"''Tis helpless woman's right divine,Her only right—caprice,'"
"''Tis helpless woman's right divine,Her only right—caprice,'"
returned Ada, repeating the quotation with a very pretty emphasis.
"Then let us not question Mrs. Vance's right to exercise her divine prerogative. I dare not rebel—I must only submit. And, by the way, begging your pardon for changing the subject, will you ride with me this evening? I came expressly to ask you. I have my new phaeton and cream-white ponies—the ones I purchased for Lily's use," said he, with a smothered sigh.
She went to the window to look at them.
How beautiful, how proud, how thoroughbred were the restive creatures champing at their silver bits, impatient of the little groom's restraint—how exquisite the costly little phaeton withits luxurious cushions of azure satin, and the azure satin carriage-robe thickly embroidered with white lilies. The equipage was dainty enough for Queen Mab herself. Ada sighed as she thought of the beautiful form that had chosen the rest of the coffin rather than these downy cushions to recline upon.
"It is beautiful," she said, "rarely beautiful. Yes, I will ride with you in the park, Lance. Wait a minute until I get on my wrappings, for I believe it is a little chilly to-day."
She tripped away lightly. Lance looked after her with an affectionate glance.
"A dear, sweet girl," he thought to himself; "surely Mrs. Vance misunderstands her, for I am sure she is true and sweet and kind. How like she grows to Lily."
She came back presently, cloaked and heavily veiled.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"Not quite," she answered. "I had forgotten to put my bouquets into the vases."
She tripped around and disposed of her flowers in the various vases that adorned the room, then came back to him.
"Now, I am ready," said she.
They went out, took their places in the dainty phaeton, the little groom in blue and silver sprang into his place, and they were whirled swiftly away.
From an upper window Mrs. Vance was watching for the young man's departure. She started as she saw him drive off with Ada beside him, and a lurid fire of rage and jealousy blazed in her heart.
"The fair-faced little devil!" she muttered, clenching her hands tightly together. "Oh! that I dared to murder her as I did that other one who came between me and him!"
She paced up and down, wild with contending passions.
"I was wrong to leave them together," she thought, in bitter anger with herself. "He was glad, perhaps, that I came away and left them to an uninterruptedtete-a-tete. I over-reached myself that time; but, ah! Ada Lawrence, woe be unto you if you win him from me!"
The postman's impatient rattling at the door-bell interrupted her angry mood. In a moment a maid rapped at the door, delivered a letter to her and went away.
Mrs. Vance had no correspondents usually. She guessed, with a sharp quiver of anger and fear, whence it came, and held it at arm's length a moment as if it had been a noxious reptile.
"The greedy old harpy," she muttered indignantly, tearing it open at last. "Must she bleed me again so soon?"
She tore the coarse, yellow envelope into a hundred little bits, then angrily scanned the note in her hand. It was very brief, but amounted to an imperative summons from Haidee Leveret to come to the old house to-morrow and bring all the money she could raise.
Old Peter Leveret and Haidee, his wife, after much bickeringand mutual recriminations, attended by more or less pummelling and hair pulling, had at last made an amicable adjustment of their difficulty regarding Mrs. Vance's secret.
Old Haidee, termagant and spit-fire though she was, found herself no match for the eternal reproaches and brutal usage of her thoroughly enraged husband, and eventually confessed herself the weaker vessel by yielding to the pressure of a stronger conjugal power and revealing the secret of her influence over Mrs. Vance, at the same time dividing her ill-gotten spoils with the incensed old ruffian.
It is needless to say that old Peter's greedy soul was not content with these ill-gotten gains. He felt that the beautiful widow had not paid, so far, a tithe of what was due to himself and Haidee as the fortunate possessors of so fatal a secret.
"I tell you, Haidee," said he, "the woman has got to come down heavily with the money, or I shall sell her secret to somebody who will pay a better price for it—perhaps to Mr. Lawrence or that young Darling."
"Yes, and get yourself into a fatal difficulty," retorted the wife contemptuously. "Let me tell you, Peter Leveret, you have more brute strength than I have, but all the sense we own between us is in the head that rests on my shoulders. Suppose you try to sell this secret to Lawrence or Darling, where is your evidence against Mrs. Vance? Did you see her commit the murder? Did I see her commit it? Did Doctor Pratt see her either? No; to all of these questions you have nothing to urge in support of your assertion except the bare suspicion of Doctor Pratt. And if you brought forward his name and got him into difficulty, why, he knows enough evil of us both to send us to the gallows to-morrow. Ah! that word frightens you, does it? Well, Doctor Pratt would do it willingly if we got him into trouble. So I say to you be content with what we can wring out of the woman's fears, and let all else alone. She will prove a mine of wealth to us as long as we can make her believe that there was an actual eye-witness to her crime."
"Well, perhaps you are right, old woman," said Peter, dimly comprehending the indubitable force of her statements. "You were always more cautious than I was, Haidee. Now, don't understand me to imply that you have more sense than I have, for I don't admit it at all. I am more hasty than you, that is all. But I say, as I said before, Mrs. Vance has got to plank the money down more freely."
"But I have told you she has nothing of her own, stupid!" retorted Haidee, impatiently. "She is dependent on Mr. Lawrence for every penny she gets. We must be satisfied with our small gains now, and wait until she gets the rich husband she is angling for. Then we shall reap our golden harvest."
"Aye, aye; but, Haidee, write to the lady and tell her to come here to-morrow and bring all the gold she can lay her hands upon," said Peter with dogged persistency.
"So soon?" said Haidee, hesitatingly. Her greed was as great as her husband's; but she had a fair modicum of caution andcommon sense. "It is but a little while since she gave me the jewels, old man."
"No matter. Write to her again, I say, or it will be the worse for you," scowled Peter, wrinkling up his heavy brows ferociously.
Accordingly, the note to Mrs. Vance was written and dispatched, and the pair of plotters awaited her coming impatiently. But they little anticipated what fatal results to themselves would follow that imperative summons.
That letter awoke in Mrs. Vance a burning desire to be rid of the old couple, whose constant demands for money she would soon be entirely unable to meet.
She had a hundred dollars in gold that Mr. Lawrence had kindly presented to her that morning, with a jesting reference to a "new fall suit."
Her wardrobe needed no replenishing, and she could spare this sum to the rapacity of the old people; but she felt that no sooner would this be yielded to their greed than they would demand more.
