Under the smoothness of Sir George's words, under the subtle mockery of his manner, throbbed a volcano of passion and vengeance. But this was for the lawyer only, even as he alone saw the moonlight gleam faintly on the pistol barrel that lurked behind his companion's thigh. For Mr. Dunborough, it would be hard to imagine a man more completely taken by surprise. He swore one great oath, for he saw, at least, that the meeting boded him 110 good; then he sat motionless in his saddle, his left hand on the pommel, his right held stiffly by his side. The moon, which of the two hung a little at Sir George's back, shone only on the lower part of Dunborough's face, and by leaving his eyes in the shadow of his hat, gave the others to conjecture what he would do next. It is probable that Sir George, whose hand and pistol were ready, was indifferent; perhaps would have hailed with satisfaction an excuse for vengeance. But Mr. Fishwick, the pacific witness of this strange meeting, awaited the issue with staring eyes, his heart in his mouth; and was mightily relieved when the silence, which the heavy breathing of Mr. Dunborough's horse did but intensify, was broken on the last comer's side, by nothing worse than a constrained laugh.
'Travel together?' he said, with an awkward assumption of jauntiness, 'that depends on the road we are going.'
'Oh, we are going the same road,' Sir George answered, in the mocking tone he had used before.
'You are very clever,' Mr. Dunborough retorted, striving to hide his uneasiness; 'but if you know that, sir, you have the advantage of me.'
'I have,' said Sir George, and laughed rudely.
Dunborough stared, finding in the other's manner fresh cause for misgiving. At last, 'As you please,' he said contemptuously. 'I am for Calne. The road is public. You may travel by it.'
'We are not going to Calne,' said Sir George.
Mr. Dunborough swore. 'You are d----d impertinent!' he said, reining back his horse, 'and may go to the devil your own way. For me, I am going to Calne.'
'No,' said Sir George, 'you are not going to Calne. She has not gone Calne way.'
Mr. Dunborough drew in his breath quickly. Hitherto he had been uncertain what the other knew, and how far the meeting was accidental; now, forgetful what his words implied and anxious only to say something that might cover his embarrassment, 'Oh,' he said, 'you are--you are in search of her?'
'Yes,' said Sir George mockingly. 'We are in search of her. And we want to know where she is.'
'Where she is?'
'Yes, where she is. That is it; where she is. You were to meet her here, you know. You are late and she has gone. But you will know whither.'
Mr. Dunborough stared; then in a tempest of wrath and chagrin, 'D----n you!' he cried furiously. 'As you know so much, you can find out the rest!'
'I could,' said Sir George slowly. 'But I prefer that you should help me. And you will.'
'Will what?'
'Will help me, sir,' Sir George answered quickly, 'to find the lady we are seeking.'
'I'll be hanged if I will,' Dunborough cried, raging and furious.
'You'll be hanged if you won't,' Sir George said in a changed tone; and he laughed contemptuously. 'Hanged by the neck until you are dead, Mr. Dunborough--if money can bring it about. You fool,' he continued, with a sudden flash of the ferocity that had from the first underlain his sarcasm, 'we have got enough from your own lips to hang you, and if more be wanted, your people will peach on you. You have put your neck into the halter, and there is only one way, if one, in which you can take it out. Think, man; think before you speak again,' he continued savagely, 'for my patience is nearly at an end, and I would sooner see you hang than not. And look you, leave your reins alone, for if you try to turn, by G--d, I'll shoot you like the dog you are!'
Whether he thought the advice good or bad, Mr. Dunborough took it; and there was a long silence. In the distance the hoof-beats of the servant's horse, approaching from the direction of Chippenham, broke the stillness of the moonlit country; but round the three men who sat motionless in their saddles, glaring at one another and awaiting the word for action, was a kind of barrier, a breathlessness born of expectation. At length Dunborough spoke.
'What do you want?' he said in a low tone, his voice confessing his defeat. 'If she is not here, I do not know where she is.'
'That is for you,' Sir George answered with a grim coolness that astonished Mr. Fishwick. 'It is not I who will hang if aught happen to her.'
Again there was silence. Then in a voice choked with rage Mr. Dunborough cried, 'But if I do not know?'
'The worse for you,' said Sir George. He was sorely tempted to put the muzzle of a pistol to the other's head and risk all. But he fancied that he knew his man, and that in this way only could he be effectually cowed; and he restrained himself.
'She should be here--that is all I know. She should have been here,' Mr. Dunborough continued sulkily, 'at eight.'
'Why here?'
'The fools would not take her through Chippenham without me. Now you know.'
'It is ten, now.'
'Well, curse you,' the younger man answered, flaring up again, 'could I help it if my horse fell? Do you think I should be sitting here to be rough-ridden by you if it were not for this?' He raised his right arm, or rather his shoulder, with a stiff movement; they saw that the arm was bound to his side. 'But for that she would be in Bristol by now,' he continued disdainfully, 'and you might whistle for her. But, Lord, here is a pother about a college-wench!'
'College-wench, sir?' the lawyer cried scarcely controlling his indignation. 'She is Sir George Soane's cousin. I'd have you know that!'
'And my promised wife,' Sir George said, with grim-ness.
Dunborough cried out in his astonishment. 'It is a lie!' he said.
'As you please,' Sir George answered.
At that, a chill such as he had never known gripped Mr. Dunborough's heart. He had thought himself in an unpleasant fix before; and that to escape scot free he must eat humble pie with a bad grace. But on this a secret terror, such as sometimes takes possession of a bold man who finds himself helpless and in peril seized on him. Given arms and the chance to use them, he would have led the forlornest of hopes, charged a battery, or fired a magazine. But the species of danger in which he now found himself--with a gallows and a silk rope in prospect, his fate to be determined by the very scoundrels he had hired--shook even his obstinacy. He looked about him; Sir George's servant had come up and was waiting a little apart.
