when upon the poor gentleman, starved and re-fettered, descended once more the sick loneliness of confinement, he assured himself that only a little time now was needed to see the quenching of his last spark of reason. he was so exhausted and unstrung—so doubly weakened by this latest wanton cantrip of fortune, as to feel that the spirit of venture, fluttering within him on a broken wing, was physically incapable at last of the least independence of action. he looked upon himself as one who, having half raised a fallen treasure from a near-inaccessible ledge, has let it slip out of pure carelessness into the abyss; and so regarding his folly, he was miserably ready, like the born gambler he was, to cry kismet! over his punishment.
the girl it was concerned him most—prominently for her own sake, but also because he might not guess what her seizure betokened, or what weak defences had made the fact of it possible. about her condition, or her safety in the midst of these lawless ruffians, his brain was too worn to speculate; but at least he could understand that the purpose for which she was held would not be allowed to perish upon itself of inaction.
he was only numbly conscious of the passing hours; the semi-torpor induced by cold and hunger deadened the pain of his scarified wrists, and he sat or lay huddled against the hearth unmoved to the least further effort of self-release. sometimes, as evening crept on and darkened, he was aware, in a confused manner, of jangling sounds about the house that he dimly associated with the definite business of life—the rattle of pans and of crockery; the purr of rough voices strangely attuned to the pitch eloquent of the domestic virtues; later, a harsher medley of discords—the song, the quarrel, the crash of boisterous mirth, and often enough the thud of blows or shuffle of drunken feet. intermittently through all, the penance-walk of the sentry in the passage went monotonously on, now dragging sullenly, now moved to some spasmodic briskness as the laugh bubbled high in the kitchen, now accented with a curse like a dog’s snap at a fly. intermittently, too, came the hum of voices from the room opposite, sinking and swooping and moaning, as if a wind of evil thoughts were there gathering for any purpose of destruction.
and the night deepened, and the cold; and deep sank the expression of both into his tormented soul.
once he thought he heard a window opened and the sound of voices in parley; and at that the least spark of hope flickered in him that negotiations (of what nature he was too stupefied to so much as remotely conceive) were in process on his behalf. but the murmur ceased and the glass was rattled to, and a profounder misery settled upon him that the little needle of light had showed itself to vanish.
he was abandoned to his fate; and about that he felt no bitterness. only he greatly desired that the climax of his personal affairs should suffer no long postponement.
it may have been an hour short of midnight when, with his sad eyes fixed upon the moonlit square of window, his lids closed involuntarily and he sank into a sort of unresting stupor of the faculties. how long this travesty of sleep dwelt with him he might not know; but in an instant he had leapt from it and made as if to scramble to his feet. something, that seemed to his disordered mind horribly suggestive of evil, had come between him and the white patch of the casement.
he tried to cry out, and found no power but for a sigh; and suddenly the shape was beside him, silently, on its knees, and an arm was round his neck and a soft hand upon his mouth.
“betty, betty, betty!” whispered a tiny febrile voice in his ear—and instantly he knew, and, giving a little broken whinny, dropped his tired head upon her shoulder.
she clasped him, and she made no shame to kiss him with her lips like flowers; and then very gently, very pitifully, she passed her fingers over his right ear, over his left, and gave a heaving sigh from the bosom that lifted against his cheek.
“oh, the cowards, the cowards!” she whispered, “to fright me so, and for a lie!”
he found a little voice for her. he would have, i think, from the grave.
“are you come to save me, betty?”
“yes.”
“my hands are tied behind. they are so cut and bound i have lost all feeling in them; and if i shouldn’t be able to rise, betty?”
she held his head to her convulsively. she cried silently, as a woman can if she will.
“we must not be a moment,” she whispered. “i hear them talking. we must move like mice. there is a horror outside; but what of it, if it let me pass to you.”
she put her hand again on his mouth, tacitly bidding him to the most tense silence. with her heart torn with pity, she bent and examined the knots. they were cruelly drawn, but love and good white teeth will work sufficient miracles. she had cracked harder nuts in her time. he felt her at work like a rat, vicious and determined. once he felt lips light like down on the bruised members, and he thought. though they were mortified and dead they should quicken at that.
all of a sudden his hands were free. he would have endeavoured to rise, but with a quick gesture she kept him down. she came to the front, and swiftly with her strong young arms pulled the boots from his numbed feet.
