite peculiar charm--less to any chiselled contour of features, or to any depth and glow of colour, than to its expression of mingled sweetness and decision, and to the conviction which forced itself upon you that here was a nature at once tender and strong, into whose safe keeping a man might entrust his heart (if only she could be persuaded into accepting it) with the absolute certainty that his trust would never be betrayed. And yet there were times, and those by no means infrequent, when the spirit of mirth played round her lips, and the spirit of mischief peeped out of her eyes. She was only twenty, and although her experience had been a rather uncommon one, she was still in some things a mere girl. Finally, her figure was tall and slender, and but for the deformity of which mention has been made, would have been deemed more than ordinarily graceful.
There was one reason far outweighing all others which had caused Burgo to look forward with a mixture of longing and anxiety to Miss Roylance's promised visit, and he could now keep back no longer the question which sprang to his lips. "I hope, Miss Roylance, that you have brought me some news of my uncle," were his first words after he had taken the lamp from her hand. "Is he better, or is he worse? I cannot convey to you how anxious I am to hear how he is progressing."
Her face at once became charged with sympathy. "I am afraid, Mr. Brabazon, that such news of your uncle as I can give you is not of a very encouraging kind. I have now been nearly a month at Garion Keep, and although I do not think that Sir Everard is any worse than he was the first time I saw him, unless it be that he is a shade weaker, I cannot conscientiously say that he seems to me any better. But then he fluctuates so from day to day that it is difficult to tell. Some days he is comparatively brisk and cheerful, and will be wheeled about the grounds in his chair, or sit out on the lawn, for a couple of hours at a time; while there are other days on which he never leaves his room."
"It is that slow, sure, yet all but imperceptible access of weakness which is to be dreaded more than anything. By-and-by a day will come when--but I will say no more on that point. I have no doubt Lady Clinton continues to be what she has been all along--the most attentive and devoted of nurses."
There was something in the way he spoke the last words which caused her eyes to meet his for a couple of seconds. "As far as my experience goes, no one could be more so," she contented herself with saying.
"And the doctor who attends my uncle----?"
"Is an old woman. Yet, no; I malign my sex by calling him such, because some old women are both clever and delightful, and I am quite sure that Dr. Rapp is neither one nor the other. He is what I should term an elderly beau, still foppish in his dress, and still addicted to posing in various absurd attitudes. He ogles Lady Clinton, who is very gracious to him, and I have no doubt he thinks her one of the most charming of women; but I don't believe he understands Sir Everard's case one bit."
It was an immense relief to Burgo to find that, so far as he could judge, his uncle was not so very much worse than when he left London. But the 12th of October would not be here for another fortnight, and till that date should have come and gone his life was a precious possession to Lady Clinton.
So far Miss Roylance had said nothing by way of enlightening him as to the motive of her visit, for that something special lay at the back of it he could scarcely doubt. Perhaps she was waiting for him to question her; perhaps some motive which he could not be expected to fathom kept her dumb. She had told him distinctly that her visit could last but a very few minutes; it was no time for shilly-shallying; at the risk of offending her he would put to her a question which he was burning to have answered.
"Pardon the question, Miss Roylance," he said, "but may I ask whether you are the bearer of a message of any kind from Lady Clinton?"
The silence had been of the briefest, merely while he turned aside to regulate the lamp; but the shuttle of Burgo's brain worked swiftly, and his hesitations never lasted long.
A lovely flush suffused the lilies of Dacia's cheeks, but her answer was prompt and decided. "No, Mr. Brabazon, I am the bearer of no message of any kind from Lady Clinton; indeed, I would not for a great deal that her ladyship should become aware of my visit. I am here altogether surreptitiously." Then, with a little catch in her voice, she added quickly: "I am here, Mr. Brabazon, to ask you whether there is anything that I can do by way of helping you to escape--for I presume you have no wish to remain here an hour longer than you are compelled to do."
"To help me to escape? Oh! Miss Roylance!" The transformation that came over his face as he gave utterance to these words startled her.
She went on hurriedly.
"I am sadly afraid it is very little, if, indeed, anything that I can do to help you. But before another word is said on that point, I must explain to you the reasons which have influenced me in taking a step so unconventional, and, perhaps, I ought to add, so unladylike, only that the latter word is one which I detest. You must know, then----" She stopped suddenly and held up her hand.
"Hist! hist! Miss Dacia, he's waking up!" came a voice from below. Burgo thought he recognised the thin acrid tones of Mother Sprowle.
"I must go at once, I dare not stay another moment," exclaimed Miss Roylance. "Give me my lamp, please." Then, as Burgo passed it to her through the aperture, she said with a smile and a meaning look: "To-morrow evening about the same time, if the coast is clear. If not, I will send you a message by Mrs. Sprowle. Till then,addio."
She adjusted her crutch under her left arm and turned and went slowly down, her sheaf of red-gold hair falling in a dull shimmer over her shoulders being the last Burgo saw of her.