Not much sleep visited the pillow of Burgo Brabazon that night. The mere thought that a possibility of escape seemed to be opening itself out before him would alone have been enough to break his rest. Supposing that when he saw her next Miss Roylance should ask him in what way she could help him best, ought he not to be ready with an answer to her question? And what ought that answer to be? But at this point he was confronted by a puzzle of which no solution was forthcoming. If Miss Roylance was so far mistress of the situation that neither bolts nor bars sufficed to hinder her from penetrating as far as the outside of his prison door, what was there to prevent her from opening the door itself and so setting him at liberty? It was a perplexing question, and as futile as perplexing, which was just the reason why it kept putting itself to him again and again. And yet he had only to wait patiently to have both this and other things made plain to him; but that is what most of us find it so hard to do.
The spell which Dacia Roylance had unwittingly thrown over him was not broken with her own evanishment. It possessed him and would not let him go. Some magnetic chord of his being had been struck which no one had ever sounded before, and of the existence of which he had been wholly ignorant, and its subtle vibrations thrilled him as he had never been thrilled before. It was not love, it had no touch of passion in it, it was an experience altogether fresh and strange. "I am bewitched, and that's the simple fact," he said to himself. "I never believed in 'possession' before; I do now." And yet he seemed in no way put about, but probably in a process of that sort everything depends upon the sorceress. In any case, Burgo found himself longing, as he had rarely longed for anything, for the time when he should see Dacia Roylance again.
From the first day of Burgo's imprisonment till now there had been no break in the weather. The sun had shone in an all but unclouded sky, the nights had been soft and balmy, the winds hushed. Hour after hour had Burgo spent at the window of his prison watching the tide as it seethed creamily up the sands and broke in softest foam or else its slow recession as wave by wave it was drawn backward by a force it was powerless to resist. To-night, however, had brought a change. The sun had set in a gorgeous cloud-pageant, like some conqueror with torn ensigns and blood-stained banners marching through tottering battlements and ruined towers into some great city's flaming heart. Later the wind had begun to rise, and by midnight it was blowing half a gale. At high-water every minute or two some thunderous pulsation of the tide would smite the face of the cliff with such terrific impact as for a time to almost deafen Burgo. More than once the old tower seemed to quiver to its foundations. Even if Burgo had had nothing out of the ordinary to occupy his thoughts, it would have been next to impossible for him to sleep.
Forming, as it were, a separate note of the elemental diapason outside, while yet being in full accord with it, was a sound which Burgo long lay listening to without being able to satisfy himself whence or how it originated. It was something between a rush and roar and a sort of Titanic gurgle, and seemed to reach his ear, not from without, but as if it ascended through the floor of his room. Then all at once he said to himself, "Can it be that the tower is undermined, and that what I hear is the noise of the tide as it is being alternately forced into and sucked out of some natural hollow or opening in the face of the cliff?" The longer he pondered this explanation the more satisfied he became that it was the real one.
But when at length sleep came to him he was not thinking of any weird cavern in the cliff, haunted by mermaid or siren, but of the young witch with her red-gold hair and wonderful eyes who had cast a spell over him, the potency of which was already beginning to make itself felt.
In the course of the forenoon the wind went down, but there was a heavy sea running for hours to come.
Breakfast and dinner came in due course, but with the latter meal a letter was handed to Burgo, the address of which--simply his own name--he at once recognised as being in the calligraphy of Miss Roylance. He opened it with a sinking of the heart. Had she written to say that something had intervened, and that she would not be able to visit him as promised? He motioned to Mrs. Sprowle to remain till he had read it. There might be something in it which would necessitate an answer.
"I was about to explain to you yesterday, when interrupted," it began abruptly, "the reasons by which I was actuated in seeking an interview in the way I did, with one who was a complete stranger to me. To you, I have no doubt, it seemed a bold and unmaidenly thing to do, and only under very special circumstances could such a step be at all excusable. That the circumstances in this case are of a very special kind you will, I trust, be ready to admit by the time you have read to the end of what is here written.
"For various reasons I have deemed it best to put my explanation in writing, the chief one being that at present I am far from sure I shall be able to see you again this evening; indeed, it is by no means unlikely that I may be unable to do so at all. You will understand why when you have read further.
"I must ask you to bear with me while I jot down, as briefly as may be, a few details of my early history which are needful for the due understanding of what follows. I will try not to weary you over-much.
"I was born in India, where my father was in the Civil Service, and was sent to Lausanne at an early age to be educated. My mother died when I was too young to remember her, and I lost my father when I was about twelve years old. Of the two guardians appointed by my father, one is a London solicitor whom I have never seen, the other being Colonel Innes, my mother's brother. To finish this part of my explanation, I may add that when I am twenty-one I shall come into a fortune of ten thousand pounds, and that I am debarred from marrying before that age (I am now just turned twenty) without the consent of my guardians--or rather, of the one who is still living, for my uncle, Colonel Innes, died a year and a half ago.
"When my uncle Innes retired from the army he came to Europe, and, after spending some months in England, he settled down for the winter at Nice. It was there I joined him on leaving school, for his home, he said, was henceforth to be my home; and it was there he met La Signora Offredi, whom he shortly afterwards married, and who is now known to the world as the wife of Sir Everard Clinton.
