He held out to me a hand, long, thin, and disagreeably hairy.

"Come in, come in, Mr. Cassilis," said he. "Another
protector--ahem!--another protector. Always welcome as a friend of my
daughter's, Mr. Cassilis. How they have rallied about me, my daughter's
friends! May God in heaven bless and reward them for it!"

I gave him my hand, of course, because I could not help it; but the
sympathy I had been prepared to feel for Clara's father was immediately
soured by his appearance, and the wheedling, unreal tones in which he
spoke.

"Cassilis is a good man," said Northmour; "worth ten."

"So I hear," cried Mr. Huddlestone eagerly; "so my girl tells me. Ah, Mr.
Cassilis, my sin has found me out, you see! I am very low, very low; but I
hope equally penitent. We must all come to the throne of grace at last,
Mr. Cassilis. For my part, I come late indeed; but with unfeigned
humility, I trust."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" said Northmour roughly.

"No, no, dear Northmour!" cried the banker. "You must not say that; you
must not try to shake me. You forget, my dear, good boy, you forget I may
be called this very night before my Maker."

His excitement was pitiful to behold; and I felt myself grow indignant
with Northmour, whose infidel opinions I well knew, and heartily despised,
as he continued to taunt the poor sinner out of his humor of repentance.

"Pooh, my dear Huddlestone!" said he. "You do yourself injustice. You are
a man of the world inside and out, and were up to all kinds of mischief
before I was born. Your conscience is tanned like South American
leather--only you forgot to tan your liver, and that, if you will believe
me, is the seat of the annoyance."

"Rogue, rogue! bad boy!" said Mr. Huddlestone, shaking his finger. "I am
no precisian, if you come to that; I always hated a precisian; but I never
lost hold of something better through it all. I have been a bad boy, Mr.
Cassilis; I do not seek to deny that; but it was after my wife's death,
and you know, with a widower, it's a different thing: sinful--I won't say
no; but there is a gradation, we shall hope. And talking of that--Hark!"
he broke out suddenly, his hand raised, his fingers spread, his face
racked with interest and terror. "Only the rain, bless God!" he added,
after a pause, and with indescribable relief.

For some seconds he lay back among the pillows like a man near to
fainting; then he gathered himself together, and, in somewhat tremulous
tones, began once more to thank me for the share I was prepared to take in
his defense.

"One question, sir," said I, when he had paused. "Is it true that you have
money with you?"

He seemed annoyed by the question, but admitted with reluctance that he
had a little.

"Well," I continued, "it is their money they are after, is it not? Why not
give it up to them?"

"Ah!" replied he, shaking his head, "I have tried that already, Mr.
Cassilis; and alas! that it should be so, but it is blood they want."

"Huddlestone, that's a little less than fair," said Northmour. "You should
mention that what you offered them was upward of two hundred thousand
short. The deficit is worth a reference; it is for what they call a cool
sum, Frank. Then, you see, the fellows reason in their clear Italian way;
and it seems to them, as indeed it seems to me, that they may just as well
have both while they're about it--money and blood together, by George, and
no more trouble for the extra pleasure."

"Is it in the pavilion?" I asked.

"It is; and I wish it were in the bottom of the sea instead," said
Northmour; and then suddenly--"What are you making faces at me for?" he
cried to Mr. Huddlestone, on whom I had unconsciously turned my back. "Do
you think Cassilis would sell you?"

Mr. Huddlestone protested that nothing had been further from his mind.

"It is a good thing," retorted Northmour in his ugliest manner. "You might
end by wearying us. What were you going to say?" he added, turning to me.

"I was going to propose an occupation for the afternoon," said I. "Let us
carry that money out, piece by piece, and lay it down before the pavilion
door. If the _carbonari_ come, why, it's theirs at any rate."

"No, no," cried Mr. Huddlestone; "it does not, it cannot, belong to them!
It should be distributed _pro rata_ among all my creditors."

"Come now, Huddlestone," said Northmour, "none of that."

"Well, but my daughter," moaned the wretched man.

"Your daughter will do well enough. Here are two suitors, Cassilis and I,
neither of us beggars, between whom she has to choose. And as for
yourself, to make an end of arguments, you have no right to a farthing,
and, unless I'm much mistaken, you are going to die."

It was certainly very cruelly said; but Mr. Huddlestone was a man who
attracted little sympathy; and, although I saw him wince and shudder, I
mentally indorsed the rebuke; nay, I added a contribution of my own.

"Northmour and I," I said, "are willing enough to help you to save your
life, but not to escape with stolen property."

He struggled for awhile with himself, as though he were on the point of
giving way to anger, but prudence had the best of the controversy.

"My dear boys," he said, "do with me or my money what you will. I leave
all in your hands. Let me compose myself."

And so we left him, gladly enough I am sure.

The last that I saw, he had once more taken up his great Bible, and with
tremulous hands was adjusting his spectacles to read.


VII

The recollection of that afternoon will always be graven on my mind.
Northmour and I were persuaded that an attack was imminent; and if it had
been in our power to alter in any way the order of events, that power
would have been used to precipitate rather than delay the critical moment.
The worst was to be anticipated; yet we could conceive no extremity so
miserable as the suspense we were now suffering. I have never been an
eager, though always a great, reader; but I never knew books so insipid
as those which I took up and cast aside that afternoon in the pavilion.
Even talk became impossible, as the hours went on. One or other was always
listening for some sound, or peering from an upstairs window over the
links. And yet not a sign indicated the presence of our foes.