And where was the next hush-money to come from? It was not probable that the banker would give her any more money before Christmas, and she could not ask him for more than what his own generosity bestowed on her.
She had no claim upon his beneficence whatever. These two old harpies would be down upon her a dozen times before she would have another penny to give them.
And as soon as they learned her inability to bribe them further, they would carry their fatal secret to Lancelot Darling or Mr. Lawrence.
Mrs. Vance looked these difficulties in the face fairly, and could see but one way out of them. The hideous old witch, and her still more hideous old mate, mustdie.
Must die!No thrill of compunction or pity touched her heart as she made this fatal avowal to herself. On the contrary, she experienced a feeling of relief at the thought, mingled with a longing to consummate the deed quickly that she might taste the sweetness of revenge.
They must die. But how?
Her fertile brain could suggest no feasible plan for the execution of the dreadful deed she was determined upon. All through that night she tossed on a sleepless pillow, revolving various schemes in her excited mind. Morning found her haggard and pale, and all her paints and cosmetics could not conceal her wretchedly ill appearance. She would not present that agitated mien at the breakfast table, and had her morning repast sent up to her room on the plea of a severe headache.
At noon she dressed herself in a plain, dark walking dress, wrapped a double veil about her head and face, and set forth upon her errand. She walked some distance, carefully selecting the most secluded streets, and shunning observation. At length she went into a small apothecary shop and purchased from an inexperienced boy-clerk some strychnine which she said she wanted for the purpose of destroying rats. She paid for it, tuckedthe small parcel inside the palm of her dark kid glove, and walked on steadily to her destination.
Old Peter and his wife had just sat down to their frugal dinner when her quick rap sounded on the hall door. They looked at each other apprehensively.
"It is she, no doubt," said he in a moment. "So the jade is come at last."
He had been swearing all the morning at her tardiness.
Haidee got up and went to the door, unlocked it, admitted the visitor, and turned the key again.
"You see I keep my engagements punctually," said Mrs. Vance, pleasantly, as she tripped in, "although I barely expected to be called on so soon."
The hostess only grunted in reply to this as she ushered the visitor into the low-ceiled, bare-looking room, where old Peter sat blowing his cup of hot tea.
He looked up and gave the new-comer a gruff nod.
Mrs. Vance stood still a moment taking in all her surroundings with a comprehensive glance, then she took the chair Haidee offered her, and placing it in a position to suit herself she sat down.
She had seated herself sidewise from the table, but in close proximity to that corner of it on which sat the old brown tea-pot from whose cracked nozzle issued the fragrant steam of the hot tea. By raising her hand she could have poured out a cup of the refreshing beverage for herself, but she smilingly declined the grim offer of the table's hospitalities that was made by the hostess.
"I thank you, I do not wish for a morsel of food, but I shall be glad of a glass of a fresh, cold water. I have walked the whole distance and am very tired and thirsty."
Haidee arose, and taking a small white pitcher from the cupboard in the corner, went out to the well.
At the same moment old Peter arose, and taking his plate in hand, hobbled to the stove for a portion of the mutton-chop that had been left in the frying-pan for warmth.
In that moment Mrs. Vance saw her opportunity. Her hand fluttered over the lid of the tea-pot and raised it noiselessly, while a quantity of white powder was poured from her other hand into the smoking-hot beverage. It was but the work of a moment. When the host hobbled back to his place she was leaning back in her chair, her hands folded over her lap, and a look of bland unconsciousness on her handsome face. Her nerves seemed steeled against emotion.
Old Haidee entered and pouring a glass of water, offered it in silence. She took it and drained it thirstily with profuse thanks.
"Have you brought us any money?" asked old Peter, sharply, looking up from his voracious feeding.
"What if I have not?" she retorted, jestingly.
"Then it will be the worse for you, my fine lady," he answered, threateningly.
Old Haidee had resumed her place at the head of the table.
"Pray go on with your dinner," said the visitor, in a patronising tone.
The old woman poured a fresh cup of tea for her husband, diluted it plenteously with milk and coarse brown sugar, then replenished her own cup. At the moment when the old man was greedily gulping his portion down, Mrs. Vance put her hand into her pocket and drew out a netted purse of shining gold coin.
"Here is a hundred dollars I was fortunate enough to get for you," said she, handing it reluctantly over to the woman; "and you must understand that I cannot possibly get another penny for you before Christmas; so try and economize it the best you can."
Haidee gulped her tea down hurriedly as she clutched the purse, and the old man hurried around to his wife's side.
"Divide fair is my motto," said he. "Give me the purse, Haidee, and I will count it for you."
"No, you don't, old man," she answered, resolutely holding on to it while her husband's fingers worked eagerly. "I will count it myself! Not a coin will I ever see again if I trust this purse in your itching fingers!"
She poured out the shining mass upon the table and began to count it over carefully, but the sight of it was too much for the grasping soul of the old miser looking on. He thrust out his open claw-like fingers and hastily gathered the whole pile into his greedy clutch, except for one or two coins which escaped and rolled down upon the floor.
In an instant his wife sprang up and bounded upon him like a wild-cat.
There ensued a furious battle that defied description. Mrs. Vance retreated hurriedly to the door, and stood at a safe distance watching the couple as they fought over the gold that was clutched in Peter's fingers, placing him somewhat at a disadvantage, for Haidee, with both hands at liberty, pulled, and tore, and bit with the ferocity of a wild animal.
At length old Peter's tight grasp relaxed, the treasured gold fell from his grasp and rolled here and there upon the floor.
Haidee felt him writhing in her clasp and loosened the hold she had upon his throat, and suffered him to fall upon the floor.
He lay there, rolling and tossing, and uttering hideous groans, while dreadful contortions passed over his features.
"You have killed your husband, woman! Look at his throat, purple from the clasp of your hands!" cried Mrs. Vance from the doorway, laughing aloud at the shocked, incredulous stare of the woman as she gazed at her writhing husband.
At that moment the suffering man gave a furious plunge, rose to a sitting posture, gave a hideous rattle from his throat, and fell backward with a dull thud on the bare floor. He was dead!
Old Haidee stooped over the still form like one dazed.
"Is he really dead?" she said in wonder, feeling that it could not be true. "Have I actually killed my old man?"
"Yes, you have killed him," answered Mrs. Vance, with a fiendish laugh. "Ha, ha, old woman, what is your fatal secret worth now? You, too, are a murderess!"