"The courtship was a very brief one, for my uncle was simply infatuated. His marriage was to make no difference to me; my home was to be still with him--an arrangement which his wife most cordially seconded. Indeed, from the hour I was introduced to her, Lady Clinton--to give her the title by which she is now known--accorded me an amount of affection which my more frigid temperament made it impossible for me to reciprocate in anything like an equivalent degree. On two occasions she took me with her on her visits to her son, a boy of twelve, who was at school also at Lausanne.
"When my uncle had been married about eighteen months a great misfortune befell him. He lost nearly the whole of his fortune by a bank failure. No doubt it preyed deeply on his mind, and a few weeks after the news came he broke down completely. He never rallied, but lingered on for three months, growing gradually weaker, and then died, his wife having scarcely left his side during the whole of his illness. On his deathbed he exacted from me a promise to remain with her, and to be guided by her in everything, in any case till I should come of age. I gave the promise without a thought of any possible consequences which it might entail.
"Very shortly after my uncle's death I went to stay for a time with some relatives, who, having settled some years before in New Zealand, were now over in England on a visit. Circumstances kept them in this country for more than a year, and when they finally went back, and I--having no other home--returned to the shelter of Lady Clinton's roof, for she had been married again in the interim, it was to Garion Keep that I came.
"Although I had heard of the existence of such a person, it was not till then that I made the acquaintance of Signor Sperani, her ladyship's brother, who had arrived at the Keep two or three days later than I.
"The first knowledge I had of your existence, Mr. Brabazon, was when your insensible body was brought into the house late one night by Signor Sperani and Jared Sprowle, the latter being the son of the old woman who waits on you, and the man, as I learnt afterwards, who had been employed to dog your footsteps for days before. I happened to be crossing the gallery at the moment when they brought your body in and laid it on the hall table. A single lamp was burning below, the gallery was in gloom, and from where I stood I could look down on all that passed, myself unseen.
"Apparently the first thing Sperani did was to satisfy himself that you were not dead (I have learnt since that he was brought up to the medical profession, as was his father before him), after which he went in search of her ladyship, who came back with him two minutes later. Then a hurried consultation was held between the two, Sprowle standing somewhat apart meanwhile, but they spoke so guardedly that not a word of what they said reached me. Then her ladyship went, and the two men, carrying the body between them--your body, please bear in mind, Mr. Brabazon--disappeared with it down one of the corridors which diverge from the hall, but not down the one which leads to her ladyship's and Sir Everard's rooms, which, I may here remark, are on the ground floor, in order that the latter may be spared the necessity of going up and down stairs.
"To what place they had taken you, Mr. Brabazon, I could not in the least imagine, but from the air of hurried secrecy with which the affair seemed to be invested, I concluded that it would most likely be to some part of the house with which the servants have little or nothing to do, for in the north wing alone there are several rooms which are always kept locked, and which nobody ever seems to enter. At that time I had no knowledge of the underground passage which leads from the house to the tower.
"I need scarcely tell you that the scene I had witnessed from the gallery took a powerful hold of my imagination. I could not get it out of my thoughts; but I felt that I durst not ask a question of any one about it--indeed, there was no one but her ladyship to ask, and I was quite sure the affair was one I was supposed to know nothing about. In the house everything went on as usual; there was nothing in the demeanour of the servants to indicate that they were aware of anything unusual having occurred; the shut-up rooms in the north wing were still shut up; what then had become of the insensible body of the young man which I had seen carried away by Sperani and his accomplice? That he was not dead I had seen enough to satisfy myself, and yet it seemed impossible that he should be hidden away in the house without the servants being cognisant of the fact; for, when all is said, the Keep has only a limited number of rooms, and the servants are passing backward and forward almost continually.
"But you know already, Mr. Brabazon, how it was that, as far as I was concerned, you had so unaccountably vanished. It was either on the third or fourth evening after the scene in the hall that, as I chanced to be passing a certain door on what may be called the cellar floor of the house, to which I had never ventured to penetrate before, it was opened from the other side, and I found myself face to face with Mrs. Sprowle. The woman was evidently far more disconcerted than I, indeed, it is not too much to say that she looked thoroughly terrified. I was about to pass on, but she took a couple of strides forward and clutched me by the sleeve. 'Not a word to anybody, miss, that you have seen me here, she said in my ear, or it will be worse for both of us.' I nodded and passed on, asking myself what hidden meaning lay behind her words. Could it be that I had lighted on the clue for which during the last three days I had been so anxiously searching?
"In the course of next forenoon I made it my business to secure a private interview with Mrs. Sprowle. As you are doubtless aware, she is stone deaf--at least, she passes for such, but I think it just possible that her affliction may not be quite so extreme as it is her policy to make people believe. But be that as it may, my intercourse with her is carried on through the medium of the finger alphabet, an accomplishment which I picked up while at school I had had little or nothing to do with Mrs. Sprowle before. She and her son had lived at the Keep in the office of caretakers previously to the arrival of Sir Everard and her ladyship. Now that I had got her to myself it did not take me long to discover that her one great passion or failing, or whatever one chooses to term it, is greed--the love of money--and that if I would only pay her sufficiently, and, as she termed it, pass her my word never to 'split' on her, she would answer all my questions truthfully and to the best of her ability. She had a further incentive to do so, had any been needed, in her hatred of Sperani, who had nearly frightened her into a fit one day by making believe to egg on one of his big brutes to worry her. It was a piece of sport for which she never forgave him.