“now!” she signified.
he was up in a moment. broken as he was, the stimulus given his spirit by the devotion of this true soul was divine. supporting him with all her love, she helped him step by step across the floor. then for the first time he noticed that the girl was in her stockinged feet, and that the casement stood wide to the freezing night.
come to the opening, he stooped his face to hers with a very pathetic look.
“not now,” she whispered. “not an instant for delay or explanation”—but seeing what he would be at, she put an arm to his neck, and drew his lips hard against hers.
the sill was but a step to an active wench. betty was outside, scarcely having released his hands; and then she turned and beckoned. at her nod, another appeared at the opening—dennis, by all the alphabet of wonder! she bade him to keep perfect silence by a word. the good fellow was white as ashes, and as he came up he was fumbling a long blade into his pocket. the moonlight revealed a wide horrified look in his eyes. he was like a saint whom love has defrauded of heaven.
he took his master under the arms, and with a convulsive effort haled him out into the snow. inevitably a little noise resulted. betty gave an indrawn gasp; but by all good luck a burst of laughter from within covered the accident.
tuke stood like a drunken man, swaying and staring vacantly about him. against the porch he was aware of a misshapen bundle.
“god forgive me, sir,” said dennis. “’twas for you i did it.”
the woman was the roman.
“he died at his post,” she whispered; “and i would have done it blithely myself for this. and mr. whimple, he has stood guard at the door and left me only the sweets of service.”
then she said, “are you strong now to come?” and, seeing her poor gentleman all weak and bewildered, she held him again pitifully and bade dennis to his other side; and so they led him, with what swiftness they could compass and creeping like frantic things, out through the lodge-gate and a little way up the foundered road, until they came to that very snowy gap in the brushwood through which the party of wanderers had forced their way three days before. and presently—for the moon made all distinct—they broke and stumbled into the clearing and stood before the ice-house.
“betty,” then murmured her master—“i must not question; but why not push up the drive, now the coast is clear?—and here we shall only die.”
“oh! you are wise,” she cried, with a little triumphant laugh—a pretty confection of love and relief and tears. “you are wise and bold, but not a little stupid perhaps. who shall say that another sentry is not posted between the lodge and the house? and now you are to see.”
she put her shapely foot against the door and pushed it open. she jumped into the jaws of erebus, and held up her arms to him; and he let himself down into them, trusting, and was taken and rejoiced over.
“now,” she said, “whatever comes we are safe to win clear, and i will cry a little. but i can cry walking.”
“and will you explain a little, betty?”
“this is no ice-house; or at least it is only the mouth of an underground passage, that leads straight through into that you call the ‘priest’s hole.’”
“betty!”
“i have heard grandfather (woe is me—the poor old man!) talk o’t many a time. for he worked here when a lad in the service of sir thomas woodruff. and i doubted not your honour knew; though the end in truth was choked with rubbish. but when you returned not, and the rogues came in force and made their purpose clear, we women watched wi’ sore hearts from the shelter of the roof, and we saw sir david blythewood and the captain come out on to the snow by the fringe of the shaw no earlier than this morning; and i cried at once, ‘they ha’ taken refuge in the ice-house, and have lain there in ignorance to this moment!’”
“go on, betty. are you sure of the way? never mind my crowing, girl. i haven’t broken food or tasted drink for three days, and my lungs are like glass paper.”
“oh me! but i will not cry for a minute. i took jim, and we found our way to the hole and went down into it; and there sure enough under the ledge was a stone in the wall that turned on a great pin; and this we swung round and saw a black gully shoot before us. well, we took a candle and entered, and not twenty feet in, the light went out and we had to walk in darkness.”
“oh, my child, my little betty! that said ‘go back!’ as plain as foul gas could speak.”
“did it? it was close and stifling, of course; but we took hands and won through this very tunnel we are creeping along now; and all of a sudden we came to rubbish and the murmur of voices. at that jim shouted. they were close at hand and heard us plain; and in ten minutes we had made a hole through the heap big enough to pass through.”
“and foolish they must have looked to hear how they had sat down to die within reach of rescue.”
“maybe.”
“did they not, betty?”
“how should i know? i had no eyes for them. you weren’t there.”
he stopped in the black darkness and put his arms about her.
“dennis,” he murmured back. “are you following? don’t run us down, but listen to this. i love betty pollack with all my heart and soul.”
the girl burst into tears.