We debated over and over again my proposal with regard to the money; and
had we been in complete possession of our faculties, I am sure we should
have condemned it as unwise; but we were flustered with alarm, grasped at
a straw, and determined, although it was as much as advertising Mr.
Huddlestone's presence in the pavilion, to carry my proposal into effect.

The sum was part in specie, part in bank paper, and part in circular notes
payable to the name of James Gregory. We took it out, counted it, inclosed
it once more in a dispatch box belonging to Northmour, and prepared a
letter in Italian which he tied to the handle. It was signed by both of us
under oath, and declared that this was all the money which had escaped the
failure of the house of Huddlestone. This was, perhaps, the maddest action
ever perpetrated by two persons professing to be sane. Had the dispatch
box fallen into other hands than those for which it was intended, we stood
criminally convicted on our own written testimony; but, as I have said, we
were neither of us in a condition to judge soberly, and had a thirst for
action that drove us to do something, right or wrong, rather than endure
the agony of waiting. Moreover, as we were both convinced that the hollows
of the links were alive with hidden spies upon our movements, we hoped
that our appearance with the box might lead to a parley, and, perhaps, a
compromise.

It was nearly three when we issued from the pavilion. The rain had taken
off; the sun shone quite cheerfully. I had never seen the gulls fly so
close about the house or approach so fearlessly to human beings. On the
very doorstep one flapped heavily past our heads, and uttered its wild cry
in my very ear.

"There is an omen for you," said Northmour, who like all freethinkers was
much under the influence of superstition. "They think we are already
dead."

I made some light rejoinder, but it was with half my heart; for the
circumstance had impressed me.

A yard or two before the gate, on a patch of smooth turf, we set down the
dispatch box; and Northmour waved a white handkerchief over his head.
Nothing replied. We raised our voices, and cried aloud in Italian that we
were there as ambassadors to arrange the quarrel, but the stillness
remained unbroken save by the seagulls and the surf. I had a weight at my
heart when we desisted; and I saw that even Northmour was unusually pale.
He looked over his shoulder nervously, as though he feared that some one
had crept between him and the pavilion door.

"By God," he said in a whisper, "this is too much for me!"

I replied in the same key: "Suppose there should be none, after all!"

"Look there," he returned, nodding with his head, as though he had been
afraid to point.

I glanced in the direction indicated; and there, from the northern quarter
of the Sea-Wood, beheld a thin column of smoke rising steadily against the
now cloudless sky.

"Northmour," I said (we still continued to talk in whispers), "it is not
possible to endure this suspense. I prefer death fifty times over. Stay
you here to watch the pavilion; I will go forward and make sure, if I have
to walk right into their camp."

He looked once again all round him with puckered eyes, and then nodded
assentingly to my proposal.

My heart beat like a sledge hammer as I set out walking rapidly in the
direction of the smoke; and, though up to that moment I had felt chill and
shivering, I was suddenly conscious of a glow of heat all over my body.
The ground in this direction was very uneven; a hundred men might have
lain hidden in as many square yards about my path. But I who had not
practiced the business in vain, chose such routes as cut at the very root
of concealment, and, by keeping along the most convenient ridges,
commanded several hollows at a time. It was not long before I was rewarded
for my caution. Coming suddenly on to a mound somewhat more elevated than
the surrounding hummocks, I saw, not thirty yards away, a man bent almost
double, and running as fast as his attitude permitted, along the bottom of
a gully. I had dislodged one of the spies from his ambush. As soon as I
sighted him, I called loudly both in English and Italian; and he, seeing
concealment was no longer possible, straightened himself out, leaped from
the gully, and made off as straight as an arrow for the borders of the
wood. It was none of my business to pursue; I had learned what I
wanted--that we were beleaguered and watched in the pavilion; and I
returned at once, and walked as nearly as possible in my old footsteps, to
where Northmour awaited me beside the dispatch box. He was even paler than
when I had left him, and his voice shook a little.

"Could you see what he was like?" he asked.

"He kept his back turned," I replied.

"Let us get into the house, Frank. I don't think I'm a coward, but I can
stand no more of this," he whispered.

All was still and sunshiny about the pavilion, as we turned to reenter it;
even the gulls had flown in a wider circuit, and were seen flickering
along the beach and sand hills; and this loneliness terrified me more than
a regiment under arms. It was not until the door was barricaded that I
could draw a full inspiration and relieve the weight that lay upon my
bosom. Northmour and I exchanged a steady glance; and I suppose each made
his own reflections on the white and startled aspect of the other.

"You were right," I said. "All is over. Shake hands, old man, for the last
time."

"Yes," replied he, "I will shake hands; for, as sure as I am here, I bear
no malice. But, remember, if, by some impossible accident, we should give
the slip to these blackguards, I'll take the upper hand of you by fair or
foul."

"Oh," said I, "you weary me!"

He seemed hurt, and walked away in silence to the foot of the stairs,
where he paused.

"You do not understand," said he. "I am not a swindler, and I guard
myself; that is all. I may weary you or not, Mr. Cassilis, I do not care a
rush; I speak for my own satisfaction, and not for your amusement. You had
better go upstairs and court the girl; for my part, I stay here."

"And I stay with you," I returned. "Do you think I would steal a march,
even with your permission?"