Old Haidee stood still for a moment, utterly stunned and bewilderedby the suddenness of the blow that had fallen upon her. But as she gazed at the triumphant face of her enemy, her dazed senses seemed to clear and a perception of the truth rushed upon her.
"You lie!" she shrieked, in a voice of horrible rage and despair. "Devil, you have poisoned him, and me, too; I see it all now! You sent me out for the water while you drugged the tea! But I will have my revenge before I die!"
With a dreadful oath she sprang forward. The affrighted woman retreated before her, but old Haidee was too quick for her. In a moment her strong, claw-like fingers were fastened about the fair neck of the beautiful woman. In another moment her sinful soul would have been sent forth to its dread account with Heaven; but before that critical instant arrived, the old witch fell backward on the hard floor, writhing in the agonies that had destroyed her husband.
The widow stepped a few paces back out of reach of her victim, and stood regarding her with a smile of wicked triumph, while the witch, amid her dying groans, hurled the most awful maledictions upon her destroyer.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Mrs. Vance, enjoying her revenge to the utmost limit; "did you think you could play with fire and not be burned? Did you think I would destroy a beautiful and valued life like that of Lily Lawrence, yet suffer two worn-out old hulks to stand between me and my cherished purpose? Ha, ha! you realize your folly, now!"
Her words fell on deaf ears. Old Haidee had expired in horrible agonies, while the jeers and taunts of her destroyer yet echoed in her hearing. She lay inside the door-way where she had fallen, a hideous spectacle of death.
Mrs. Vance lifted her foot and spurned the still body with all the intensity of the hate that burned in her heart.
"They are both dead," she said, aloud. "My evil genius has helped me. I am safe now."
She stepped across old Haidee's body with a slight thrill of repulsion, and entering the room, picked up her purse and began to collect the scattered gold coins.
"I may as well have my money again," she thought to herself. "I need not be in a hurry to get away. No one ever comes here, I am sure."
She placed the last coin in the purse and paused to look around her. Old Peter's ghastly dead face met her view. The wicked eyes, wide open and staring, seemed to threaten her as in life. A shiver of deadly fear thrilled along her veins, seeming to freeze them.
"Great God!" she exclaimed. "What if my sins should find me out!"
She lifted her slender, white hands and regarded them fixedly.
"There is blood upon my hands," she said with an irrepressible shudder. "They look fair and white, but they have sent three human souls into the presence of their Creator. Pshaw! why do I pause to reflect here? Let me cover up the traces of my crime and go."
She took up the shovel, and opening the door of the stove, pulled out a quantity of blazing fire-brands and scattered them recklessly upon the bare floor, tossing one so close to the body of old Peter that his shock of red hair was ignited and burned with a disagreeable stench.
Mrs. Vance turned away with such a laugh as a fiend might have loved to hear, and hurried from the house, leaving the door, which she hastily unlocked, partly ajar.
"It does not matter," she thought to herself. "No one will discover them. The old shell of a house will ignite from the brands directly and burn down to the ground."
Drawing her veil tightly over her face she hurried away over the lonely road. About half a mile from the old house she met a man riding on horseback towards the route she was leaving. He scrutinized the solitary woman keenly, but could make nothing of her thickly shrouded features, and rode onward.
"Some wayfarer," she thought carelessly, and hurried on, eager to leave the hated vicinity of her double crime.
Mr. Shelton's first impulse, after his interesting interview with Mrs. Mason, had been to rush into town, secure a squad of police, and make an immediate raid upon the house of which he had heard such suspicious tales.
Had he obeyed this hasty prompting of his mind, all would have gone well, and this story of mine might have been concluded in a very few more chapters.
But the famous detective in his eventful career had usually found it advantageous to think twice before he acted.
He did so in this case, and his second thought resulted briefly in this: He did not consider that he had as yet sufficient to warrant him in taking the step he at first proposed to himself.
He had no actual grounds for suspicion except the fact that Doctor Pratt and Harold Colville had entered the house, and remained there a seemingly rather long time for a professional call from a busy physician whose time was limited.
Mrs. Mason's information was all gained from the oftentimes worthless gossip of a country neighborhood, and could scarcely be depended on as reliable evidence. The mysterious case of the young girl who had been befriended by the worthy woman might have no connection with the old house and its inhabitants as he had hastily concluded at first.
Considering all the circumstances, the cautious detective determined to wait before taking any decided step, and in the meantime to learn more of the mysterious house if possible.
His pursuit of Pratt and Colville in the next few days took him in entirely different directions, but resulted in nothing satisfactory.
In the meantime Mrs. Mason's gossip about the old house and its wicked inhabitants haunted him persistently. He could not rid himself of the thought. It abode with him by day, and in his sleep assumed the guise of night-mare. The old house actuallypreyed upon him. After a few days of this troubled thinking he came to a firm determination.
"I will go out there and make some plausible excuse for entering, if I can possibly do so," he said, to himself, "and once inside, I will try to find out whether there is ready ground for suspicion and inquiry."
His mind was relieved when he had resolved upon his course. Accordingly, he mounted his black horse and set out that very evening on his quest. He felt disappointed when he passed the tiny cottage of Mrs. Mason and saw the door closed. He missed the pleasant face from the doorway, but the evening was quite cool, and the good soul was, no doubt, knitting inside by her lonely hearthstone.
Within half a mile of his destination he encountered a lady walking rapidly in the dusty road. She was graceful in figure, fashionable in dress, but her thickly-veiled face gave no hint of her identity. The detective looked after her with no little curiosity.
"That is not the sort of woman one expects to see walking alone in this vicinity," he thought. "She has the proud air and step of a fashionable New York lady. And she does not wish to be recognized, else why that thick veil?"
He turned in the saddle and looked after her again. The tall figure of the graceful lady was rapidly receding from sight around the bend in the road.
"Some intrigue is on foot," he laughed to himself, as he rode on. "These fashionable ladies sometimes find time hanging heavy on their hands, and—well, 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.'"
Thus soliloquizing, he found himself in front of the old house which had lately occupied so many of his leisure moments of thought.
He dismounted, fastened his horse, and laid his hand on the heavy gate, peering cautiously inside before entering, being mindful of Mrs. Mason's report of the bloodhound.
"The hound is probably chained up," he thought, after a careful reconnoissance. "Of course they would not allow such a dangerous beast to run at large in the daytime. Now, I must bethink me of my excuse, for I am about to storm the castle of the formidable ogres."