Mr. Dunborough found his lips dry, his throat husky. 'What do you want?' he muttered, his voice changed. 'I have told you all I know. Likely enough they have taken her back to get themselves out of the scrape.'
'They have not,' said the lawyer. 'We have come that way, and must have met them.'
'They may be in Chippenham?'
'They are not. We have inquired.'
'Then they must have taken this road. Curse you, don't you see that I cannot get out of my saddle to look?' he continued ferociously.
'They have gone this way. Have you any devil's shop--any house of call down the road?' Sir George asked, signing to the servant to draw nearer.
'Not I.'
'Then we must track them. If they dared not face Chippenham, they will not venture through Devizes. It is possible that they are making for Bristol by cross-roads. There is a bridge over the Avon near Laycock Abbey, somewhere on our right, and a road that way through Pewsey Forest.'
'That will be it,' cried Mr. Dunborough, slapping his thigh. 'That is their game, depend upon it.'
Sir George did not answer him, but nodded to the servant. 'Go on with the light,' he said. 'Try every turning for wheels, but lose no time. This gentleman will accompany us, but I will wait on him.'
The man obeyed quickly, the lawyer going with him. The other two brought up the rear, and in that order they started, riding in silence. For a mile or more the servant held the road at a steady trot; then signing to those behind him to halt, he pulled up at the mouth of a by-road leading westwards from the highway. He moved the light once or twice across the ground, and cried that the wheels had gone that way; then got briskly to his saddle and swung along the lane at a trot, the others following in single file, Sir George last.
So far they had maintained a fair pace. But the party had not proceeded a quarter of a mile along the lane before the trot became a walk. Clouds had come over the face of the moon; the night had grown dark. The riders were no longer on the open downs, but in a narrow by-road, running across wastes and through thick coppices, the ground sloping sharply to the Avon. In one place the track was so closely shadowed by trees as to be as dark as a pit. In another it ran, unfenced, across a heath studded with water-pools, whence the startled moor-fowl squattered up unseen. Everywhere they stumbled: once a horse fell. Over such ground, founderous and scored knee-deep with ruts, it was plain that no wheeled carriage could move at speed; and the pursuers had this to cheer them. But the darkness of the night, the dreary glimpses of wood and water, which met the eye when the moon for a moment emerged, the solitude of this forest tract, the muffled tread of the horses' feet, the very moaning of the wind among the trees, suggested ideas and misgivings which Sir George strove in vain to suppress. Why had the scoundrels gone this way? Were they really bound for Bristol? Or for some den of villainy, some thieves' house in the old forest?
At times these fears stung him out of all patience, and he cried to the man with the light to go faster, faster! Again, the whole seemed unreal, and the shadowy woods and gleaming water-pools, the stumbling horses, the fear, the danger, grew to be the creatures of a disordered fancy. It was an immense joy to him when, at the end of an hour, the lawyer cried, 'The road! the road!' and one by one the riders emerged with grunts of relief on a sound causeway. To make sure that the pursued had nowhere evaded them, the tracks of the chaise-wheels were sought and found, and forward the four went again. Presently they plunged through a brook, and this passed, were on Laycock bridge before they knew it, and across the Avon, and mounting the slope on the other side by Laycock Abbey.
There were houses abutting on the road here, black overhanging masses against a grey sky, and the riders looked, wavered, and drew rein. Before any spoke, however, an unseen shutter creaked open, and a voice from the darkness cried, 'Hallo!'
Sir George found speech to answer. 'Yes,' he said, 'what is it?' The lawyer was out of breath, and clinging to the mane in sheer weariness.
'Be you after a chaise driving to the devil?'
'Yes, yes,' Sir George answered eagerly. 'Has it passed, my man?'
'Ay, sure, Corsham way, for Bath most like, I knew 'twould be followed. Is't a murder, gentlemen?'
'Yes,' Sir George cried hurriedly, 'and worse! How far ahead are they?'
'About half an hour, no more, and whipping and spurring as if the old one was after them. My old woman's sick, and the apothecary from--'
'Is it straight on?'
'Ay, to be sure, straight on--and the apothecary from Corsham, as I was saying, he said, said he, as soon as he saw her--'
But his listeners were away again; the old man's words were lost in the scramble and clatter of the horses' shoes as they sprang forward. In a moment the stillness and the dark shapes of the houses were exchanged for the open country, the rush of wind in the riders' faces, and the pounding of hoofs on the hard road. For a brief while the sky cleared and the moon shone out, and they rode as easily as in the day. At the pace at which they were moving Sir George calculated that they must come up with the fugitives in an hour or less; but the reckoning was no sooner made than the horses, jaded by the heavy ground through which they had struggled, began to flag and droop their heads; the pace grew less and less; and though Sir George whipped and spurred, Corsham Corner was reached, and Pickwick Village on the Bath road, and still they saw no chaise ahead.
It was past midnight, and it seemed to some that they had been riding an eternity; yet even these roused at sight of the great western highway. The night coaches had long gone eastwards, and the road, so busy by day, stretched before them dim, shadowy, and empty, as solitary in the darkness as the remotest lane. But the knowledge that Bath lay at the end of it--and no more than nine miles away--and that there they could procure aid, fresh horses and willing helpers, put new life even into the most weary. Even Mr. Fishwick, now groaning with fatigue and now crying 'Oh dear! oh dear!' as he bumped, in a way that at another time must have drawn laughter from a stone, took heart of grace; while Sir George settled down to a dogged jog that had something ferocious in its determination. If he could not trot, he would amble; if he could not amble, he would walk; if his horse could not walk, he would go on his feet. He still kept eye and ear bent forward, but in effect he had given up hope of overtaking the quarry before it reached Bath; and he was taken by surprise when the servant, who rode first and had eased his horse to a walk at the foot of Haslebury Hill, drew rein and cried to the others to listen.