"Frank," he said, smiling, "it's a pity you are an ass, for you have the
makings of a man. I think I must be _fey_ to-day; you cannot irritate me
even when you try. Do you know," he continued softly, "I think we are the
two most miserable men in England, you and I? we have got on to thirty
without wife or child, or so much as a shop to look after--poor, pitiful,
lost devils, both! And now we clash about a girl! As if there were not
several millions in the United Kingdom! Ah, Frank, Frank, the one who
loses his throw, be it you or me, he has my pity! It were better for
him--how does the Bible say?--that a millstone were hanged about his neck
and he were cast into the depth of the sea. Let us take a drink," he
concluded suddenly, but without any levity of tone.

I was touched by his words, and consented. He sat down on the table in the
dining-room, and held up the glass of sherry to his eye.

"If you beat me, Frank," he said, "I shall take to drink. What will you
do, if it goes the other way?"

"God knows," I returned.

"Well," said he, "here is a toast in the meantime: '_Italia irredenta_!'"

The remainder of the day was passed in the same dreadful tedium and
suspense. I laid the table for dinner, while Northmour and Clara prepared
the meal together in the kitchen. I could hear their talk as I went to and
fro, and was surprised to find it ran all the time upon myself. Northmour
again bracketed us together, and rallied Clara on a choice of husbands;
but he continued to speak of me with some feeling, and uttered nothing to
my prejudice unless he included himself in the condemnation. This awakened
a sense of gratitude in my heart, which combined with the immediateness of
our peril to fill my eyes with tears. After all, I thought--and perhaps
the thought was laughably vain--we were here three very noble human beings
to perish in defense of a thieving banker.

Before we sat down to table, I looked forth from an upstairs window. The
day was beginning to decline; the links were utterly deserted; the
dispatch box still lay untouched where we had left it hours before.

Mr. Huddlestone, in a long yellow dressing gown, took one end of the
table, Clara the other; while Northmour and I faced each other from the
sides. The lamp was brightly trimmed; the wine was good; the viands,
although mostly cold, excellent of their sort. We seemed to have agreed
tacitly; all reference to the impending catastrophe was carefully avoided;
and, considering our tragic circumstances, we made a merrier party than
could have been expected. From time to time, it is true, Northmour or I
would rise from table and make a round of the defenses; and, on each of
these occasions, Mr. Huddlestone was recalled to a sense of his tragic
predicament, glanced up with ghastly eyes, and bore for an instant on his
countenance the stamp of terror. But he hastened to empty his glass, wiped
his forehead with his handkerchief, and joined again in the conversation.

I was astonished at the wit and information he displayed. Mr.
Huddlestone's was certainly no ordinary character; he had read and
observed for himself; his gifts were sound; and, though I could never have
learned to love the man, I began to understand his success in business,
and the great respect in which he had been held before his failure. He
had, above all, the talent of society; and though I never heard him speak
but on this one and most unfavorable occasion, I set him down among the
most brilliant conversationalists I ever met.

He was relating with great gusto, and seemingly no feeling of shame, the
maneuvers of a scoundrelly commission merchant whom he had known and
studied in his youth, and we were all listening with an odd mixture of
mirth and embarrassment, when our little party was brought abruptly to an
end in the most startling manner.

A noise like that of a wet finger on the window pane interrupted Mr.
Huddlestone's tale; and in an instant we were all four as white as paper,
and sat tongue-tied and motionless round the table.

"A snail," I said at last; for I had heard that these animals make a noise
somewhat similar in character.

"Snail be d----d!" said Northmour. "Hush!"

The same sound was repeated twice at regular intervals; and then a
formidable voice shouted through the shutters the Italian word,
_"Traditore!"_

Mr. Huddlestone threw his head in the air; his eyelids quivered; next
moment he fell insensible below the table. Northmour and I had each run to
the armory and seized a gun. Clara was on her feet with her hand at her
throat.

So we stood waiting, for we thought the hour of attack was certainly come;
but second passed after second, and all but the surf remained silent in
the neighborhood of the pavilion.

"Quick," said Northmour; "upstairs with him before they come."


VIII

Somehow or other, by hook and crook, and between the three of us, we got
Bernard Huddlestone bundled upstairs and laid upon the bed in My Uncle's
Room. During the whole process, which was rough enough, he gave no sign of
consciousness, and he remained, as we had thrown him, without changing the
position of a finger. His daughter opened his shirt and began to wet his
head and bosom; while Northmour and I ran to the window. The weather
continued clear; the moon, which was now about full, had risen and shed a
very clear light upon the links; yet, strain our eyes as we might, we
could distinguish nothing moving. A few dark spots, more or less, on the
uneven expanse were not to be identified; they might be crouching men,
they might be shadows; it was impossible to be sure.

"Thank God," said Northmour, "Aggie is not coming to-night."

Aggie was the name of the old nurse; he had not thought of her until now;
but that he should think of her at all was a trait that surprised me in
the man.

We were again reduced to waiting. Northmour went to the fireplace and
spread his hands before the red embers, as if he were cold. I followed him
mechanically with my eyes, and in so doing turned my back upon the window.
At that moment a very faint report was audible from without, and a ball
shivered a pane of glass, and buried itself in the shutter two inches from
my head. I heard Clara scream; and though I whipped instantly out of range
and into a corner, she was there, so to speak, before me, beseeching to
know if I were hurt. I felt that I could stand to be shot at every day and
all day long, with such remarks of solicitude for a reward; and I
continued to reassure her, with, the tenderest caresses and in complete
forgetfulness of our situation, till the voice of Northmour recalled me to
myself.

"An air gun," he said. "They wish to make no noise."