He advanced up the path to the door which, greatly to his surprise, stood slightly ajar.
"I should have thought these reputed misers would keep a locked door to their house," he said to himself, with unconscious disappointment. "I dare say they will prove to be quite ordinary people after all."
He proceeded to rap lightly on the door, then waited a little for a response from within.
No one came to answer his knock. He repeated it once or twice loudly with a like result.
"Are they all dead or asleep, or gone away?" said he, jestingly to himself, as he pushed the door boldly open and looked into the hall.
He saw nothing in the hall but a thin, blue volume of smoke that was pouring out of an open doorway on the right. With a bound he sprang inside and looked into the room.
A horrible sight met his startled eyes as soon as they became accustomed to the cloud of smoke that slowly rose over every thing.
Inside the doorway, at his feet, lay the dead body of an old woman, her aged features distorted and drawn as if by her dying agonies. Near the stove lay another horrible corpse, that of an old and deformed man.
The flooring in front of the stove had become ignited from the brands scattered over it, and was slowly burning through. The clothing of the man had caught fire and every shred was burned off of him, while his charred and frying flesh sent forth a sickening smell. The table with its unfinished repast stood in the center of the room. Several dishes had been knocked off in the furious fight of the old couple, and lay shattered in fragments on the floor. Chairs were overturned and gave silent evidence of the struggle that had gone on so lately in the now silent and deserted room. The detective stood as if rooted to the spot in a trance of horror.
He roused himself at last as he saw what headway the flames were making, like one starting from a dreadful dream.
"Heavens!" he cried out, "this is terrible. Murder and arson have both been committed here!"
He looked about him. Two buckets of water stood on a rude plank shelf. He took them down and poured the water over the burning body of the man, then dashed out into the yard where he remembered he had seen a well as he came in.
He filled the two buckets, carried them in, and poured the contents over the fire. Again and again he repeated this operation till the smoldering fire was quite extinguished, and he stood, weary and perspiring, looking at the dismal scene.
"Well, what next?" he asked himself. "I suppose I ought to go into town and bring the coroner; but first I believe I will explore this horrible den. What if the body I have sought so long should lie hidden in this dreadful lazar house."
He went out into the hall and looked down its narrow length. Three doorways opened into as many rooms. The handles yielded to his touch, and the door of each swung open readily, but the rooms were empty, dark and cobwebbed.
Dust lay thick upon the floor, showing that they had long been untenanted. With a sigh of disappointment he closed them again, and stood contemplating the stairway.
"Better luck in the upper regions, perhaps," he thought. "I wonder if I dare venture up there? Surely I can encounter nothing more fearful than I have seen below."
Slowly, and with some apprehension, he mounted the stairs, not knowing what to expect, and thinking it possible that he might encounter some further dreadful spectacle.
At the top of the stairs he found himself in a narrow passage-way on which three doors opened. He advanced to the first door and tried it.
It yielded easily to his touch, and swung open. He entered and looked about him.
There was nothing suspicious here. It was evidently the sleeping apartment of the two dead people below who would never need it more.
A bed and two chairs constituted the sole furnishing. Some cheap articles of feminine apparel hung upon pegs against the wall, together with one or two rusty old coats and a pair of pants that doubtless belonged to the man he had seen below.
"There is nothing hidden here," thought Mr. Shelton, leaving it and entering the next room.
This room was similar to the first one. A bed and several chairs were all it contained. A single article of feminine apparel hung against the wall.
It was a dress of summer blue, and made in a more fashionable style than the one which he had seen in the adjoining room.
Like a flash he remembered that Mrs. Mason had told him, when describing the appearance of the girl she had befriended, that she wore a "morning dress of a light-blue color, and fashionably made."
"Great Heavens!" he thought, "is it possible that the poor creature escaped from this very house? If so, then she was recaptured and brought back, for here hangs the dress that Mrs. Mason described. My God! what has become of the wearer! Has some fearful fate befallen her?"
Echo only answered him as he sat down trembling with excitement.
He was here in the room where sweet Lily Lawrence had dragged out weary months of captivity, sickness and sorrow; where her pure cheeks had burned at insult and wrong, where she had suffered the pangs of hunger and cold until her weakened frame had almost succumbed to the grim destroyer, death.
But it was silent and deserted now. The dead ashes strewed the hearth, the empty robe hung against the wall, and the cold October wind sighing past the iron-barred window did not whisper of the tender heart that had ached so drearily within.
"This has been a prison for some poor soul," Mr. Shelton said aloud as he noticed the iron bars that guarded the window.
He went out shuddering as if with cold, and advanced to the next room.
The door was locked, but the key had been left upon the outside.
He turned it hastily and stepped over the threshold, half-expecting to find some poor creature incarcerated within.
But silence and gloom greeted him here also.
The room was bare and dreary as the ones he had quitted. A bed and a chair comprised its furniture, and heavy bars of iron secured the solitary window.
"What a horrible prison house," he exclaimed. "And what dreadful deeds of darkness have perhaps been committed within these old walls."
He went to the window and peered out through the heavy barsat the tangled garden. It was faded and dying now, and the russet leaves of autumn strewed the deserted paths.
"My God, what was that?" he exclaimed with a violent start.
A strange sound had grated upon his ears—the distinct clank of a heavy chain and the smothered moan of a human voice.
Involuntarily he looked downward and saw a trap-door in the middle of the room.
"Now some new discovery of human misery," thought the detective as he advanced and pushed the sliding door backward.
A dark and narrow stairway was disclosed. He descended it quickly and entered the empty room beyond.
A feeling of disappointment struck him as he entered the deserted, cobwebbed dungeon, but guided by the sound of faint, low moans he advanced across the floor and opened the opposite door to the one by which he had entered.
Here he paused and swept his hand across his brow, as though to dispel a mist that had risen before his shrinking vision.
There before his eyes, extended on her low cot bed, with the horrible strap and chain about her waist fastened to the iron staple in the floor, with her hungry black eyes glaring on him from her skeleton face, lay poor Fanny Colville in all her abject wretchedness.
"My God!" exclaimed Mr. Shelton, "horrors upon horrors accumulate!"
"Who are you?" asked the poor, wasted creature, looking up into the strange face of the new-comer.
"I am a friend, poor creature—one who will deliver you from your dungeon, and give you liberty," said the detective, advancing into the room.