For a moment the heavy breathing of the four horses covered all other sounds. Then in the darkness and the distance, on the summit of the rise before them, a wheel creaked as it grated over a stone. A few seconds and the sound was repeated; then all was silent. The chaise had passed over the crest and was descending the other side.
Oblivious of everything except that Julia was within his reach, forgetful even of Dunborough by whose side he had ridden all night--in silence but with many a look askance--Sir George drove his horse forward, scrambled and trotted desperately up the hill, and, gaining the summit a score of yards in front of his companions, crossed the brow and drew rein to listen. He had not been mistaken. He could hear the wheels creaking, and the wheelers stumbling and slipping in the darkness below him; and with a cry he launched his horse down the descent.
Whether the people with the chaise heard the cry or not, they appeared to take the alarm at that moment. He heard a whip crack, the carriage bound forward, the horses break into a reckless canter. But if they recked little he recked less; already he was plunging down the hill after them, his beast almost pitching on its head with every stride. The huntsman knows, however, that many stumbles go to a fall. The bottom was gained in safety by both, and across the flat they went, the chaise bounding and rattling behind the scared horses. Now Sir George had a glimpse of the black mass through the gloom, now it seemed to be gaining on him, now it was gone, and now again he drew up to it and the dim outline bulked bigger and plainer, and bigger and plainer, until he was close upon it, and the cracking whips and the shouts of the postboys rose above the din of hoofs and wheels. The carriage was swaying perilously, but Sir George saw that the ground was rising, and that up the hill he must win; and, taking his horse by the head, he lifted it on by sheer strength until his stirrup was abreast of the hind wheels. A moment, and he made out the bobbing figure of the leading postboy, and, drawing his pistol, cried to him to stop.
THE ANSWER WAS A BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT AND A SHOT.
The answer was a blinding flash of light and a shot. Sir George's horse swerved to the right, and plunging headlong into the ditch, flung its rider six paces over its head.
The servant and Mr. Dunborough were no more than forty yards behind him when he fell; in five seconds the man had sprung from his saddle, let his horse go, and was at his master's side. There were trees there, and the darkness in the shadow, where Sir George lay across the roots of one of them, was intense. The man could not see his face, nor how he lay, nor if he was injured; and calling and getting no answer, he took fright and cried to Mr. Dunborough to get help.
But Mr. Dunborough had ridden straight on without pausing or drawing rein, and the man, finding himself deserted, wrung his hands in terror. He had only Mr. Fishwick to look to for help, and he was some way behind. Trembling, the servant knelt and groped for his master's face; to his joy, before he had found it, Sir George gasped, moved, and sat up; and, muttering an incoherent word or two, in a minute had recovered himself sufficiently to rise with help. He had fallen clear of the horse on the edge of the ditch, and the shock had taken his breath; otherwise he was rather shaken than hurt.
As soon as his wits and wind came back to him, 'Why--why have you not followed?' he gasped.
''Twill be all right, sir. All right, sir,' the servant answered, thinking only of him.
'But after them, man, after them. Where is Fishwick?'
'Coming, sir, he is coming,' the man answered, to soothe him; and remained where he was. Sir George was so shaken that he could not yet stand alone, and the servant did not know what to think. 'Are you sure you are not hurt, sir?' he continued anxiously.
'No, no! And Mr. Dunborough? Is he behind?'
'He rode on after them, sir.'
'Rode on after them?'
'Yes, sir, he did not stop.'
'He has gone on--after them?' Sir George cried.
'But--' and with that it flashed on him, and on the servant, and on Mr. Fishwick, who had just jogged up and dismounted, what had happened. The carriage and Julia--Julia still in the hands of her captors--were gone. And with them was gone Mr. Dunborough! Gone far out of hearing; for as the three stood together in the blackness of the trees, unable to see one another's faces, the night was silent round them. The rattle of wheels, the hoof-beats of horses had died away in the distance.
It was one of those positions which try a man to the uttermost; and it was to Sir George's credit that, duped and defeated, astonishingly tricked in the moment of success, and physically shaken by his fall, he neither broke into execrations nor shod unmanly tears. He groaned, it is true, and his arm pressed more heavily on the servant's shoulder, as he listened and listened in vain for sign or so and of the runaways. But he still commanded himself, and in face of how great a misfortune! A more futile, a more wretched end to an expedition it was impossible to conceive. The villains had out-paced, out-fought, and out-manoeuvred him; and even now were rolling merrily on to Bath, while he, who a few minutes before had held the game in his hands, lay belated here without horses and without hope, in a wretched plight, his every moment embittered by the thought of his mistress's fate.
In such crises--to give the devil his due--the lessons of the gaming-table, dearly bought as they are, stand a man in stead. Sir George's fancy pictured Julia a prisoner, trembling and dishevelled, perhaps gagged and bound by the coarse hands of the brutes who had her in their power; and the picture was one to drive a helpless man mad. Had he dwelt on it long and done nothing it must have crazed him. But in his life he had lost and won great sums at a coup, and learned to do the one and the other with the same smile--it was the point of pride, the form of his time and class. While Mr. Fishwick, therefore, wrung his hands and lamented, and the servant swore, Sir George's heart bled indeed, but it was silently and inwardly; and meanwhile he thought, calculated the odds, and the distance to Bath and the distance to Bristol, noted the time; and finally, and with sudden energy, called on the men to be moving. 'We must get to Bath,' he said. 'We will be upsides with the villains yet. But we must get to Bath. What horses have we?'
Mr. Fishwick, who up to this point had played his part like a man, wailed that his horse was dead lame and could not stir a step. The lawyer was sore, stiff, and beyond belief weary; and this last mishap, this terrible buffet from the hand of Fortune, left him cowed and spiritless.