"Well, you may be sure that the old lady and I were not long in coming to terms. And in such fashion it was, Mr. Brabazon, that I learnt you were Sir Everard Clinton's nephew; that, for some reason unknown, her ladyship had a great spite against you; that as soon as it was known you had made your appearance at Crag End, a watch was set upon your movements; that you were murderously attacked in the dark; and that, finally, you were now a prisoner in the old tower on the cliff, to which place your meals were taken you by the woman who told me all this. From that moment I made up my mind to help you to escape should it anyhow be possible for me to do so.
"But the more I thought over the affair, the more beset with difficulties it seemed. Sperani was ever on the watch--he and his dogs. I was helpless; I could do nothing. But there is no need to trouble you with all I thought and felt. It is enough to say that I was beginning to despair, and that I had said to myself more than once: 'It is useless; I can do nothing,' when chance--if there be such a thing--came to my aid in a way the most surprising. Yesterday morning Signor Sperani was called away to London on some business of importance, the nature of which I am ignorant of. The time of his return was uncertain; he might be back within thirty-six hours, or he might be detained considerably longer; that part of the affair was discussed between him and her ladyship over breakfast, and in my presence. Before starting for the station, he interviewed both Sprowle and his mother (so Mrs. S. informed me later), and gave them their instructions. The key of the room--your room--he took with him; he would not entrust it to anybody; but the key which opens the two doors of the underground passage, one at either end, he was compelled to leave, otherwise you would have had to starve till his return. The latter key he gave into the custody of Sprowle, who was to let his mother have it for the time being as often as your meal times came round, with strict injunctions not to quit the Keep end of the passage till he had received it from her again on her return from the tower.
"All this Mrs. Sprowle took an early opportunity of telling me. Now, if ever--that is to say, while Sperani was away--was my chance of communicating with you. But with Sprowle constantly on the watch, how was it to be managed? I laid my difficulty before the old woman, who had already proffered to do anything for me which did not tend to implicate herself, and before long she found the means of solving it for me. It appears that her son, whenever money and opportunity combine, is in the habit of taking more to drink than is good for him. Sperani's presence had compelled him to be abstemious for a considerably longer time than he was used to, and his mother felt absolutely sure that 'her boy' would take advantage of the Italian's temporary absence to indulge in his favourite weakness. It was in consequence of what she said that my preliminary note to you was written. She was fully justified by the event. In the course of the afternoon her son drank himself stupid, and wound up by falling fast asleep. Then the astute old woman picked his pocket and brought me the key.
"His mother assures me that he will repeat the process to-day should news come to hand that Sperani need not be expected back till to-morrow or later.
"You will doubtless have asked yourself long before you have read thus far, why I have been at the trouble of writing all this, and imposing on you the wearisome task of its perusal. My answer is very simple. I felt the need of justifying myself for what I have done in thrusting my presence upon you unsought and unasked. If I have succeeded in doing so, nothing more need be said on the point; if I have not succeeded, you have only to return these lines by the bearer, and I shall know what to do.
"When I had written thus far I went downstairs to luncheon. While the meal was in progress a messenger from Oakbarrow station arrived with a telegram. It was from Signor Sperani to his sister, announcing that the business which has taken him to London will detain him there till to-morrow or next day.
"Should I, therefore, receive no message from you to the contrary, and should Sprowle, with his mother's connivance, indulge to-day after the same fashion that he did yesterday--as to which there seems no reasonable doubt--then may you look to see me outside your door in the course of the evening.
"Let me impress upon you once more that in acting as I am, one desire alone has influenced me throughout--that of being able to help you to escape; but it rests with you to determine, now that you know what the difficulties are which stand in your way, whether that desire is capable of being worked out to a practical issue.
"Devise the means, and if you need the help of Dacia Roylance it will be most ungrudgingly given.
"Do not forget to burn this as soon as read.
"D. R."
The first thing Burgo did after a rapid perusal of the foregoing was to scribble a line in reply, for it was not desirable that Mrs. Sprowle should be detained longer than was absolutely necessary.
"A thousand thanks. You are indeed kind. I shall look to see you this evening without fail--B. B."
Then he read Miss Roylance's communication again, and at his leisure. Then, in accordance with the writer's express request, but not without a certain amount of regret on his part, he set light to the paper and watched it slowly consume to ashes.
Dacia's first words to Burgo were: "Have you burnt my scrawl?"
"I have."
"That is well. Seeing that one can't foretell what may happen from day to day, and that what I wrote was intended for your eyes alone, it was better it should be burnt. And now tell me, have you devised any plan of escape?"
"After turning over in my mind some half-dozen more or less impracticable schemes, I can only think of one which seems to hold out a tolerable prospect of success."
"And that is----?"
"To file through the two bars which guard the window of my prison, force out the glass-work, and then by means of a rope lower myself to the ground outside."
"An admirable scheme, and I see no reason why it should not succeed. Tell me, in what way can I help you to carry it out?"
"By procuring for me a couple of files and a sufficient length of rope."
"I will drive to Oakbarrow to-morrow and obtain them, after which they shall be conveyed to you either by Mrs. Sprowle or myself."
"How can I ever thank you sufficiently?"
"Your success--and you will not fail, I feel assured--will far more than repay me. But to file through the bars will be a matter of time, will it not?"