“don’t!” she whispered, and clung to him convulsively.
he said softly over his shoulder:
“take up the tale, whimple. she saved you?”
“she saved us, sir. we had dwelt there like fools. we had waited anxiously for your return; and at last, when hope was failing us, sir david set off in your tracks, fought his way to the lodge, and came within view of the truth. he saw the villains all about the place, and had much ado to keep himself secret. but he managed to steal back unobserved; and all that afternoon till dark one or other of us was posted in the wood watching for your return. and so the night shut upon us again, and we tried to comfort ourselves with the assurance that you had had warning, had evaded the enemy, and had made your way round to the house by a circuitous path. sir, when this good girl saved us, and we came to know you had probably fallen into fern’s hands, i think there was none in the world more broken-hearted than dennis whimple.”
“good fellow! but who gave you confirmation of the truth?”
“fern himself, sir—the bloody villain himself. he came before the house at noon to-day, with a flag of truce—that sir david would respect, though the captain desired to shoot him then and there—and told us that he had you a prisoner. now sir david would not let him know that we three was returned, hoping thereby to tempt him and his band to venture themselves to their destruction—as they already deemed the little garrison to be innocent of fighting men—and he sent one of the grooms to parley. and fern promised this man one of his master’s members for every refusal of the stone he should receive. this, captain luvaine regarded as an idle menace; but later, some one looking out of the window saw in a snow-drift against the drive-end a pole posted; and nailed to the top of this was a horrible fragment, and underneath a paper, with ‘tuke’s right ear’ written bold thereon.”
betty shuddered in the arms of her dear knight.
“’twas a beastly act,” he said sternly, “for which, if i live, that bitter scoundrel shall pay in full. and you believed it?”
“sir david was for sallying forth at once by way of this passage; but he was over-ridden, and it was judged wiser to make the attempt at rescue by night. then comes betty, sir, and claims the post of danger for her woman’s wit—and, and——”
“mr. whimple must squire me for love of his master. and we prevailed, and here is your honour, and—oh! my love—my only love!”
and betty gave full vent to her tears at last—though she cried very silently, like a thoughtful girl.
now, it must not be supposed that throughout this explanation mr. tuke’s devoted members were in full vigour of speech and hearing. he asked and listened and answered, indeed, in a manner of tender emotion; but he must lean against the tunnel wall for support of his trembling limbs the while, and his voice was so weak that sometimes it was barely audible.
suddenly, however, he pulled himself up with a jerk as if a shot had struck him, and, “god in heaven!” he cried—“the girl—darda!”
a surprised pause followed.
“sir,” said dennis, in a trembling voice—“what do you mean?”
“my god! don’t you know where she is?”
“i haven’t seen her since she greeted me on my return. she gave me food and drink and went—to the house-top, i thought. you know her ways, sir.”
“she is in fern’s hands. they brought her to me in evidence.”
a second pause as of death befell. the girl in his arms held her breath.
“i must go back,” said dennis, in a lost, low voice—“i must go back.”
tuke struggled to free himself.
“come!” he said—“we will go together.”
betty held him like a mad thing.
“you shall not!” she cried. “are you crazed? what could you do but weaken mr. whimple’s hands? and he would have two to his care instead of one. the girl is right and wily. she’ll have her plans, i warrant.”
still he struggled feebly in the encircling arms.
“run, mr. whimple!” she cried. “i will hold him that he cannot follow!”
the echo of the man’s footsteps already came from a distance.
“betty!” panted her master reproachfully. “oh! what do you make of me?”
“one, i hope, that’ll hold himself sound for all our sakes. for shame! have you not duties forward?”
he must allow himself to succumb to this sweet sophist. they stumbled on together once more through the dank and inky blackness. their unshod and frozen feet suffered cruelly on the rough floor, and many little exclamations of pain were forced from either.
“who was it that was hit by the villains, betty?”
“’twas the lord creature.”
“good god! then he and miss royston are there after all?”
“aye; they be.”
“and is he killed?”
“not he; though were he, he couldn’t make more noise about it.”
tuke laughed feebly—a little bleat that was music to the other.
“have i said something foolish? but we read of chance folks whose death makes a noise, your honour.”
“my honour again? but i’ll not gainsay you, darling. my honour and yours. will you be my wife, betty? and stay here and rest awhile, sweetheart, and we’ll choose the colour of the wedding-gown.”