Joy beamed on the pale, shrunken features of the prisoner. For a moment she could not speak, then she murmured brokenly:
"Thank God for those words! I am starving and dying here. I have not tasted food for two days!"
Mr. Shelton in his frequent excursions had contracted a habit of carrying a flask of wine and paper of crackers in his pocket for his own occasional refreshment.
He took a silver cup from his pocket, and pouring a small portion of wine into it held it silently to the lips of the poor, famishing woman.
She drank it thirstily. He then began to dip crackers into the wine and fed her slowly and carefully.
"You feel better now?" he inquired, after she had consumed a generous portion of the food.
"Oh! so much better," said she, fervently, laying her head back on its hard pillow while the hungry, famished look died out of her eyes and a softer light beamed in them. "I thank you very much, sir. I was on the verge of expiring when you came to my relief!"
"Perhaps you feel well enough to tell me your name now," said he, smiling kindly.
"My name is Fanny Colville," she answered, feebly.
The detective started.
"Are you any relation of Harold Colville, of New York?" he inquired.
"I am his wife," said poor Fanny, simply.
"His wife!" repeated the detective, a gleam of light breaking in on his mind regarding Mr. Colville's visit to this place. "Then why does he keep you chained up here like a dog?" he inquired indignantly.
"He does not know of it," said Mrs. Colville.
"He does not know of it," repeated Mr. Shelton in surprise; "you amaze me, madam. Surely he visited you a few days ago. I saw him leaving the house."
"I do not doubt that he was here. It is more than probable he was, but he did not come to see me. He believes me dead. He hired the old woman here to kill me and my child. He was weary of me and sighed for a fairer face," explained the deeply wronged wife.
"Yet the old woman, more merciful than your husband, spared your life," said he.
"She killed my child and let me live because she loved to have something about her that she might torture at will," said the poor woman bitterly. "She has had me chained in here for two years, fed upon bread and water, and an insufficient allowance of that. Oh! God, how I hate that woman, and how I long to avenge my wrongs!"
"She is beyond the reach of both your hatred and your vengeance, Mrs. Colville. She is dead," said Mr. Shelton, solemnly.
"Dead? Old Haidee Leveret dead? It cannot be true," said Haidee's poor victim, with incredulous joy shining in her eyes.
"I assure you, madam, it is perfectly true. When I came here a few minutes ago I found both her and her husband lying dead upon the floor down-stairs, and the room in flames. But for my opportune arrival in time to extinguish the fire, the house must have soon burned down, and you would inevitably have perished with it."
Fanny trembled like a leaf in a storm.
"It was a narrow escape," she murmured. "And so they both are dead. Did they kill each other?"
"I should say not," replied Mr. Shelton. "They both looked as though they had been poisoned. They certainly died suddenly, for their half-consumed dinner was upon the table. This fact, taken in conjunction with the fire, leads me to think they were poisoned by some enemy who then set fire to the house to cover up all traces of the crime."
"They have met with a fearful punishment for their evil deeds," said Fanny, solemnly.
"And now I wish to ask you a question," said her deliverer, "Do you know of any reason for Mr. Colville's visits here now, since he does not come to see you?"
"The villain," she uttered, indignantly. "Oh, yes, sir. I knowfull well. He has a young girl imprisoned here whom he is trying to force into a marriage with him."
Mr. Shelton saw that she was growing weak and faint, and poured a little wine between her lips.
"That makes me feel stronger," she said, reviving.
"Mrs. Colville," he said, "you must be mistaken. I have searched the house carefully through, and there is not another living soul here beside yourself."
"Oh, then she has either escaped again or they have removed her to another place," was the confident reply.
"Are you quite sure the lady was ever imprisoned in this house, Mrs. Colville?"
"Oh, I am perfectly sure of that, sir. She occupied the room above me for some time. My groans troubled her so that she sought for me and found me here in my misery."
"And she told you that she was your husband's prisoner?"
"Yes, sir," answered poor Fanny, sighing. "I had her whole sad story from her own sweet lips."
"Was she a New York lady?" inquired the detective, evincing a deep interest.
"Yes, sir, and the daughter of a wealthy man."
"If you feel equal to the task I wish you would tell me all you know about the lady. I am deeply interested in her fate," said he very gently, though he was burning with impatience to learn more of Colville's mysterious prisoner.
"I think I am strong enough. Your coming has put new life and hope into me," answered the grateful creature.
"Go on, then," said he. "Did the wicked Colville abduct her from her home?"
"Worse than that, sir. She was a young lady who was murdered by a jealous woman. A Doctor Pratt, the friend and abettor of Colville in all his sins, was called in to view the body of the murdered girl. He pronounced her dead. In reality he discovered that she was in a curious condition known to the medical profession as catalepsy. He suffered them to bury her, then stole her body from the vault and sold it to Colville, who was in love with her. They brought her here, used every means to bring her to life, and at length succeeded. She revived after four days and found herself the prisoner of my husband, dead to all the world beside, and doomed never to see her friends again unless she consented to become his wife."
She paused, overcome by exhaustion.
Mr. Shelton sat white and rigid on the foot of the cot regarding her fixedly. He seemed frozen into a statue. At length he gasped rather than spoke:
"Her name?"
Fanny Colville's wasted hand went up to her brow in painful perplexity.
"I do not seem to recollect it. Strange that I should forget. I am sure she told me," she murmured.
"Try and think of it, Mrs. Colville. Much depends upon it," urged Shelton, anxiously.
She was silent a few moments, lost in troubled thought. At length she said, timidly:
"I am afraid I cannot recall it, sir. My poor brain is dazed by my troubles, perhaps. But I am sure of one thing. She had the name of a flower, sir—a beautiful flower. I remember that, because it seemed to suit her so well."
Shelton's eyes brightened.
"Was her name—Lily?" he asked, impressively.
Instantly a gleam of remembrance irradiated the listener's face.
"Lily, Lily!" she said; "yes, that was indeed her name, sir. How could I forget it when I remembered everything else so well? I recall it distinctly now. ItwasLily—Lily Lawrence."
Shelton sprang up with a cry that rang through the dungeon.
He was like one dazzled by the flash of light that broke in upon his mind.
Here was the solution of the dreadful mystery that had baffled him for weary months, the confirmation of the vague suspicion that had haunted him for days.
It was a living, breathing, beautiful woman he sought instead of a cold and lifeless body! No wonder the banker's reward failed of its object!