'Horses or no horses, we must get to Bath,' Sir George answered feverishly.
On this the servant made an attempt to drag Sir George's mount from the ditch, but the poor beast would not budge, and in the darkness it was impossible to discover whether it was wounded or not. Mr. Fishwick's was dead lame; the man's had wandered away. It proved that there was nothing for it but to walk. Dejectedly, the three took the road and trudged wearily through the darkness. They would reach Bathford village, the man believed, in a mile and a half.
That settled, not a word was said, for who could give any comfort? Now and then, as they plodded up the hill beyond Kingsdown, the servant uttered a low curse and Sir George groaned, while Mr. Fishwick sighed in sheer exhaustion. It was a strange and dreary position for men whose ordinary lives ran through the lighted places of the world. The wind swept sadly over the dark fields. The mud clung to the squelching, dragging boots; now Mr. Fishwick was within an ace of the ditch on one side, now on the other, and now he brought up heavily against one of his companions. At length the servant gave him an arm, and thus linked together they reached the crest of the hill, and after taking a moment to breathe, began the descent.
They were within two or three hundred paces of Bathford and the bridge over the Avon when the servant cried out that some one was awake in the village, for he saw a light. A little nearer and all saw the light, which grew larger as they approached but was sometimes obscured. Finally, when they were within a hundred yards of it, they discovered that it proceeded not from a window but from a lanthorn set down in the village street, and surrounded by five or six persons whose movements to and fro caused the temporary eclipses they noticed. What the men were doing was not at once clear; but in the background rose the dark mass of a post-chaise, and seeing that--and one other thing--Sir George uttered a low exclamation and felt for his hilt.
The other thing was Mr. Dunborough, who, seated at his ease on the step of the post-chaise, appeared to be telling a story, while he nursed his injured arm. His audience, who seemed to have been lately roused from their beds--for they were half-dressed--were so deeply engrossed in what he was narrating that the approach of our party was unnoticed; and Sir George was in the middle of the circle, his hand on the speaker's shoulder, and his point at his breast, before a man could move in his defence.
'You villain!' Soane cried, all the misery, all the labour, all the fears of the night turning his blood to fire, 'you shall pay me now! Let a man stir, and I will spit you like the dog you are! Where is she? Where is she? For, by Heaven, if you do not give her up, I will kill you with my own hand!'
Mr. Dunborough, his eyes on the other's face, laughed.
That laugh startled Sir George more than the fiercest movement, the wildest oath. His point wavered and dropped. 'My God!' he cried, staring at Dunborough. 'What is it? What do you mean?'
'That is better,' Mr. Dunborough said, nodding complacently but not moving a finger. 'Keep to that and we shall deal.'
'What is it, man? What does it mean?' Sir George repeated. He was all of a tremble and could scarcely stand.
'Better and better,' said Mr. Dunborough, nodding his approval. 'Keep to that, and your mouth shut, and you shall know all that I know. It is precious little at best. I spurred and they spurred, I spurred and they spurred--there you have it. When I got up and shouted to them to stop, I suppose they took me for you and thought I should stick to them and take them in Bath. So they put on the pace a bit, and drew ahead as they came to the houses here, and then began to pull in, recognising me as I thought. But when I came up, fit and ready to curse their heads off for giving me so much trouble, the fools had cut the leaders' traces and were off with them, and left me the old rattle-trap there.'
Sir George's face lightened; he took two steps forward and laid his hand on the chaise door.
'Just so,' said Mr. Dunborough nodding coolly. 'That was my idea. I did the same. But, Lord, what their game is I don't know! It was empty.'
'Empty!' Sir George cried.
'As empty as it is now,' Mr. Dunborough answered, shrugging his shoulders. 'As empty as a bad nut! If you are not satisfied, look for yourself,' he continued, rising that Sir George might come at the door.
Soane with a sharp movement plucked the door of the chaise open, and called hoarsely for a light. A big dingy man in a wrap-rascal coat, which left his brawny neck exposed and betrayed that under the coat he wore only his shirt, held up a lanthorn. Its light was scarcely needed. Sir George's hand, not less than, his eyes, told him that the carriage, a big roomy post-chaise, well-cushioned and padded, was empty.
Aghast and incredulous, Soane turned on Mr. Dunborough. 'You know better,' he said furiously. 'She was here, and you sent her on with them!'
Mr. Dunborough pointed to the man in the wrap-rascal. 'That man was up as soon as I was,' he said. 'Ask him if you don't believe me. He opened the chaise door.'
Sir George turned to the man, who, removing the shining leather cap that marked him for a smith, slowly scratched his head. The other men pressed up behind him to hear, the group growing larger every moment as one and another, awakened by the light and hubbub, came out of his house and joined it. Even women were beginning to appear on the outskirts of the crowd, their heads muffled in hoods and mobs.
'The carriage was empty, sure enough, your honour,' the smith said; 'there is no manner of doubt about that. I heard the wheels coming, and looked out and saw it stop and the men go off. There was no woman with them.'
'How many were they?' Soane asked sharply. The man seemed honest.
'Well, there were two went off with the horses,' the smith answered, 'and two again slipped off on foot by the lane 'tween the houses there. I saw no more, your honour, and there were no more.'
'Are you sure,' Sir George asked eagerly, 'that no one of the four was a woman?'
The smith grinned. 'How am I to know?' he answered with a chuckle. 'That's none of my business. All I can say is, they were all dressed man fashion. And they all went willing, for they went one by one, as you may say.'
'Two on foot?'
'By the lane there. I never said no otherwise. Seemingly they were the two on the carriage.'
'And you saw no lady?' Sir George persisted, still incredulous.