"It will; probably a matter of three or four days, but I can't speak positively. I don't think I have mentioned before that now and then Signor Sperani takes it into his head to pay me a stealthy visit in the middle of the night, probably with the view of satisfying himself that I am not engaged in any nefarious attempt to escape."
"I can well believe it. From what I have seen of him he seems to me to abound with underhand ways, and to distrust every one. He is one of those men who regard their own shadow with suspicion. But so far, Mr. Brabazon, I am altogether in the dark (and should you have any reason for wishing me to remain in it, pray don't hesitate a moment to tell me so), and utterly fail to understand how it happens that you, a nephew of Sir Everard Clinton, should have been assaulted as you were in your uncle's grounds, and be here a prisoner under your uncle's roof. I may tell you that I am indebted to Mrs. Sprowle for my knowledge of the relationship between you and Sir Everard. Doubtless it had come to her from her son, but in what way the latter learnt it I have no means of knowing."
"It will afford me very great pleasure, Miss Roylance," replied Burgo, "to explain in the fewest possible words what, doubtless, does seem to you a most inexplicable state of affairs."
He took a turn or two in silence, as if revolving in his mind in what terms he could best begin that which he wanted to say.
Dacia followed him with her eyes--those wonderful blue-gray eyes, which by some lights, when half veiled by their dark lashes, seemed almost black, and could, when she so willed, look as cold and fathomless as a mountain tarn. Just now, however, they shone with the light of eager expectancy, and with something more than Dacia was aware of--something deeper, which sprang from another source than that. To-day its name was sympathy; what it might be six months hence it would not have been safe to prophesy.
She was standing just as she had stood the night before, her face framed by the aperture in the door, and her long slender hands, with their interlocked fingers, resting on the little shelf outside.
And so Burgo began his story, telling her in a condensed form everything, so far as it related to his uncle, Lady Clinton, and himself, all of which is already known to the reader. Of Clara Leslie's name he made no mention, it was not necessary to his purpose that he should do so; neither did he repeat much of what had passed between his uncle and himself in the course of his last brief sojourn in Great Mornington Street. That he was not without his suspicions of foul play in the case of Sir Everett, Miss Roylance, if she chose to do so, might infer from certain of his remarks, but he was especially careful that not so much as the shadow of a definite charge should be formulated by him against Lady Clinton.
"Thank you, Mr. Brabazon," said Dacia, when he ceased speaking. "If my determination to help you to escape had needed any stimulus before, it certainly does not after what you have told me. As I gather from your narrative, the one great object to which you still adhere is to obtain access to your uncle?"
"That is so, most certainly."
"Then--pardon my saying so--even should your--or our--plan of escape prove successful, you will only, as it seems to me, be in precisely the same position as before you were brought here, that is to say, you will not be a step nearer the attainment of your object."
"I admit it--sorrowfully. But the recovery of my liberty will give me one advantage--it will enable me to devise and, as I trust, carry into effect some other scheme for rescuing my uncle from the clutches of that----" He stopped abruptly, and bit his lip.
Miss Roylance smiled. "You need not mince your phrases, as far as I am concerned, where Lady Clinton is in question," she said.
"You don't like her ladyship?" he queried, with an ambiguous smile.
"I hate her!" was Dacia's emphatic reply, as her dark eyebrows came together for a moment. "Any milder term would be a euphemism." Then her face broke into a smile. "And yet, you must know, Mr. Brabazon, that to all outward seeming, she and I are the best of friends. But that is the way we women are made."
"In your note you told me that the illness which carried off Colonel Innes, like my uncle's, was a lingering one."
"Yes, and to me one of the strangest features of the affair is, that Sir Everard's symptoms seem almost precisely similar to my uncle's."
Burgo drew a long breath. "Is that indeed so?" he said.
For a moment or two they gazed into each other's eyes, Dacia's slowly dilating the while, reading there, perchance, what neither of them cared to express in words.
"Then you can no longer wonder, Miss Roylance," continued Burgo, "at my burning anxiety to rescue my uncle from the fate which, as it seems to me, is but too surely overtaking him."
"I did not wonder from the first," she said gently. "It is only of late that my eyes have begun to open by degrees to certain things. And even now I can scarcely believe that---- No, no; it is altogether too terrible for belief!"
For a little space she covered her face with her hands, and Burgo could see that her shoulders were heaving with suppressed emotion. He made believe to be busying himself with the lamp, while giving her time to recover her composure.
"Does it not seem a strange thing, Mr. Brabazon," said Dacia, presently, "that all through my uncle's illness, which lasted over three months, I was never allowed to help in nursing him, although again and again I begged to be let do so? An old woman, an Italian, and her ladyship that is now (I never have, and I never will call her 'aunt'), took it in turns to watch by him, and would not permit me to go near him unless one or other of them was in the room at the time. And now it is the same in the case of Sir Everard. I would so gladly help to wait upon him, and do all that lies in my power to relieve the others. But, as before, I am thrust aside, and except her ladyship and Vallance no one is allowed to go near him."
"It is nothing fresh to me to be told that Lady Clinton is the most devoted of nurses," said Burgo, meaningly. "I heard the same thing from my uncle's own lips. I am afraid, Miss Roylance, that you fail to sufficiently appreciate her affectionate solicitude in not permitting you to risk your health by tending the bedside of a sick old man. But about this Signor Sperani--what object has broughthimto Garion Keep?"