"She tried to escape from here, did she not?" he inquired abruptly.
Fanny replied by relating the circumstances of Lily's two attempts at escape, and how Colville had carried her off the second time from under her father's own roof.
"The villains! the fiends!" muttered Shelton, crushing an oath between his clenched teeth.
"After they brought her back again she was put into the room above me, but only for a night. She came in to see me after midnight, and promised to come again soon. But she never came, and I concluded that she had been removed to another place. I am confident she has not escaped from them, for had she done so she would have sent someone to liberate me at once."
"Colville and Pratt spent an hour here five days ago," said he, "so it seems probable that she was still here up to that date."
"No doubt of it. I suppose old Haidee put her into another room for fear that she might discover me down here, and also because the trap-door in that room is the only entrance which she had to bring my weekly dole of bread and water through," said Fanny.
It was getting on toward sunset, and just then they heard the loud baying of the bloodhound. Shelton started.
"It is the horrible hound that is chained up in a kennel in the garden," exclaimed Fanny. "He has missed his dinner and is hungry, I suppose."
"I will put a bullet in his brain before I go away from here," said Shelton, curtly.
"Now, Mrs. Colville," he continued, "I must leave you a little while. I will go and report these dead bodies to the coroner, and I must secure some easy vehicle to transport your poor aching body away from here to a comfortable place. Do you think you can wait patiently? I shall be absent but a few hours at farthest."
"Oh, yes, I can wait. But you will be sure to come back again?" she said, anxiously.
He smiled at her pathetic tone.
"Yes, I will certainly return," he answered, confidently. "And I will take you to the house of a good woman who will feed you and nurse you back to health again. I have one favor to ask you," said he, pausing.
"You have only to name it," said she, "if it lies in my power to grant it."
"It is this. When I bring the officers here and they question you, will you withhold the story you have told me—even your name? It will be very easy to do so. Your emaciated condition and feebleness will easily excuse you from giving any evidence at present."
"I will do as you wish me, sir," she answered, in some surprise.
"I do not mean you any harm, dear madam," he explained. "Far from it. My reason is this. If this story gets into the papers (as it certainly must if you relate it to the coroner), it will put those two villains on their guard, and though we could arrest them on your evidence, they might never reveal the place where they have hidden their unhappy victim. But if they are still suffered to go at large, free and unsuspecting, I can track them to their lair and rescue her. So I only ask you to postpone your evidence until such time as I have delivered Lily Lawrence and put these wretches inside of a prison."
"Your reasoning is very clear," answered Fanny. "I will do just as you have told me, sir."
"Thanks; I will leave you my wine and biscuits for refreshment," said he, smiling, and putting them by her side. "Keep up your spirits, Mrs. Colville. I will soon return and remove you to a safe and comfortable home."
He hurried away, fastening the door carefully after him, and went out in the garden in search of the howling, hungry brute. He found him tearing madly at his chain in his rage to get away and seek for food. It made abortive attempts to reach Mr. Shelton when he came in sight, but the detective coolly drew a pistol from his pocket, and fired a bullet into the brain of the dangerous creature, who instantly fell dead. He then walked away, mounted his horse and galloped rapidly towards the city.
At Mrs. Mason's gate he stopped and dismounted. The kind woman opened the door and beamed on him smilingly as she invited him to enter. He did so and soon made known the object of his visit.
"My curiosity about the old house we spoke about when I first saw you," said he, "induced me to visit it this afternoon. I did so, and to my horror I found the old people lying dead in the house. While exploring it I discovered a poor, imprisoned woman in a weak and starving condition. She needs to be removed to a safe and quiet place where she may be carefully tended, for she has enemies who would not scruple to kill her if they discovered her whereabouts. Mrs. Mason, you are a kind and motherly woman, and your home is quiet and secluded. Will you receivethat poor soul here and take care of her? I will pay you generously for the trouble."
Mrs. Mason promised to do all he asked, her kind eyes brimming with sympathetic tears, and he resumed his journey to the city, reported the case to the coroner, and secured a comfortable carriage for the use of Fanny Colville.
After the inquest the grateful creature was removed to the tiny cottage of Mrs. Mason.
The next day the generous detective took care to furnish wines and jellies and every needful luxury for building up an exhausted frame, and himself conveyed them to the new home of the invalid.
My readers are wondering, perhaps, as to the fate of our beautiful and unfortunate heroine.
Let us go back a little in our story and take up the thread of her adventures.
It was the night previous to the day on which the two Leverets came to their death at the hands of Mrs. Vance. Up to that night Lily Lawrence had remained under the guardianship of the wicked old pair.
It was nearly nine o'clock when Lily sat before the fire in her room, her small hands resting on the arms of the chair, her eyes fixed sadly on the glowing coals in the grate. Old Haidee had brought her supper in and departed. She was alone for the night.
The young girl was simply habited in a neat, dark woolen dress. Cuffs and collar she had none, for Haidee, in providing her a winter dress, had had no thought or care for those delicate feminine accessories of the toilet. The thick, dark fabric fastened about her white throat and wrists rendered her extreme pallor and delicacy doubly striking. The earthly tabernacle seemed growing white and transparent enough for the bruised and wounded young soul to glimmer through.
She was thinking of Lancelot Darling—her betrothed husband—and now and then hot tears welled from her eyes and rolled down upon her pale cheeks. She wondered if he still remained faithful to her memory, or if, indeed, the wily widow had won him from her, as Doctor Pratt and Harold Colville had so confidently asserted.
"It is false," she said to herself, through her fast falling tears. "Lance loved me too truly to forget me so soon. What if I did see him bending over that wicked woman, turning the leaves of her music as he was wont to do for me? She had beguiled him to her side by the fascinating arts which a true woman would disdain. It was to win him that she tried to murder me. But though I never see my lover again I will not believe he could love her after having loved me, even though she might try to poison my memory with her false tale of suicide. No, no; I will believe in the loyalty of my lover until my latest breath."
She was sitting near the side of the fireplace, and on the otherside of the wall old Peter and Haidee, who had retired to their room for the night, were sitting over their fire and talking earnestly together. She could hear the sound of their voices quite distinctly, for on her side of the room there was a large cracked place in the wall from which the plaster had fallen out, leaving a thin aperture through which voices were distinctly audible. Lily had never felt any desire before to hear the conversation of the old couple, but at this moment a sudden curiosity seized upon her as she heard the sound of her own name distinctly repeated.