I put Clara aside, and looked at him. He was standing with his back to the
fire and his hands clasped behind him; and I knew by the black look on his
face, that passion was boiling within. I had seen just such a look before
he attacked me, that March night, in the adjoining chamber; and, though I
could make every allowance for his anger, I confess I trembled for the
consequences. He gazed straight before him; but he could see us with the
tail of his eye, and his temper kept rising like a gale of wind. With
regular battle awaiting us outside, this prospect of an internecine strife
within the walls began to daunt me.

Suddenly, as I was thus closely watching his expression and prepared
against the worst, I saw a change, a flash, a look of relief, upon his
face. He took up the lamp which stood beside him on the table, and turned
to us with an air of some excitement.

"There is one point that we must know," said he. "Are they going to
butcher the lot of us, or only Huddlestone? Did they take you for him, or
fire at you for your own _beaux yeux_?"

"They took me for him, for certain," I replied. "I am near as tall, and my
head is fair."

"I am going to make sure," returned Northmour; and he stepped up to the
window, holding the lamp above his head, and stood there, quietly
affronting death, for half a minute.

Clara sought to rush forward and pull him from the place of danger; but I
had the pardonable selfishness to hold her back by force.

"Yes," said Northmour, turning coolly from the window, "it's only
Huddlestone they want."

"Oh, Mr. Northmour!" cried Clara; but found no more to add; the temerity
she had just witnessed seeming beyond, the reach of words.

He, on his part, looked at me, cocking his head, with a fire of triumph in
his eyes; and I understood at once that he had thus hazarded his life,
merely to attract Clara's notice, and depose me from my position as the
hero of the hour. He snapped his fingers.

"The fire is only beginning," said he. "When they warm up to their work,
they won't be so particular."

A voice was now heard hailing us from the entrance. From the window we
could see the figure of a man in the moonlight; he stood motionless, his
face uplifted to ours, and a rag of something white on his extended arm;
and as we looked right down upon him, though he was a good many yards
distant on the links, we could see the moonlight glitter on his eyes.

He opened his lips again, and spoke for some minutes on end, in a key so
loud that he might have been heard in every corner of the pavilion, and as
far away as the borders of the wood. It was the same voice that had
already shouted, _"Traditore!"_ through the shutters of the dining-room;
this time it made a complete and clear statement. If the traitor
"Oddlestone" were given up, all others should be spared; if not, no one
should escape to tell the tale.

"Well, Huddlestone, what do you say to that?" asked Northmour, turning to
the bed.

Up to that moment the banker had given no sign of life, and I, at least,
had supposed him to be still lying in a faint; but he replied at once, and
in such tones as I have never heard elsewhere, save from a delirious
patient, adjured and besought us not to desert him. It was the most
hideous and abject performance that my imagination can conceive.

"Enough," cried Northmour; and then he threw open the window, leaned out
into the night, and in a tone of exultation, and with a total
forgetfulness of what was due to the presence of a lady, poured out upon
the ambassador a string of the most abominable raillery both in English
and Italian, and bade him be gone where he had come from. I believe that
nothing so delighted Northmour at that moment as the thought that we must
all infallibly perish before the night was out.

Meantime, the Italian put his flag of truce into his pocket, and
disappeared, at a leisurely pace, among the sand hills.

"They make honorable war," said Northmour. "They are all gentlemen and
soldiers. For the credit of the thing, I wish we could change sides--you
and I, Frank, and you, too, missy, my darling--and leave that being on the
bed to some one else. Tut! Don't look shocked! We are all going post to
what they call eternity, and may as well be above board while there's
time. As far as I am concerned, if I could first strangle Huddlestone and
then get Clara in my arms, I could die with some pride and satisfaction.
And as it is, by God, I'll have a kiss!"

Before I could do anything to interfere, he had rudely embraced and
repeatedly kissed the resisting girl. Next moment I had pulled him away
with fury, and flung him heavily against the wall. He laughed loud and
long, and I feared his wits had given way under the strain; for even in
the best of days he had been a sparing and a quiet laugher.

"Now, Frank," said he, when his mirth was somewhat appeased, "it's your
turn. Here's my hand. Good-bye, farewell!" Then, seeing me stand rigid and
indignant, and holding Clara to my side--"Man!" he broke out, "are you
angry? Did you think we were going to die with all the airs and graces of
society? I took a kiss; I'm glad I did it; and now you can take another if
you like, and square accounts."

I turned from him with a feeling of contempt which I did not seek to
dissemble.

"As you please," said he. "You've been a prig in life; a prig you'll die."

And with that he sat down in a chair, a rifle over his knee, and amused
himself with snapping the lock; but I could see that his ebullition of
light spirits (the only one I ever knew him to display) had already come
to an end, and was succeeded by a sullen, scowling humor.

All this time our assailants might have been entering the house, and we
been none the wiser; we had in truth almost forgotten the danger that so
imminently overhung our days. But just then Mr. Huddlestone uttered a cry,
and leaped from the bed.

I asked him what was wrong.

"Fire!" he cried. "They have set the house on fire!"

Northmour was on his feet in an instant, and he and I ran through the door
of communication with the study. The room was illuminated by a red and
angry light. Almost at the moment of our entrance, a tower of flame arose
in front of the window, and, with a tingling report, a pane fell inward on
the carpet. They had set fire to the lean-to outhouse, where Northmour
used to nurse his negatives.

"Hot work," said Northmour. "Let us try in your old room."