"To me his object is plain enough, although up till now neither he nor his sister have so much as hinted at it. It is neither more nor less than to gradually ingratiate himself with me, with the ultimate view of persuading me to become his wife. Oh, I am neither so blind nor so simple as they take me to be!"
"What a vile plot!" was Burgo's sole comment. Indeed, he hardly knew what to say.
"Of course, Sperani cares nothing about me for myself," resumed Dacia; "he would not give a second thought to me--a cripple and a hunchback--were it not for the prospective thousands I shall inherit a year hence, when I come of age."
"And this is your only home! It cannot be a happy one for you--pardon my presumption in saying so."
"No, it is not a happy home, but such as it is I am bound to make the best of it. It is the only home I have, or can have, till I am of age. Then I shall be my own mistress, and---- But that is nothing to the purpose." She paused for a moment, then, with a bitterness which was not without a touch of pathos, she added: "A happy home! To me it is a phrase without meaning, so far as I myself am concerned. But enough of all this. We are wandering from the point at issue.Revenons, s'il vous plait. From what you said a little while ago I gathered that, even if you should succeed in regaining your freedom, you would still be at a loss what step to take which would serve to give you access to your uncle, or in any way tend to bring you and him together again."
"That is just my difficulty. Those who are in charge of him are evidently determined to go to every extreme in order to keep my uncle and me apart. Even if, when I regain my freedom, I were to enter an action for false imprisonment, what then? I could not prove that her ladyship was in any way a party to the attack upon me and what followed, while as for Sperani, he would simply have to disappear from this part of the country and there would be an end of the affair. But let us not count our chickens before they are hatched," he continued more gaily. "These four walls still hold me fast."
Miss Roylance hardly seemed to be heeding him. Her brows were knit, her eyes bent on vacancy. She came back with a start and a half smile.
"Supposing," she said--"and I want you to bear in mind that it is only supposition--that Lady Clinton could be got out of the way for a short time, that is to say, that she could not merely be induced to quit her husband's side, but to leave the Keep itself for a few days, would her absence help your scheme in any way?"
"It would help it in every way, Miss Roylance," said Burgo eagerly, his black eyes flashing a sudden light. "Lady Clinton is the one and only obstacle between my uncle and me. So long as she remains by his side I see no possibility of being able to approach him. Remove her, and my way is easy." Then, after a pause, as he drew a step or two nearer, for he had always maintained a respectful distance between himself and her: "You would not ask me such a question, Miss Roylance, unless there was some motive at the back of it. Can it be possible that you have thought of some plan whereby----"
"Here is my plan without further preface, Mr. Brabazon; you can give me your opinion afterwards as to its feasibility or otherwise. If there is one person in the world whom Lady Clinton loves it is her son, young Carlo Offredi, a boy of fourteen, who, as I have already told you, is at school at Lausanne. Now, as it happens, my dearest friend--we were schoolmates for a number of years--is married to a professor in the same town. Marie would do anything for me, and my idea is, to write to her and ask her, immediately on receipt of my letter, to telegraph to Lady Clinton to the effect that her son is dangerously ill, and that her immediate presence is earnestly requested. I have not forgotten the name of Carlo'slycée, and the message would of course be represented as coming from there. That her ladyship will at once respond to it I do not doubt. Meanwhile," she added, with a smile, "that is to say, during the time which would have to elapse before the message could reach her, you would be slowly and laboriously filing your way to liberty."
Burgo's chest rose and fell. "Miss Roylance, I know not what to say; I feel far more than I am able to convey in words. Such a scheme, if duly carried out, would not merely be the means of bringing my uncle and me together again, but of defeating one of the most abominable conspiracies that ever was hatched."
"But consider into what a maze of duplicity I shall be venturing!" said Miss Roylance with a half-smile. "The message I shall have to ask my friend to send will not have a single word of truth in it."
"In fighting a woman like Lady Clinton one cannot choose one's weapons; one is bound to take the first that comes to hand. If ever a lie was excusable, it is surely in a case like this, where nothing less than the existence of a helpless old man is at stake."
"I would do more, far more than that to save the life of Sir Everard Clinton!" said Dacia, with a thrill in her rich, low tones to which some responsive chord in Burgo vibrated. "But here comes Mrs. Sprowle," she continued, "to tell me that her precious son is about waking up, and that I must not stay a minute longer. I will write to my friend before I sleep, and will post the letter myself before breakfast. The cord and the files I will make into a parcel and send you by Mrs. Sprowle in the course of to-morrow. And now my lamp, if you please, Mr. Brabazon."
"Will you not bring the parcel yourself, Miss Roylance?" asked Burgo, and his voice had a supplicatory ring in it, or so it seemed to Dacia.
Her sensitive under-lip trembled for a moment. "Perhaps," she said with a smile such as she had not bestowed on Burgo before, and the radiance of which struck him dumb. "But it is never wise to promise more than one is sure of being able to perform."
As she put forth her hand for the lamp, Burgo took it in one of his, and bending over it, touched it with his lips. "In any case, God bless you!" he fervently exclaimed.
Her only answer, as she turned from him, was the delicate flush which suffused alike her throat and face.