Rising noiselessly from her chair she knelt upon the floor, and, placing her ear against the broken place in the wall, listened intently.
Their words and even the tone of their voices were plainly audible to her trained and acute hearing.
Words were being spoken by that wicked old pair that seemed to chill the blood in her veins to an icy current as she knelt there listening to the awful doom she had no power to avert.
"Yes," said the woman's voice, sharply, "I hate the girl so that I could strangle her with my own hands! Ever since the day she knocked me down and escaped from me, I have hated her with the hate of hell!"
"Aye, aye," said old Peter; "then why delay the deed we have long been determined upon. I am in favor of getting it done and over with."
"If I were not afraid of the vengeance of Pratt and Colville," said she, hesitating. "It's a terrible risk to run."
"Ten thousand dollars is worth running a considerable risk for," answered the old miser. "Now, here is the way we are placed, Haidee: Harold Colville will give us a few paltry hundreds for keeping the girl here, but her father will pay ten thousand dollars to the person who delivers her dead body, and no questions asked. How can you hesitate which to choose?"
"My God!" thought the wretched girl, with a wildly beating heart, "they are planning to murder me."
"I would not hesitate a moment—you know that, Peter—only that I see the difficulties in the way more plainly than you do," said the cautious Haidee.
"Difficulties—now that is the way with women, the silly geese," snorted Peter in angry contempt. "They always make mountains of mole-hills! What difficulties can you see, I wonder."
"How could we account to Pratt and Colville for her disappearance?" answered she.
"Easily enough; I have told you that twenty times before, old dunder-head! Say that she has escaped from us again."
"They would not believe it when they know that we both guard the door—they would not believe such a tale in the face of our united strength," returned she, rather shortly.
"Say that I was ill—say that I was drunk—or that I fell down in a fit before the door, and while you were assisting me she rushed past and escaped. Say anything you please to account for it—only tell them that she has given us the slip. They cannot helpbut believe it, knowing that she has made two desperate attempts before."
"That is true," she admitted; "still, when they find the body has been returned to the banker, and the ransom paid, what will they think then?"
"They will think that some designing person has palmed off a spurious body on them at first, and before they learn better we can be off and away to another city, Haidee. It all seems so plain and easy to me I wonder why you hang back so."
"My God! this is horrible," breathed poor Lily to herself, but a dreadful fascination held her immovable to her post.
"And then, the body itself," pursued Haidee. "It would have the look of one lately dead. How could we account to her friends for that? Remember, she is supposed to be dead these five months."
"Haidee, you are an old fool! You are getting into your dotage—what silly questions you ask, to be sure," panted the old man, in a furious rage with his hesitating wife.
"Oh, yes, I hear all that. But you have not answered my question yet," returned she, pertinaciously.
"I have answered it twenty times before—every time that we talked the matter over. We can say that we had it embalmed so that her friends might make sure of her identity when we claimed the ransom."
The old witch sat silently pondering a few minutes.
"Perhaps that would do," she said, rousing herself at last. "It may be that I am over cautious; I confess that I wish the girl dead."
"You consent then?" said Peter eagerly.
"Yes, I consent," she answered, with a ring of fierce joy in her unwomanly tones.
"Now that's my sensible wife," said Peter, transported with joy. "I thought you would come to your senses after a while. Well, since youarewilling I say the sooner the better."
"Yes, the sooner the better," his wife repeated after him.
"Let it be to-night then," suggested Peter, who did not want to give Haidee's cautious fears any time to change her resolution. He believed in the old adage: "Strike while the iron is hot."
"Yes," answered Haidee readily, "let it be to-night."
The listener's heart gave a great fluttering bound and then sank like lead in her bosom.
Through all that she had suffered the desire of life, and the hope of ultimate release had remained strong in her breast. How could it be otherwise with one so young and lovely, and for whom life held so much? Now all her hopes were blighted in the dreadful knowledge just come upon her. Death in the horrible form of murder was about to blot out her young and tender life forever from the earth. She clasped her hands together, and repressing a strong desire to shriek aloud, lest that cry of anguish should precipitate her fate, listened on.
"Who will do the deed?" asked Peter, who was a coward in spite of his braggadocio.
"I will!" said Haidee, fiercely. "I will get my revenge uponher thus. Presently, when she is asleep and dreaming perhaps of her home and her lover, I will steal in upon her and clasp my hands around her white little neck and strangle her to death."
"It is settled, then," said old Peter, with a fiendish chuckle of delight. "Get our pipes, now, Haidee, and let us sit up and wait till the time comes."
Lily Lawrence dropped down upon the floor and lay there like one already smitten with death.
"Oh, God!" she thought, "if I only had not listened I might indeed have been asleep, and death might have stolen on me unconsciously. How dreadful to lie here and wait for death each moment."
She lay there shuddering and trying to pray as the fatal minutes crept on, each one bearing away on its swift sands the brief span of precious life yet left her.
At each movement in the next room she shivered and started, thinking that old Haidee was about to come forth to execute her murderous task.
How long she lay there weeping and praying she never knew, but at length she heard the clock in the lower hall strike ten.
The next instant stealthy steps came gliding through the hall to her door.
Already she seemed to feel the horrible clutch of old Haidee's hands about her warm, white throat, pressing out the life.
"Oh, God spare me!" breathed Lily, clasping her hands in agony as she heard the key grate in the lock, and the hand of the murderess turning the knob of the door.
At that instant, before the door opened, while but a moment intervened between Lily and a horrible death, a loud and hurried knocking was distinctly heard down-stairs. It was so startling, coming upon the previous utter stillness, that old Haidee darted back to her own room in a fright, and directly she and her husband were heard making a shuffling descent of the stairs. Lily arose upon her feet in a tumult of hope.
"Who can it be?" she murmured. "Can it be possible that rescue is at hand?"
The revulsion from despair and terror to instant hope was too great to be borne.
Her slight form wavered an instant, then unconsciousness stole upon her and she fell prostrate on the floor.
In the meantime the old couple down-stairs, after removing bolts and bars, admitted, to their astonishment and dismay, the two conspirators, Pratt and Colville.
"You were not expecting me, eh?" said Doctor Pratt, with a laugh at Haidee's astonished look as she blinked at him beneath the flaring candle she held aloft. "Well, that cursed hound of yours was not expecting me either. He had nearly taken a piece out of my throat before he recognized my voice and became pacific. I had thought he must have known me at once. Lookyou, I shall put a bullet in his head some day, the blood-thirsty brute!"