We ran thither in a breath, threw up the casement, and looked forth. Along
the whole back wall of the pavilion piles of fuel had been arranged and
kindled; and it is probable they had been drenched with mineral oil, for,
in spite of the morning's rain, they all burned bravely. The fire had
taken a firm hold already on the outhouse, which blazed higher and higher
every moment; the back door was in the center of a red-hot bonfire; the
eaves we could see, as we looked upward, were already smoldering, for the
roof overhung, and was supported by considerable beams of wood. At the
same time, hot, pungent, and choking volumes of smoke began to fill the
house. There was not a human being to be seen to right or left.

"Ah, well!" said Northmour, "here's the end, thank God!"

And we returned to My Uncle's Room. Mr. Huddlestone was putting on his
boots, still violently trembling, but with an air of determination such as
I had not hitherto observed. Clara stood close by him, with her cloak in
both hands ready to throw about her shoulders, and a strange look in her
eyes, as if she were half hopeful, half doubtful of her father.

"Well, boys and girls," said Northmour, "how about a sally? The oven is
heating; it is not good to stay here and be baked; and, for my part, I
want to come to my hands with them, and be done."

"There's nothing else left," I replied.

And both Clara and Mr. Huddlestone, though with a very different
intonation, added, "Nothing."

As we went downstairs the heat was excessive, and the roaring of the fire
filled our ears; and we had scarce reached the passage before the stairs
window fell in, a branch of flame shot brandishing through the aperture,
and the interior of the pavilion became lighted up with that dreadful and
fluctuating glare. At the same moment we heard the fall of something heavy
and inelastic in the upper story. The whole pavilion, it was plain, had
gone alight like a box of matches, and now not only flamed sky high to
land and sea, but threatened with every moment to crumble and fall in
about our ears.

Northmour and I cocked our revolvers. Mr. Huddlestone, who had already
refused a firearm, put us behind him with a manner of command.

"Let Clara open the door," said he. "So, if they fire a volley, she will
be protected. And in the meantime stand behind me. I am the scapegoat; my
sins have found me out."

I heard him, as I stood breathless by his shoulder, with my pistol ready,
pattering off prayers in a tremulous, rapid whisper; and, I confess,
horrid as the thought may seem, I despised him for thinking of
supplications in a moment so critical and thrilling. In the meantime,
Clara, who was dead white but still possessed her faculties, had displaced
the barricade from the front door. Another moment, and she had pulled it
open. Firelight and moonlight illuminated the links with confused and
changeful luster, and far away against the sky we could see a long trail
of glowing smoke.

Mr. Huddlestone, filled for the moment with a strength greater than his
own, struck Northmour and myself a back-hander in the chest; and while we
were thus for the moment incapacitated from action, lifting his arms above
his head like one about to dive, he ran straight forward out of the
pavilion.

"Here am I!" he cried--"Huddlestone! Kill me, and spare the others!"

His sudden appearance daunted, I suppose, our hidden enemies; for
Northmour and I had time to recover, to seize Clara between us, one by
each arm, and to rush forth to his assistance, ere anything further had
taken place. But scarce had we passed the threshold when there came near a
dozen reports and flashes from every direction among the hollows of the
links. Mr. Huddlestone staggered, uttered a weird and freezing cry, threw
up his arms over his head, and fell backward on the turf.

_"Traditore! Traditore!"_ cried the invisible avengers.

And just then a part of the roof of the pavilion fell in, so rapid was the
progress of the fire. A loud, vague, and horrible noise accompanied the
collapse, and a vast volume of flame went soaring up to heaven. It must
have been visible at that moment from twenty miles out at sea, from the
shore at Graden Wester, and far inland from the peak of Graystiel, the
most eastern summit of the Caulder Hills. Bernard Huddlestone, although
God knows what were his obsequies, had a fine pyre at the moment of his
death.


IX

I should have the greatest difficulty to tell you what followed next after
this tragic circumstance. It is all to me, as I look back upon it, mixed,
strenuous, and ineffectual, like the struggles of a sleeper in a
nightmare. Clara, I remember, uttered a broken sigh and would have fallen
forward to earth, had not Northmour and I supported her insensible body. I
do not think we were attacked: I do not remember even to have seen an
assailant; and I believe we deserted Mr. Huddlestone without a glance. I
only remember running like a man in a panic, now carrying Clara altogether
in my own arms, now sharing her weight with Northmour, now scuffling
confusedly for the possession of that dear burden. Why we should have made
for my camp in the Hemlock Den, or how we reached it, are points lost
forever to my recollection. The first moment at which I became definitely
sure, Clara had been suffered to fall against the outside of my little
tent, Northmour and I were tumbling together on the ground, and he, with
contained ferocity, was striking for my head with the butt of his
revolver. He had already twice wounded me on the scalp; and it is to the
consequent loss of blood that I am tempted to attribute the sudden
clearness of my mind.

I caught him by the wrist.

"Northmour," I remember saying, "you can kill me afterwards. Let us first
attend to Clara."

He was at that moment uppermost. Scarcely had the words passed my lips,
when he had leaped to his feet and ran toward the tent; and the next
moment, he was straining Clara to his heart and covering her unconscious
hands and face with his caresses.

"Shame!" I cried. "Shame to you, Northmour!"

And, giddy though I still was, I struck him repeatedly upon the head and
shoulders.

He relinquished his grasp, and faced me in the broken moonlight.

"I had you under, and I let you go," said he; "and now you strike me!
Coward!"

"You are the coward," I retorted. "Did she wish your kisses while she was
still sensible of what you wanted? Not she! And now she may be dying; and
you waste this precious time, and abuse her helplessness. Stand aside, and
let me help her."