'There was no lady,' the man answered simply. 'I came out, and the gentleman there was swearing and trying the door. I forced it with my chisel, and you may see the mark on the break of the lock now.'
'Then we have been tricked,' Sir George cried furiously. 'We have followed the wrong carriage.'
'Not you, sir,' the smith answered. 'Twas fitted up for the job, or I should not have had to force the door. If 'twere not got ready for a job of this kind, why a half-inch shutter inside the canvas blinds, and the bolt outside, 'swell as a lock? Mark that door! D'you ever see the like of that on an honest carriage? Why, 'tis naught but a prison!'
He held up the light inside the carriage, and Sir George, the crowd pressing forward to look over his shoulder, saw that it was as the man said. Sir George saw something more--and pounced on it greedily. At the foot of the doorway, between the floor of the carriage and the straw mat that covered it, the corner of a black silk kerchief showed. How it came to be in that position, whether it had been kicked thither by accident or thrust under the mat on purpose, it was impossible to say. But there it was, and as Sir George held it up to the lanthorn--jealously interposing himself between it and the curious eyes of the crowd--he felt something hard inside the folds and saw that the corners were knotted. He uttered an exclamation.
'More room, good people, more room!' he cried.
'Your honour ha' got something?' said the smith; and then to the crowd, 'Here, you--keep back, will you?' he continued, 'and give the gentleman room to breathe. Or will you ha' the constable fetched?'
'I be here!' cried a weakly voice from the skirts of the crowd.
'Ay, so be Easter,' the smith retorted gruffly, as a puny atomy of a man with a stick and lanthorn was pushed with difficulty to the front. 'But so being you are here, supposing you put Joe Hincks a foot or two back, and let the gentleman have elbow-room.'
There was a laugh at this, for Joe Hincks was a giant a little taller than the smith. None the less, the hint had the desired effect. The crowd fell back a little. Meanwhile, Sir George, the general attention diverted from him, had untied the knot. When the smith turned to him again, it was to find him staring with a blank face at a plain black snuff-box, which was all he had found in the kerchief.
'Sakes!' cried the smith, 'whose is that?'
'I don't know,' Sir George answered grimly, and shot a glance of suspicion at Mr. Dunborough, who was leaning against the fore-wheel.
But that gentleman shrugged his shoulders. 'You need not look at me,' he said. 'It is not my box; I have mine here.'
'Whose is it?'
Mr. Dunborough raised his eyebrows and did not answer.
'Do you know?' Sir George persisted fiercely.
'No, I don't. I know no more about it than you do.'
'Maybe the lady took snuff?' the smith said cautiously.
Many ladies did, but not this one; and Sir George sniffed his contempt. He turned the box over and over in his hand. It was a plain, black box, of smooth enamel, about two inches long.
'I believe I have seen one like it,' said Mr. Dunborough, yawning. 'But I'm hanged if I can tell where.'
'Has your honour looked inside?' the smith asked. 'Maybe there is a note in it.'
Sir George cut him short with an exclamation, and held the box up to the light. 'There is something scratched on it,' he said.
There was. When he held the box close to the lanthorn, words rudely scratched on the enamel, as if with the point of a pin, became visible; visible, but not immediately legible, so scratchy were the letters and imperfectly formed the strokes. It was not until the fourth or fifth time of reading that Sir George made out the following scrawl:
'Take to Fishwick, Castle, Marlboro'. Help! Julia.'
Sir George swore. The box, with its pitiful, scarce articulate cry, brought the girl's helpless position, her distress, her terror, more clearly to his mind than all that had gone before. Nor to his mind only, but to his heart; he scarcely asked himself why the appeal was made to another, or whence came this box--which was plainly a man's, and still had snuff in it--or even whither she had been so completely spirited away that there remained of her no more than this, and the black kerchief, and about the carriage a fragrance of her--perceptible only by a lover's senses. A whirl of pity and rage--pity for her, rage against her captors--swept such questions from his mind. He was shaken by gusty impulses, now to strike Mr. Dunborough across his smirking face, now to give some frenzied order, now to do some foolish act that must expose him to disgrace. He had much ado not to break into hysterical weeping, or into a torrent of frantic oaths. The exertions of the night, following on a day spent in the saddle, the tortures of fear and suspense, this last disappointment, the shock of his fall--had all told on him; and it was well that at this crisis Mr. Fishwick was at his elbow.
For the lawyer saw his face and read it aright, and interposing suggested an adjournment to the inn; adding that while they talked the matter over and refreshed themselves, a messenger could go to Bath and bring back new horses; in that way they might still be in Bristol by eight in the morning.
'Bristol!' Sir George muttered, passing his hand across his brow. 'Bristol! But--she is not with them. We don't know where she is.'
Mr. Fishwick was himself sick with fatigue, but he knew what to do and did it. He passed his arm through Sir George's, and signed to the smith to lead the way to the inn. The man did so, the crowd made way for them, Mr. Dunborough and the servant followed; in less than a minute the three gentlemen stood together in the sanded tap-room at the tavern. The landlord hurried in and hung a lamp on a hook in the whitewashed wall; its glare fell strongly on their features, and for the first time that night showed the three to one another.
Even in that poor place, the light had seldom fallen on persons in a more pitiable plight. Of the three, Sir George alone stood erect, his glittering eyes and twitching nostrils belying the deadly pallor of his face. He was splashed with mud from head to foot, his coat was plastered where he had fallen, his cravat was torn and open at the throat. He still held his naked sword in his hand; apparently he had forgotten that he held it. Mr. Dunborough was in scarce better condition. White and shaken, his hand bound to his side, he had dropped at once into a chair, and sat, his free hand plunged into his breeches pocket, his head sunk on his breast. Mr. Fishwick, a pale image of himself, his knees trembling with exhaustion, leaned against the wall. The adventures of the night had let none of the travellers escape.