He watched her with lingering eyes as she went slowly and carefully down the stairway, the protuberance on her left shoulder throwing a clearly-defined shadow on the whitewashed wall; nor did he turn away till the last faint tap-tap of her crutch had died in the distance.
"What a pity, what an unspeakable pity it is," he said wit a sigh, "that a creature so incomparable in every other respect should be the victim of a deformity which nothing can remedy or obviate!"
Never had Burgo passed so wearisome a day as that which followed Miss Roylance's second interview with him. He was burning for the moment to come when he should see her again, but the hours seemed to mock him, and the slow afternoon to drag itself out indefinitely. It was not merely because he looked forward to being able, with her help, to achieve his freedom that he so longed to see her again; it was quite as much, even more perhaps, for her own sake, and because she had cast over him a spell of enchantment which he had neither the will nor the power to struggle against. He had set eyes on her but twice, and yet already he was her slave manacled and helpless. "I thought in my ignorance that I loved Clara Leslie," he said to himself as he paced his prison from end to end, "but I didn't know the meaning of the word. I know it now." And yet this woman to whom he had yielded up his heart without a struggle was both a cripple and a hunchback, and three days before he had never as much as set eyes on her! It was one of those riddles which Love takes a mischievous delight in propounding, but of which it is the merest waste of time to try to find a reasonable and common-sense solution.
At length the afternoon deepened into dusk, and Burgo lighted his lamp, knowing that the longed-for moment could not be much longer delayed. Mrs. Sprowle had been in the habit of bringing him the meal which with her went by the name of supper some time between seven and eight o'clock, and Dacia's two visits had been timed about an hour later. To-night, however, not a little to Burgo's surprise, Miss Roylance followed close on the old lady's heels. His first glance at her face told him that she had important news of some kind to communicate to him--indeed, she hardly waited for Mrs. Sprowle to hand in her plates and dishes and make room at the aperture before she began.
"This is the last opportunity I shall have of seeing you here, and my visit must be limited to a very few minutes. Signor Sperani returns by the last train to-night, and will no doubt at once take charge of the key of the underground passage. Sprowle has been sent by her ladyship on an errand into the village, and has entrusted the key to his mother meanwhile, otherwise you would not have seen me at all. And now, here is a parcel for you, containing a couple of files and a length of rope. Oh dear! oh dear! Never did I think that I should come to be mixed up with such an adventure as this!"
"The service you have done me, Miss Roylance, is one I can never hope to be able to repay."
The words were of the simplest, but there was something in the way they were spoken which brought a flush to Dacia's cheek, and caused her to turn her eyes another way.
"Pray don't think me too presumptuous," resumed Burgo, "but there was a certain letter which you promised to write."
"It was written last night, and my own hands posted it before ten o'clock this morning. And now, Mr. Brabazon, as time is so short," she went on, bringing back her eyes to face his, "let us go in for a little supposition. Suppose, then, that my letter has the desired effect--or rather, that the telegram which will result from it, will have the effect of taking Lady Clinton all the way to Lausanne on a fictitious errand; and suppose, further, that you succeed in effecting your escape--what then?--what is supposed to follow?"
"With myself at liberty, and Lady Clinton temporarily out of the way, the course I propose to myself is a very simple one. In her ladyship's absence there will be no one with either the right or the power to refuse me access to my uncle."
"It seems to me that even if Lady Clinton be got rid of, you will still have to reckon with Sperani and his dogs."
"As for the dogs, a couple of revolver shots may be counted on to give them their quietus; while as regards Sperani, I trust that man to man, I should pretty well prove a match for him."
Dacia shook her head. "There must be no shooting," she said, "and no unseemly struggle. A far better plan will be for you and me to communicate with each other through Mrs. Sprowle--I to let you know when her ladyship has set out for Lausanne, and you to inform me when all is in readiness for your escape. After that it can be easily arranged for me to admit you to the house unknown to any one."
"That two heads are better than one I shall never doubt for the future," said Burgo with a smile.
"But, assuming that you are successful in reaching your uncle, what is to follow? Is it your intention to stay by his side, and be found there by Lady Clinton on her return?"
"Certainly not. My first object will be to endeavour to induce my uncle at once to leave the Keep, of course in my charge, and I don't think the dear old boy will need much persuasion. Where he may choose to go, whether back to London, or abroad, or elsewhere, will, of course, rest with himself; but if I have any voice whatever in the matter, it will be to some place to which Lady Clinton will be denied admittance. When once my uncle has been rescued from her clutches, he must never be allowed to fall into them again."
"She is a very determined woman, Mr. Brabazon."
"As I have ample reason to know. Still, I hope to be able to set her at defiance. When my uncle gets clear away from her he will be a different man; and if he will only hold fast to his determination not to see her, and to communicate with her only through his lawyer, she will be helpless. That he will be prepared to make her a liberal allowance, I do not doubt; but the question is not one of money only, but of life and death."
"Your last words, Mr. Brabazon, remind me of a singular dream I had the other night. I was in some place, I don't know where, among a number of figures, each of whom, except myself; wore a domino and mask. Each figure came up to me in turn, and having whispered in my ear the same words from Shakespeare: 'A deed without a name,' passed on. By-and-by there was only one figure left, but his whisper was different from the others: 'If you would know why I am not still among the living, askher, was what he said. Then for a moment he drew his mask aside, and I saw the face of my Uncle Innes, as I saw it for the last time, when he lay in his coffin. And then with a cry I awoke. But there is Mrs. Sprowle calling to me from the foot of the stairs. I have overstayed my time. On no account must her son come back and find me here. Good-bye, Mr. Brabazon, till I meet you again, a prisoner no longer. You may rely upon hearing from me as soon as I have anything to tell you."