He confronted me for a moment, white and menacing; then suddenly he
stepped aside.

"Help her then," said he.

I threw myself on my knees beside her, and loosened, as well as I was
able, her dress and corset; but while I was thus engaged, a grasp
descended on my shoulder.

"Keep your hands off her," said Northmour, fiercely. "Do you think I have
no blood in my veins?"

"Northmour," I cried, "if you will neither help her yourself, nor let me
do so, do you know that I shall have to kill you?"

"That is better!" he cried. "Let her die also, where's the harm? Step
aside from that girl! and stand up to fight."

"You will observe," said I, half rising, "that I have not kissed her yet."

"I dare you to," he cried.

I do not know what possessed me; it was one of the things I am most
ashamed of in my life, though, as my wife used to say, I knew that my
kisses would be always welcome were she dead or living; down I fell again
upon my knees, parted the hair from her forehead, and, with the dearest
respect, laid my lips for a moment on that cold brow. It was such a caress
as a father might have given; it was such a one as was not unbecoming
from a man soon to die to a woman already dead.

"And now," said I, "I am at your service, Mr. Northmour."


But I saw, to my surprise, that he had turned his back upon me.

"Do you hear?" I asked.

"Yes," said he, "I do. If you wish to fight, I am ready. If not, go on and
save Clara. All is one to me."

I did not wait to be twice bidden; but, stooping again over Clara,
continued my efforts to revive her. She still lay white and lifeless; I
began to fear that her sweet spirit had indeed fled beyond recall, and
horror and a sense of utter desolation seized upon my heart. I called her
by name with the most endearing inflections; I chafed and beat her hands;
now I laid her head low, now supported it against my knee; but all seemed
to be in vain, and the lids still lay heavy on her eyes.

"Northmour," I said, "there is my hat. For God's sake bring some water
from the spring."

Almost in a moment he was by my side with the water.

"I have brought it in my own," he said. "You do not grudge me the
privilege?"

"Northmour," I was beginning to say, as I laved her head and breast; but
he interrupted me savagely.

"Oh, you hush up!" he said. "The best thing you can do is to say nothing."

I had certainly no desire to talk, my mind being swallowed up in concern
for my dear love and her condition; so I continued in silence to do my
best toward her recovery, and, when the hat was empty, returned it to him,
with one word--"More." He had, perhaps, gone several times upon this
errand, when Clara reopened her eyes.

"Now," said he, "since she is better, you can spare me, can you not? I
wish you a good night, Mr. Cassilis."

And with that he was gone among the thicket. I made a fire, for I had now
no fear of the Italians, who had even spared all the little possessions
left in my encampment; and, broken as she was by the excitement and the
hideous catastrophe of the evening, I managed, in one way or another--by
persuasion, encouragement, warmth, and such simple remedies as I could lay
my hand on--to bring her back to some composure of mind and strength of
body.

Day had already come, when a sharp "Hist!" sounded from the thicket. I
started from the ground; but the voice of Northmour was heard adding, in
the most tranquil tones: "Come here, Cassilis, and alone; I want to show
you something."

I consulted Clara with my eyes, and, receiving her tacit permission, left
her alone, and clambered out of the den. At some distance off I saw
Northmour leaning against an elder; and, as soon as he perceived me, he
began walking seaward. I had almost overtaken him as he reached the
outskirts of the wood.

"Look," said he, pausing.

A couple of steps more brought me out of the foliage. The light of the
morning lay cold and clear over that well-known scene. The pavilion was
but a blackened wreck; the roof had fallen in, one of the gables had
fallen out; and, far and near, the face of the links was cicatrized with
little patches of burned furze. Thick smoke still went straight upward in
the windless air of the morning, and a great pile of ardent cinders filled
the bare walls of the house, like coals in an open grate. Close by the
islet a schooner yacht lay to, and a well-manned boat was pulling
vigorously for the shore.

"The 'Red Earl'!" I cried. "The 'Red Earl' twelve hours too late!"

"Feel in your pocket, Frank. Are you armed?" asked Northmour.

I obeyed him, and I think I must have become deadly pale. My revolver had
been taken from me.

"You see, I have you in my power," he continued. "I disarmed you last
night while you were nursing Clara; but this morning--here--take your
pistol. No thanks!" he cried, holding up his hand. "I do not like them;
that is the only way you can annoy me now."

He began to walk forward across the links to meet the boat, and I followed
a step or two behind. In front of the pavilion I paused to see where Mr.
Huddlestone had fallen; but there was no sign of him, nor so much as a
trace of blood.

"Graden Floe," said Northmour.

He continued to advance till we had come to the head of the beach.

"No farther, please," said he. "Would you like to take her to Graden
House?"

"Thank you," replied I; "I shall try to get her to the minister at Graden
Wester."

The prow of the boat here grated on the beach, and a sailor jumped ashore
with a line in his hand.

"Wait a minute, lads!" cried Northmour; and then lower and to my private
ear, "You had better say nothing of all this to her," he added.

"On the contrary!" I broke out, "she shall know everything that I can
tell."

"You do not understand," he returned, with an air of great dignity. "It
will be nothing to her; she expects it of me. Good-by!" he added, with a
nod.

I offered him my hand.

"Excuse me," said he. "It's small, I know; but I can't push things quite
so far as that. I don't wish any sentimental business, to sit by your
hearth a white-haired wanderer, and all that. Quite the contrary: I hope
to God I shall never again clap eyes on either one of you."