The landlord and his wife could be heard in the kitchen drawing ale and clattering plates, while the voices of the constable and his gossips, drawling their wonder and surmises, filled the passage. Sir George was the first to speak.
'Bristol!' he said dully. 'Why Bristol?'
'Because the villains who have escaped us here,' the lawyer answered, 'we shall find there. And they will know what has become of her.'
'But shall we find them?'
'Mr. Dunborough will find them.'
'Ha!' said Sir George, with a sombre glance. 'So he will.'
Mr. Dunborough spoke with sudden fury. 'I wish to Heaven,' he said, 'that I had never heard the girl's name. How do I know where she is!'
'You will have to know,' Sir George muttered between his teeth.
'Fine talk!' Mr. Dunborough retorted, with a faint attempt at a sneer, 'when you know as well as I do that I have no more idea where the girl is or what has become of her than that snuff-box. And d--n me!' he continued sharply, his eyes on the box, which Sir George still held in his hand, 'whose is the snuff-box, and how did she get it? That is what I want to know? And why did she leave it in the carriage? If we had found it dropped in the road now, and that kerchief round it, I could understand that! But in the carriage. Pho! I believe I am not the only one in this!'
The man whose work had taken him that evening to the summit of the Druid's Mound, and whose tale roused the Castle Inn ten minutes later, had seen aright. But he had not seen all. Had he waited another minute, he would have marked a fresh actor appear at Manton Corner, would have witnessed thedénouementof the scene, and had that to tell when he descended, which must have allayed in a degree, not only the general alarm, but Sir George's private apprehensions.
It is when the mind is braced to meet a known emergency that it falls the easiest prey to the unexpected. Julia was no coward. But as she loitered along the lane beyond Préshute churchyard in the gentle hour before sunset, her whole being was set on the coming of the lover for whom she waited. As she thought over the avowal she would make to him, and conned the words she would speak to him, the girl's cheeks, though she believed herself alone, burned with happy blushes; her breath came more quickly, her body swayed involuntarily in the direction whence he, who had chosen and honoured her, would come! The soft glow which overspread the heights, as the sun went down and left the vale to peace and rest, was not more real or more pure than the happiness that thrilled her. Her heart overflowed in a tender ecstasy, as she thanked God, and her lover. In the peace that lay around her, she who had flouted Sir George, not once or twice, who had mocked and tormented him, in fancy kissed his feet.
In such a mood as this she had neither eyes nor ears for aught but the coming of her lover. When she reached the corner, jealous that none but he should see the happy shining of her eyes--nor he until he stood beside her--she turned to walk back; in a luxury of anticipation. Her lot was wonderful to her. She sang in her heart that she was blessed among women.
And then, without the least warning, the grating of a stone even, or the sound of a footstep, a violent grip encircled her waist from behind; something thick, rough, suffocating, fell on her head and eyes, enveloped and blinded her. The shock of the surprise was so great that for a moment breath and even the instinct of resistance failed her; and she had been forced several steps, in what direction she had no idea, before sense and horror awoke together, and wresting herself, by the supreme effort of an active girl, from the grasp that confined her, she freed her mouth sufficiently to scream.
Twice and shrilly; then, before she could entirely rid her head of the folds that blinded her, a remorseless grip closed on her neck, and another round her waist; and choking and terrified, vainly struggling and fighting, she felt herself pushed along. Coarse voices, imprecating vengeance on her if she screamed, again, sounded in her ears: and then for a moment her course was stayed. She fancied that she heard a shout, the rush and scramble of feet in the road, new curses and imprecations. The grasp on her waist relaxed, and seizing her opportunity she strove with the strength of despair to wrest herself from the hands that still held the covering over her head. Instead, she felt herself lifted up, something struck her sharply on the knee; the next moment she fell violently and all huddled up on--it might have been the ground, for all she knew; it really was the seat of a carriage.
The shock was no slight one, but she struggled to her feet, and heard, as she tore the covering from her head, a report as of a pistol shot. The next moment she lost her footing, and fell back. She alighted on the place from which she had raised herself, and was not hurt. But the jolt, which had jerked her from her feet, and the subsequent motion, disclosed the truth. Before she had entirely released her head from the folds of the cloak, she knew that she was in a carriage, whirled along behind swift horses; and that the peril was real, and not of the moment, momentary!
This was horror enough. But it was not all. One wild look round, and her eyes began to penetrate the gloom of the closely shut carriage--and she shrank into her corner. She checked the rising sob that preluded a storm of rage and tears, stayed the frenzied impulse to shriek, to beat on the doors, to do anything that might scare the villains; she sat frozen, staring, motionless. For on the seat beside her, almost touching her, was a man.
In the dim light it was not easy to make out more than his figure. He sat huddled up in his corner, his wig awry, one hand to his face; gazing at her, she fancied, between his fingers, enjoying the play of her rage, her agitation, her disorder. He did not move or speak when she discovered him, but in the circumstances that he was a man was enough. The violence with which she had been treated, the audacity of such an outrage in daylight and on the highway, the closed and darkened carriage, the speed at which they travelled, all were grounds for alarm as serious as a woman could feel; and Julia, though she was a brave woman, felt a sudden horror come over her. None the less was her mind made up; if the man moved nearer to her, if he stretched out so much as his hand towards her, she would tear his face with her fingers. She sat with them on her lap and felt them as steel to do her bidding.