To-night she gave him her hand as frankly as she might have done had he been her brother; nor did her colour come, nor did she suffer her eyes to drop before the steadfast flame of his. But, as she made her way downstairs half a minute later her heart was throbbing tumultuously, and she felt as if she were aflame from head to foot.
In the early hours of next morning, long before daylight, Burgo set to work with one of the files Dacia had brought him. The height of the window compelled him to stand on a chair while he worked. He found that he would have to file through both the bars with which the window was guarded, and even then the aperture would be none too large to allow of the passage of his body. Judging from the fact that the bars were very little corroded by time or weather, Burgo concluded that they bad been a comparatively modern addition to the old building. He calculated that it would take him quite three or four days of stiff work, with a few hours of the night thrown in, before he reached the end of his task. Although he had no reason whatever to distrust Mrs. Sprowle, he decided that it might be advisable to keep her in ignorance of what he was about. The grating of the key in the lock below stairs always gave him due warning of her approach.
It was on the evening of the third day after his last interview with Dacia that Mrs. Sprowle handed Burgo the following note when she brought him his supper:
"Telegram to hand this forenoon. Lady C. started on her way to Lausanne by the four o'clock train. She will get through to London in time to catch the Continental Express to-morrow morning. It is left to me and Vallance to look after Sir Everard during her absence. Let me know by return how you are progressing, and when you will be ready to takethe next step.
"D. R."
To which Burgo replied:
"Everything going admirably. Shall be ready for next step to-morrow night. Let me know in course of to-morrowthe hour and the place.
"B. B."
He had been hard at work with his file during a great part of the day, and after he had eaten his supper he lighted his pipe and began the slow constitutional pacing from end to end of his prison chamber in which he spent some hours of each day. Yes, everything would be ready by to-morrow night, he told himself. One bar was filed completely through and removed and hidden behind his portmanteau, while five or six more hours of hard work would enable him to treat the other in the same way. But although he could not help exulting as he thought of what a few more hours would bring to pass, he was yet conscious of something tugging at his heartstrings which was far removed from exultation or gladness of any kind. He could not forget--it was a thought which haunted him waking or sleeping--that with the quitting of Garion Keep by his uncle and himself would be severed the solitary strand which for a little while had served to bind Miss Roylance and him so strangely together. Yes, they must part, and it was impossible to say whether they should ever meet again. Yet a voice within him whispered that theymustmeet again, that neither fate nor chance could avail to sunder them for ever. Already it seemed to him as if this girl had become an inalienable part of himself; he could no longer conceive of his future as wholly dissevered from her. He had seen her for the first time less than a week ago, and yet he felt as if he had known her for a century. It was as though he and she had been united in some prior state of existence, and that Destiny had once more brought them together. In her he felt assured that his life had found its complement. It was true that she was deformed and walked with the help of a crutch, but what of that? When he had won her for his wife, as he fully meant to do, his love and protecting care would have one claim on them the more: that was all.
On one point he assured himself--that on no account would he part from her till he had revealed to her something of that which lay so close to his heart--till he had drawn from her, if it were possible for man to do so, a promise that their parting should be anything rather than a final one.
When he had smoked the last pipe to which he had allowanced himself, for by this time his stock of tobacco was running low, he opened wide the casement and stood there for some time, inhaling the salt coolness of the night air, in which there was a faint tang of seaweed, and staring into the infinitude of darkness outside his window, which to-night was unillumined by either moon or stars. The tide was coming in with a low monotonous thunder, which rose and fell rhythmically as it drew forth and back in unceasing repetition. It would be high-water about an hour after midnight. Presently Burgo would put out his lamp and turn in, to wake up long before daybreak and resume work with his file. Again and again he murmured exultingly to himself: "To-morrow night I shall be a free man!"
But although the main current of his thoughts was still with Dacia, he was not so oblivious of things external to him as not to be aware of an occasional gleam of light which came and went like a firefly within a certain limited space of darkness, and nearly in a direct line with his window. He recognised it at once for what it was--some one with a lantern moving on board the steam yacht which for the last three days had lain at anchor opposite the tower, about a hundred yards beyond low-water mark. Burgo had spent some of his unoccupied hours in watching it, and wondering as to the nature of the business which had brought it to that remote part of the coast, and kept it there for so long a time. But to wonder was all that was permitted him. Had he been free to question the landlord of the "Golden Owl" on the point, he would have learnt that the yacht's name was theNaiad, that its owner was an Irishman of the name of Marchment, that it had put into Crag End while certain slight repairs were effected in its machinery, and in order to obtain a supply of fresh provisions; and that Mr. Marchment, after having lian for one night in the little harbour, had declared its odours at low water to be unbearable, and had thereupon steamed out to the position which the yacht had since occupied. Such was the sum and substance of what was known about theNaiadat Crag End. Its crew came and went, and were hail-fellows with the inhabitants, while the very liberal prices paid by its owner for such country produce as he required had raised him in the course of a few hours to the height of popularity.