"Well, God bless you, Northmour!" I said heartily.

"Oh, yes," he returned.

He walked down the beach; and the man who was ashore gave him an arm on
board, and then shoved off and leaped into the bows himself. Northmour
took the tiller; the boat rose to the waves, and the oars between the
tholepins sounded crisp and measured in the morning air.

They were not yet half way to the "Red Earl," and I was still watching
their progress, when the sun rose out of the sea.

One word more, and my story is done. Years after, Northmour was killed
fighting under the colors of Garibaldi for the liberation of the Tyrol.




Wilkie Collins




_The Dream Woman_

_A Mystery in Four Narratives_

THE FIRST NARRATIVE

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT OF THE FACTS BY PERCY FAIRBANK


I

"Hullo, there! Hostler! Hullo-o-o!"

"My dear! why don't you look for the bell?"

"I have looked--there is no bell."

"And nobody in the yard. How very extraordinary! Call again, dear."

"Hostler! Hullo, there! Hostler-r-r!"

My second call echoes through empty space, and rouses nobody--produces, in
short, no visible result. I am at the end of my resources--I don't know
what to say or what to do next. Here I stand in the solitary inn yard of a
strange town, with two horses to hold, and a lady to take care of. By way
of adding to my responsibilities, it so happens that one of the horses is
dead lame, and that the lady is my wife.

Who am I?--you will ask.

There is plenty of time to answer the question. Nothing happens; and
nobody appears to receive us. Let me introduce myself and my wife.

I am Percy Fairbank--English gentleman--age (let us say) forty--no
profession--moderate politics--middle height--fair complexion--easy
character--plenty of money.

My wife is a French lady. She was Mademoiselle Clotilde Delorge--when I
was first presented to her at her father's house in France. I fell in love
with her--I really don't know why. It might have been because I was
perfectly idle, and had nothing else to do at the time. Or it might have
been because all my friends said she was the very last woman whom I ought
to think of marrying. On the surface, I must own, there is nothing in
common between Mrs. Fairbank and me. She is tall; she is dark; she is
nervous, excitable, romantic; in all her opinions she proceeds to
extremes. What could such a woman see in me? what could I see in her? I
know no more than you do. In some mysterious manner we exactly suit each
other. We have been man and wife for ten years, and our only regret is,
that we have no children. I don't know what you may think; I call
that--upon the whole--a happy marriage.

So much for ourselves. The next question is--what has brought us into the
inn yard? and why am I obliged to turn groom, and hold the horses?

We live for the most part in France--at the country house in which my wife
and I first met. Occasionally, by way of variety, we pay visits to my
friends in England. We are paying one of those visits now. Our host is an
old college friend of mine, possessed of a fine estate in Somersetshire;
and we have arrived at his house--called Farleigh Hall--toward the close
of the hunting season.

On the day of which I am now writing--destined to be a memorable day in
our calendar--the hounds meet at Farleigh Hall. Mrs. Fairbank and I are
mounted on two of the best horses in my friend's stables. We are quite
unworthy of that distinction; for we know nothing and care nothing about
hunting. On the other hand, we delight in riding, and we enjoy the breezy
Spring morning and the fair and fertile English landscape surrounding us
on every side. While the hunt prospers, we follow the hunt. But when a
check occurs--when time passes and patience is sorely tried; when the
bewildered dogs run hither and thither, and strong language falls from
the lips of exasperated sportsmen--we fail to take any further interest in
the proceedings. We turn our horses' heads in the direction of a grassy
lane, delightfully shaded by trees. We trot merrily along the lane, and
find ourselves on an open common. We gallop across the common, and follow
the windings of a second lane. We cross a brook, we pass through a
village, we emerge into pastoral solitude among the hills. The horses toss
their heads, and neigh to each other, and enjoy it as much as we do. The
hunt is forgotten. We are as happy as a couple of children; we are
actually singing a French song--when in one moment our merriment comes to
an end. My wife's horse sets one of his forefeet on a loose stone, and
stumbles. His rider's ready hand saves him from falling. But, at the first
attempt he makes to go on, the sad truth shows itself--a tendon is
strained; the horse is lame.

What is to be done? We are strangers in a lonely part of the country. Look
where we may, we see no signs of a human habitation. There is nothing for
it but to take the bridle road up the hill, and try what we can discover
on the other side. I transfer the saddles, and mount my wife on my own
horse. He is not used to carry a lady; he misses the familiar pressure of
a man's legs on either side of him; he fidgets, and starts, and kicks up
the dust. I follow on foot, at a respectful distance from his heels,
leading the lame horse. Is there a more miserable object on the face of
creation than a lame horse? I have seen lame men and lame dogs who were
cheerful creatures; but I never yet saw a lame horse who didn't look
heartbroken over his own misfortune.

For half an hour my wife capers and curvets sideways along the bridle
road. I trudge on behind her; and the heartbroken horse halts behind _me_.
Hard by the top of the hill, our melancholy procession passes a
Somersetshire peasant at work in a field. I summon the man to approach us;
and the man looks at me stolidly, from the middle of the field, without
stirring a step. I ask at the top of my voice how far it is to Farleigh
Hall. The Somersetshire peasant answers at the top of _his_ voice:

"Vourteen mile. Gi' oi a drap o' zyder."

I translate (for my wife's benefit) from the Somersetshire language into
the English language. We are fourteen miles from Farleigh Hall; and our
friend in the field desires to be rewarded, for giving us that
information, with a drop of cider. There is the peasant, painted by
himself! Quite a bit of character, my dear! Quite a bit of character!