The carriage rumbled on, and still he did not move. From her corner she watched him, her eyes glittering with excitement, her breath coming quick and short. Would he never move? In truth not three minutes had elapsed since she discovered him beside her; but it seemed to her that she had sat there an age watching him; ay, three ages. The light was dim and untrustworthy, stealing in through a crack here and a crevice there. The carriage swayed and shook with the speed at which it travelled. More than once she thought that the man's hand, which rested on the seat beside him, a fat white hand, hateful, dubious, was moving, moving slowly and stealthily along the cushion towards her; and she waited shuddering, a scream on her lips. The same terror which, a while before, had frozen the cry in her throat, now tried her in another way. She longed to speak, to shriek, to stand up, to break in one way or any way the hideous silence, the spell that bound her. Every moment the strain on her nerves grew tenser, the fear lest she should swoon, more immediate, more appalling; and still the man sat in his corner, motionless, peeping at her through his fingers, leering and biding his time.
It was horrible, and it seemed endless. If she had had a weapon it would have been better. But she had only her bare hands and her despair; and she might swoon. At last the carriage swerved sharply to one side, and jolted over a stone; and the man lurched nearer to her, and--and moaned!
Julia drew a deep breath and leaned forward, scarcely able to believe her ears. But the man moaned again; and then, as if the shaking had roused him from a state of stupor, sat up slowly in his corner; she saw, peering more closely at him, that he had been strangely huddled before. At last he lowered his hand from his face and disclosed his features. It was--her astonishment was immense--it was Mr. Thomasson!
In her surprise Julia uttered a cry. The tutor opened his eyes and looked languidly at her; muttered something incoherent about his head, and shut his eyes again, letting his chin fall on his breast.
But the girl was in a mood only one degree removed from frenzy. She leaned forward and shook his arm. 'Mr. Thomasson!' she cried. 'Mr. Thomasson!'
Apparently the name and the touch were more effectual. He opened his eyes and sat up with a start of recognition, feigned or real. On his temple just under the edge of his wig, which was awry, was a slight cut. He felt it gingerly with his fingers, glanced at them, and finding them stained with blood, shuddered. 'I am afraid--I am hurt,' he muttered.
His languor and her excitement went ill together. She doubted he was pretending, and had a hundred ill-defined, half-formed suspicions of him. Was it possible that he--he had dared to contrive this? Or was he employed by others--by another? 'Who hurt you?' she cried sharply. At least she was not afraid of him.
He pointed in the direction of the horses. 'They did,' he said stupidly. 'I saw it from the lane and ran to help you. The man I seized struck me--here. Then, I suppose they feared I should raise the country on them. And they forced me in--I don't well remember how.'
'And that is all you know?' she cried imperiously.
His look convinced her. 'Then help me now!' she replied, rising impetuously to her feet, and steadying herself by setting one hand against the back of the carriage. 'Shout! Scream! Threaten them! Don't you see that every yard we are carried puts us farther in their power? Shout!--do you hear?'
'They will murder us!' he protested faintly. His cheeks were pale; his face wore a scared look, and he trembled visibly.
'Let them!' she answered passionately, beating on the nearest door. 'Better that than be in their hands. Help! Help! Help here!'
Her shrieks rose above the rumble of the wheels and the steady trampling of the horses; she added to the noise by kicking and beating on the door with the fury of a mad woman. Mr. Thomasson had had enough of violence for that day; and shrank from anything that might bring on him the fresh wrath of his captors. But a moment's reflection showed him that if he allowed himself to be carried on he would, sooner or later, find himself face to face with Mr. Dunborough; and, in any case, that it was now his interest to stand by his companion; and presently he too fell to shouting and drumming on the panels. There was a quaver, indeed, in his 'Help! Help!' that a little betrayed the man; but in the determined clamour which she raised and continued to maintain, it passed well enough.
'If we meet any one--they must hear us!' she gasped, presently, pausing a moment to take breath. 'Which way are we going?'
'Towards Calne, I think,' he answered, continuing to drum on the door in the intervals of speech. 'In the street we must be heard.'
'Help! Help!' she screamed, still more recklessly. She was growing hoarse, and the prospect terrified her. 'Do you hear? Stop, villains! Help! Help! Help!'
'Murder!' Mr. Thomasson shouted, seconding her with voice and fist. 'Murder! Murder!'
But in the last word, despite his valiant determination to throw in his lot with her, was a sudden, most audible, quaver. The carriage was beginning to draw up; and that which he had imperiously demanded a moment before, he now as urgently dreaded. Not so Julia; her natural courage had returned, and the moment the vehicle came to a standstill and the door was opened, she flung herself towards it. The next instant she was pushed forcibly back by the muzzle of a huge horse-pistol which a man outside clapped to her breast; while the glare of the bull's-eye lanthorn which he thrust in her face blinded her.
The man uttered the most horrid imprecations. 'You noisy slut,' he growled, shoving his face, hideous in its crape mask, into the coach, and speaking in a voice husky with liquor, 'will you stop your whining? Or must I blow you to pieces with my Toby? For you, you white-livered sneak,' he continued, addressing the tutor, 'give me any more of your piping and I'll cut out your tongue! Who is hurting you, I'd like to know! As for you, my fine lady, have a care of your skin, for if I pull you out into the road it will be the worse for you! D'ye hear me? he continued, with a volley of savage oaths. 'A little more of your music, and I'll have you out and strip the clothes off your back! You don't hang me for nothing. D--n you, we are three miles from anywhere, and I have a mind to gag you, whether or no! And I will too, if you so much as open your squeaker again!'
'Let me go,' she cried faintly. 'Let me go.'
'Oh, you will be let go fast enough--the other side of the water,' he answered, with a villainous laugh. 'I'm bail to that. In the meantime keep a still tongue, or it will be the worse for you! Once out of Bristol, and you may pipe as you like!'
The girl fell back in her corner with a low wail of despair. The man seeing the effect he had wrought, laughed his triumph, and in sheer brutality passed his light once or twice across her face. Then he closed the door with a crash and mounted; the carriage bounded forward again, and in a trice was travelling onward as rapidly as before.