Burgo watched the light with indifferent eyes while it moved to and fro, but at the end of a few minutes it went suddenly out, and was seen no more. But for the shifting light he would not have known that the yacht was still there. On such a night from where he stood it was wholly invisible.
Burgo could not tell how long he had been asleep, for it was still pitch dark, both inside the tower and out, when he was awakened by a dull, heavy hammering noise which sounded at once remote and near at hand, as though it were close by, and yet divided from him by some intervening substance, which had the effect of partially deadening the sound. To be thus awoke in the dead of night was sufficiently startling, and Burgo sprang to his feet on the instant. After listening for the space of a few seconds, as the noise still continued, he struck a match and lighted his lamp. A glance at his watch told him that the time was twenty minutes past one.
Crossing to the door, he pushed back the slide and listened. The sound now reached him much more clearly than before, showing that it proceeded from some point inside the building--a dull, heavy, continuous thump--thump, as though someone or something were hammering a way into or out of the tower. Whence did it proceed? What could be the meaning of it? Utterly confounded, Burgo could do nothing but stand and listen.
Then, after a few minutes, which he had employed in partly dressing himself, there came a crash, and a fall as of some heavy body, followed by a confused murmur of voices. This was succeeded by a sound of many footsteps crowding up the stone stairway. Burgo drew back a few paces and waited, his eyes fixed on the aperture.
First of all the darkness of the staircase was illumined, and then a hand appeared holding on high a ship's lantern, followed by the head and figure of the man to whom the hand belonged, crowding on whose heels came three more men, each of whom carried a revolver, while one, apparently the leader, was further armed with a drawn cutlass. This last personage it was--a fair, good-looking man of thirty, with a short reddish beard and moustache, and wearing a pea-jacket and a peaked cap with a gold band--who, bringing his face into proximity with the opening, proceeded to take silent stock of Burgo and his surroundings. That what he saw filled him with surprise was evident enough from his expression. After satisfying himself that the door was locked and the key missing, he said, addressing himself to Burgo: "Pardon the question, sir, but may I ask whether you are here as a prisoner?"
"That, sir, is my unfortunate position."
"May I inquire for how long a time you have been shut up in this place?"
"For somewhere about a fortnight."
"But during the last few days you have been busy in trying to accomplish your escape?"
Burgo started. "It is quite true, but I should like to know by that means you have become aware of the fact."
The stranger smiled. "The explanation is a very simple one. I am the owner and captain of the steam yacht which you have doubtless remarked during the last few days as being anchored off shore, nearly opposite your window. Now, after having been distinctly given to understand by some of the natives, whom I questioned on the point--for I am a bit of an archaeologist, and such matters interest me--that the tower was in a semi-ruinous condition, and had been uninhabited for the last fifty years, it was certainly somewhat startling to see each evening the window lighted up from within till close on midnight, as also during several hours of each day to behold a human figure perched close against the panes, and engaged in some mysterious occupation which, for a time I was wholly puzzled to make out. At length, with the help of my binocular, I came to the conclusion that the figure was that of a man at work with a file, or some other instrument, on one of the two upright bars which safeguarded the window on its inner side. It is as a result of the knowledge thus obtained by me that you see me here at this moment."
He spoke rapidly, and with a clear decisiveness of tone and manner, like one who was accustomed to imposing his orders upon others, and looked to have them obeyed.
"And now, sir," he resumed, "if after what I have told you, you choose to confide your name to me, and also to inform me to what circumstances your incarceration in this place is owing, it may be that I shall find myself in a position to give you back your freedom in a much readier way than your own unaided efforts would allow of your achieving it."
Thereupon he turned and spoke a few words in a low voice to one of his followers, with the result that all three of them proceeded to tramp downstairs, one after the other, leaving the captain of theNaiadstanding outside the door alone.
By this time Burgo, whose conclusions in moments of emergency were rapidly arrived at, had made up his mind to tell enough of his story to this new-found friend to enlist the latter's sympathies, and thereby insure his own proximate release. He was taken with the stranger's manner and expression; they were manly and straightforward, although not without a touch of imperiousness. You had only to look into his eyes to feel assured that treachery or double-dealing and he were far as the poles asunder.
"My name is Burgo Brabazon," he began, "and I am the nephew of Sir Everard Clinton, who----"
It was now the stranger's turn to start. "Stop," he said abruptly, before Burgo could utter another word. "Tell me your name again, please. I am not sure I caught it aright."
Burgo told him.
"Are you, may I ask, a son of the late Lieutenant Godfrey Brabazon of the Royal Navy, who served at one time on board theArcturus?"
"My father's name was Godfrey Brabazon, and he was a naval lieutenant, but he died when I was little more than a child; and as to whether he ever served on the vessel you speak of I have no knowledge."
"Perhaps, then, you can tell me where he was born, or maybe, I ought rather to say, where he lived for several years as a youth."
"My father was a Tiverton man, born and bred."
"That does away with the last shadow of a doubt. Mr. Brabazon, I am especially glad to make your acquaintance, and still more pleased that it is in my power to be of some slight service to you."
Before more could be said, one of the men came pack, and after whispering something to him, to which he replied by a curt nod, disappeared once more.
Turning again to Burgo, the captain of theNaiadsaid: "I am called away, but you may rely upon seeing me again in less than an hour. A few minutes after that, Mr. Brabazon, you will be a free man."
He nodded, turned away, and was gone.