"If you do, you will destroy the best safeguard you have against the escape of your prisoner," said Haidee, shortly.
"Ah! well, let him live a little longer then, but you must teach him not to forget his old friends," was the careless reply.
"You come late, doctor. We did not expect you, and were about retiring," said old Peter.
"Yes, we thought it better to come by stealth," said Pratt, shortly. "The fact is, Colville has taken it in his head that we are watched by some fellow, and it suits us to be wary just now. We wish to see Miss Lawrence at once. Is she safe and well?"
"As safe and well as usual. Starvation does not seem to agree with her very well," answered Haidee, leading the way up-stairs with her flaring candle.
"It will break her proud spirit all the sooner," said Colville, brutally, as he followed them.
Haidee stepped into the hall, opened Lily's door and entered, nearly falling over the prostrate form of the girl. She started back in dismay.
"Why, what—the devil!" cried Pratt, entering behind her. "What has happened to the girl? Is she dead?"
He knelt down, felt the pulse, and laid his ear over the heart as Colville and Peter entered after him.
"She is in a faint," he said, looking up into Colville's frightened face. "Our arrival was most opportune. Haidee, bring wine or whatever stimulants you have in the house. Her vitality is exhausted. The late regimen has been too severe for her weak constitution, perhaps."
He straightened the still form out upon the floor and applied a vial of pungent smelling salts to her nostrils. In a moment life came fluttering back, and Lily's languid gaze opened upon the faces of her enemies. The white lids closed again and a heart-wrung sigh drifted over her lips.
Doctor Pratt lifted the light form in his arms and laid her upon the bed as Haidee entered, carrying a glass of wine. He took it from her hand and held it to the lips of his patient.
"Drink this, Miss Lawrence," he said, "you are weak and faint; it will revive you."
She drank it thirstily, and felt a momentary thrill of returning strength. Rising on her elbow she looked at them all languidly.
"You time your visit late, gentlemen," she said, with a slight inflection of scorn on the concluding word.
"We are obliged to consult our own convenience rather than yours, Lily. Pardon our informal and ill-timed visit," said Mr. Colville, coming forward to her side.
She flashed a look of scorn upon him, but deigned no reply. He turned to the two old people who stood waiting.
"You may go," he said. "We will apprise you when we are about to leave."
"No, let them remain," said Lily, imperiously. "I have something to say to you, Mr. Colville, and I desire that these,your friends, may hear it."
Old Peter and Haidee looked at each other in some trepidation at her words and manner, but stood still, curious and a little frightened.
"Myfriends," muttered Colville, indignantly; "Miss Lawrence, I do not choose my friends from among such rabble, I assure you!"
"Do you not?" said she, contemptuously. "Yet if you had a precious treasure, Mr. Colville, and desired to guard it very carefully, you would entrust it to your best friends rather than your enemies—would you not?"
"Assuredly," he answered, wondering what she meant by her strange words and manner.
"You would? and yet you have professed to regard me as the thing most precious upon earth to you while you have given the lie to the assertion by leaving me here in the keeping of these wretches whom you disdain to own as your friends. Is it not so?"
He quailed before the scorn in her ringing voice, and the proud gesture of her lifted finger.
"You were safe with them," he muttered. "My dearest friends could not have guarded you more faithfully than they have done."
"It is false," she said, scornfully. "My life has been in constant jeopardy at their hands ever since I first entered this house."
"Miss Lawrence, you are raving," said Doctor Pratt. "These people have been paid to keep you here: it is to their interest to do so. And why should you fancy yourself in danger from them?"
"It is no fancy," she answered, coldly, while her scathing glance fell upon the cowering pair of interrupted murderers like lightning a moment, then returned to the faces of those she addressed. "I assure you, Doctor Pratt, and you, Mr. Colville, that your sudden coming interrupted her—I was on the point of beingmurderedby that woman there!"
"She lies!" cried Haidee and Peter, simultaneously.
"Silence, wretches!" thundered Dr. Pratt, furiously, reading guilt in their very faces. "Let the lady tell her story, then deny it if you can."
"It is the wine that has got into her head," whined Peter, abjectly.
"Silence, fellow! Now, go on with your story, Miss Lawrence," said the physician, impatiently.
Thus encouraged, Lily related every word of the frightful conversation that was indelibly stamped on her memory. There was no discrediting her assertions. The truth was unmistakable.
"She was just opening the door," concluded Lily, "when your loud knocking frightened her away. My relief from the pressure of over-wrought feeling was so great that I fainted when I attempted to stand up again!"
Dr. Pratt was foaming at the mouth with such furious rage that he could not speak. Colville, pale, trembling, with chattering teeth and staring eyes, found his voice first.
"Wretches! Devils!" he shouted, in a voice hoarse with passion, as he pointed to the door. "Go hide yourselves from my sight before I rend you limb from limb!"
The craven wretches slunk away and locked themselves into their room in wild fear lest the two infuriated men should put their threat into execution. Colville came forward and stood by the bedside of the young girl who had fallen back panting from weariness after her denunciation of the would-be murderers.
"Lily," he said abjectly, "I am so unnerved by the thought of the horrible fate you have just escaped that I can scarcely speak: but, believe me, my dearest girl, I thought you perfectly safe in this place, I never dreamed of such perfidy in these hired servants of my will."
"This is no time for apologies," interrupted the doctor abruptly. "Make them hereafter when you have more leisure and better command of your feelings. At present the most important thing is to remove Miss Lawrence from this house immediately, and place her in a safer retreat."
He drew Colville aside one moment.
"I know of a place a few miles from here," he whispered, "to which I have theentree. The place is a private mad-house, and is kept by a doctor who is a very particular friend of mine. I know of no better retreat at present for our fair little friend. He will receive her with pleasure, and you can represent her as insane if it pleases you."
"Let us take her there then," answered Colville.
Doctor Pratt took down a dark cloak with a hood attached which hung against the wall.
"Miss Lawrence," he said, quite courteously, "my carriage is at the gate and I find it necessary to remove you at once from the perils that environ you here. Put on this cloak and let us go. I will find means afterward to punish these wretches for their perfidy."
Lily obeyed in silence, and was led down between them to the waiting carriage.
The Leverets did not appear again, nor did the hound offer to molest them.
Placing their prisoner in the carriage the two confederates drove rapidly away over the country road.