Night had set in, and darkness, a darkness that could almost be felt, reigned in the interior of the chaise. Neither of the travellers could now see the other, though they sat within arm's length. The tutor, as soon as they were well started, and his nerves, shaken by the man's threats, permitted him to think of anything save his own safety, began to wonder that his companion, who had been so forward before, did not now speak; to look for her to speak, and to find the darkness and this silence, which left him to feed on his fears, strangely uncomfortable. He could almost believe that she was no longer there. At length, unable to bear it longer, he spoke.
'I suppose you know,' he said--he was growing vexed with the girl who had brought him into this peril--'who is at the bottom of this?'
She did not answer, or rather she answered only by a sudden burst of weeping; not the light, facile weeping of a woman crossed or over-fretted, or frightened; but the convulsive heart-rending sobbing of utter grief and abandonment.
The tutor heard, and was at first astonished, then alarmed. 'My dear, good girl, don't cry like that,' he said awkwardly. 'Don't! I--I don't understand it. You--you frighten me. You--you really should not. I only asked you if you knew whose work this was.'
'I know! I know only too well!' she cried passionately. 'God help me! God help all women!'
Mr. Thomasson wondered whether she referred to the future and her own fate. In that case, her complete surrender to despair seemed strange, seemed even inexplicable, in one who a few minutes before had shown a spirit above a woman's. Or did she know something that he did not know? Something that caused this sudden collapse. The thought increased his uneasiness; the coward dreads everything, and his nerves were shaken. 'Pish! pish!' he said pettishly. 'You should not give way like that! You should not, you must not give way!'
'And why not?' she cried, arresting her sobs. There was a ring of expectation in her voice, a hoping against hope. He fancied that she had lowered her hands and was peering at him.
'Because we--we may yet contrive something' he answered lamely. 'We--we may be rescued. Indeed--I am sure we shall be rescued,' he continued, fighting his fears as well as hers.
'And what if we are?' she cried with a passion that took him aback. 'What if we are? What better am I if we are rescued? Oh, I would have done anything for him! I would have died for him!' she continued wildly. 'And he has done this for me. I would have given him all, all freely, for no return if he would have it so; and this is his requital! This is the way he has gone to get it. Oh, vile! vile!'
Mr. Thomasson started. Metaphorically, he was no longer in the dark. She fancied that Sir George, Sir George whom she loved, was the contriver of this villainy. She thought that Sir George--Sir George, her cousin--was the abductor; that she was being carried off, not for her own sake, but as an obstacle to be removed from his path. The conception took the tutor's breath away; he was even staggered for the moment, it agreed as well with one part of the facts. And when an instant later his own certain information came to his aid and showed him its unreality, and he would have blurted out the truth--he hesitated. The words were on the tip of his tongue, the sentence was arranged, but he hesitated.
Why? Simply because he was Mr. Thomasson, and it was not in his nature to do the thing that lay before him until he had considered whether it might not profit him to do something else. In this case the bare statement that Mr. Dunborough, and not Sir George, was the author of the outrage, would go for little with her. If he proceeded to his reasons he might convince her; but he would also fix himself with a fore-knowledge of the danger--a fore-knowledge which he had not imparted to her, and which must sensibly detract from the merit of the service he had already and undoubtedly performed.
This was a risk; and there was a farther consideration. Why give Mr. Dunborough new ground for complaint by discovering him? True, at Bristol she would learn the truth. But if she did not reach Bristol? If they were overtaken midway? In that case the tutor saw possibilities, if he kept his mouth shut--possibilities of profit at Mr. Dunborough's hands.
In intervals between fits of alarm--when the carriage seemed to be about to halt--he turned these things over. He could hear the girl weeping in her corner, quietly, but in a heart-broken manner; and continually, while he thought and she wept, and an impenetrable curtain of darkness hid the one from the other, the chaise held on its course up-hill and down-hill, now bumping and rattling behind flying horses, and now rumbling and straining up Yatesbury Downs.
At last he broke the silence. 'What makes you think,' he said, 'that it is Sir George has done this?'
She did not answer or stop weeping for a while. Then, 'He was to meet me at sunset, at the Corner,' she said. 'Who else knew that I should be there? Tell me that.'
'But if he is at the bottom of this, where is he?' he hazarded. 'If he would play the villain with you--'
'He would play the thief,' she cried passionately, 'as he has played the hypocrite. Oh, it is vile! vile!'
'But--I don't understand,' Mr. Thomasson stammered; he was willing to hear all he could.
'His fortune, his lands, all he has in the world are mine!' she cried. 'Mine! And he goes this way to recover them! But I could forgive him that, ah, I could forgive him that, but I cannot forgive him--'
'What?' he said.
'His love!' she cried fiercely. 'That I will never forgive him! Never!'
He knew that she spoke, as she had wept, more freely for the darkness. He fancied that she was writhing on her seat, that she was tearing her handkerchief with her hands. 'But--it may not be he,' he said after a silence broken only by the rumble of wheels and the steady trampling of the horses.
'It is!' she cried. 'It is!'
'It may not--'
'I say it is!' she repeated in a kind of fury of rage, shame, and impatience. 'Do you think that I who loved him, I whom he fooled to the top of my pride, judge him too harshly? I tell you if an angel from heaven had witnessed against him I would have laughed the tale to scorn. But I have seen--I have seen with my own eyes. The man who came to the door and threatened us had lost a joint of the forefinger. Yesterday I saw that man withhim; I saw the hand that held the pistol to-day givehima note yesterday. I sawhimread the note, and I saw him point me out to the man who bore it--that he might know to-day whom he was to seize! Oh shame! Shame on him!' And she burst into fresh weeping.
At that moment the chaise, which had been proceeding for some time at a more sober pace, swerved sharply to one side; it appeared to sweep round a corner, jolted over a rough patch of ground, and came to a stand.