Mrs. Fairbank doesn't view the study of agricultural human nature with my
relish. Her fidgety horse will not allow her a moment's repose; she is
beginning to lose her temper.

"We can't go fourteen miles in this way," she says. "Where is the nearest
inn? Ask that brute in the field!"

I take a shilling from my pocket and hold it up in the sun. The shilling
exercises magnetic virtues. The shilling draws the peasant slowly toward
me from the middle of the field. I inform him that we want to put up the
horses and to hire a carriage to take us back to Farleigh Hall. Where can
we do that? The peasant answers (with his eye on the shilling):

"At Oonderbridge, to be zure." (At Underbridge, to be sure.)

"Is it far to Underbridge?"

The peasant repeats, "Var to Oonderbridge?"--and laughs at the question.
"Hoo-hoo-hoo!" (Underbridge is evidently close by--if we could only find
it.) "Will you show us the way, my man?" "Will you gi' oi a drap of
zyder?" I courteously bend my head, and point to the shilling. The
agricultural intelligence exerts itself. The peasant joins our melancholy
procession. My wife is a fine woman, but he never once looks at my
wife--and, more extraordinary still, he never even looks at the horses.
His eyes are with his mind--and his mind is on the shilling.

We reach the top of the hill--and, behold on the other side, nestling in
a valley, the shrine of our pilgrimage, the town of Underbridge! Here our
guide claims his shilling, and leaves us to find out the inn for
ourselves. I am constitutionally a polite man. I say "Good morning" at
parting. The guide looks at me with the shilling between his teeth to make
sure that it is a good one. "Marnin!" he says savagely--and turns his back
on us, as if we had offended him. A curious product, this, of the growth
of civilization. If I didn't see a church spire at Underbridge, I might
suppose that we had lost ourselves on a savage island.


II

Arriving at the town, we had no difficulty in finding the inn. The town is
composed of one desolate street; and midway in that street stands the
inn--an ancient stone building sadly out of repair. The painting on the
sign-board is obliterated. The shutters over the long range of front
windows are all closed. A cock and his hens are the only living creatures
at the door. Plainly, this is one of the old inns of the stage-coach
period, ruined by the railway. We pass through the open arched doorway,
and find no one to welcome us. We advance into the stable yard behind; I
assist my wife to dismount--and there we are in the position already
disclosed to view at the opening of this narrative. No bell to ring. No
human creature to answer when I call. I stand helpless, with the bridles
of the horses in my hand. Mrs. Fairbank saunters gracefully down the
length of the yard and does--what all women do, when they find themselves
in a strange place. She opens every door as she passes it, and peeps in.
On my side, I have just recovered my breath, I am on the point of shouting
for the hostler for the third and last time, when I hear Mrs. Fairbank
suddenly call to me:

"Percy! come here!"

Her voice is eager and agitated. She has opened a last door at the end of
the yard, and has started back from some sight which has suddenly met her
view. I hitch the horses' bridles on a rusty nail in the wall near me, and
join my wife. She has turned pale, and catches me nervously by the arm.

"Good heavens!" she cries; "look at that!"

I look--and what do I see? I see a dingy little stable, containing two
stalls. In one stall a horse is munching his corn. In the other a man is
lying asleep on the litter.

A worn, withered, woebegone man in a hostler's dress. His hollow wrinkled
cheeks, his scanty grizzled hair, his dry yellow skin, tell their own tale
of past sorrow or suffering. There is an ominous frown on his
eyebrows--there is a painful nervous contraction on the side of his mouth.
I hear him breathing convulsively when I first look in; he shudders and
sighs in his sleep. It is not a pleasant sight to see, and I turn round
instinctively to the bright sunlight in the yard. My wife turns me back
again in the direction of the stable door.

"Wait!" she says. "Wait! he may do it again."

"Do what again?"

"He was talking in his sleep, Percy, when I first looked in. He was
dreaming some dreadful dream. Hush! he's beginning again."

I look and listen. The man stirs on his miserable bed. The man speaks in a
quick, fierce whisper through his clinched teeth. "Wake up! Wake up,
there! Murder!"

There is an interval of silence. He moves one lean arm slowly until it
rests over his throat; he shudders, and turns on his straw; he raises his
arm from his throat, and feebly stretches it out; his hand clutches at the
straw on the side toward which he has turned; he seems to fancy that he is
grasping at the edge of something. I see his lips begin to move again; I
step softly into the stable; my wife follows me, with her hand fast
clasped in mine. We both bend over him. He is talking once more in his
sleep--strange talk, mad talk, this time.

"Light gray eyes" (we hear him say), "and a droop in the left
eyelid--flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it--all right, mother!
fair, white arms with a down on them--little, lady's hand, with a reddish
look round the fingernails--the knife--the cursed knife--first on one
side, then on the other--aha, you she-devil! where is the knife?"

He stops and grows restless on a sudden. We see him writhing on the straw.
He throws up both his hands and gasps hysterically for breath. His eyes
open suddenly. For a moment they look at nothing, with a vacant glitter in
them--then they close again in deeper sleep. Is he dreaming still? Yes;
but the dream seems to have taken a new course. When he speaks next, the
tone is altered; the words are few--sadly and imploringly repeated over
and over again. "Say you love me! I am so fond of _you_. Say you love me!
say you love me!" He sinks into deeper and deeper sleep, faintly repeating
those words. They die away on his lips. He speaks no more.