The Lair of the White Worm, Bram Stoker [novels to read .TXT] 📗

downway must have been easy work, but the ascent was different, and when the monster came to view in the upper world, it would be fresh from contact with the white clay.  Hence the name, which has no cryptic significance, but only fact.  Now, if that surmise be true—and I do not see why not—there must be a deposit of valuable clay—possibly of immense depth.”

Adam’s comment pleased the old gentleman.

“I have it in my bones, sir, that you have struck—or rather reasoned out—a great truth.”

Sir Nathaniel went on cheerfully.  “When the world of commerce wakes up to the value of your find, it will be as well that your title to ownership has been perfectly secured.  If anyone ever deserved such a gain, it is you.”

With his friend’s aid, Adam secured the property without loss of time.  Then he went to see his uncle, and told him about it.  Mr. Salton was delighted to find his young relative already constructively the owner of so fine an estate—one which gave him an important status in the county.  He made many anxious enquiries about Mimi, and the doings of the White Worm, but Adam reassured him.

The next morning, when Adam went to his host in the smoking-room, Sir Nathaniel asked him how he purposed to proceed with regard to keeping his vow.

“It is a difficult matter which you have undertaken.  To destroy such a monster is something like one of the labours of Hercules, in that not only its size and weight and power of using them in little-known ways are against you, but the occult side is alone an unsurpassable difficulty.  The Worm is already master of all the elements except fire—and I do not see how fire can be used for the attack.  It has only to sink into the earth in its usual way, and you could not overtake it if you had the resources of the biggest coal-mine in existence.  But I daresay you have mapped out some plan in your mind,” he added courteously.

“I have, sir.  But, of course, it may not stand the test of practice.”

“May I know the idea?”

“Well, sir, this was my argument: At the time of the Chartist trouble, an idea spread amongst financial circles that an attack was going to be made on the Bank of England.  Accordingly, the directors of that institution consulted many persons who were supposed to know what steps should be taken, and it was finally decided that the best protection against fire—which is what was feared—was not water but sand.  To carry the scheme into practice great store of fine sea-sand—the kind that blows about and is used to fill hour-glasses—was provided throughout the building, especially at the points liable to attack, from which it could be brought into use.

“I propose to provide at Diana’s Grove, as soon as it comes into my possession, an enormous amount of such sand, and shall take an early occasion of pouring it into the well-hole, which it will in time choke.  Thus Lady Arabella, in her guise of the White Worm, will find herself cut off from her refuge.  The hole is a narrow one, and is some hundreds of feet deep.  The weight of the sand this can contain would not in itself be sufficient to obstruct; but the friction of such a body working up against it would be tremendous.”

“One moment.  What use would the sand be for destruction?”

“None, directly; but it would hold the struggling body in place till the rest of my scheme came into practice.”

“And what is the rest?”

“As the sand is being poured into the well-hole, quantities of dynamite can also be thrown in!”

“Good.  But how would the dynamite explode—for, of course, that is what you intend.  Would not some sort of wire or fuse he required for each parcel of dynamite?”

Adam smiled.

“Not in these days, sir.  That was proved in New York.  A thousand pounds of dynamite, in sealed canisters, was placed about some workings.  At the last a charge of gunpowder was fired, and the concussion exploded the dynamite.  It was most successful.  Those who were non-experts in high explosives expected that every pane of glass in New York would be shattered.  But, in reality, the explosive did no harm outside the area intended, although sixteen acres of rock had been mined and only the supporting walls and pillars had been left intact.  The whole of the rocks were shattered.”

Sir Nathaniel nodded approval.

“That seems a good plan—a very excellent one.  But if it has to tear down so many feet of precipice, it may wreck the whole neighbourhood.”

“And free it for ever from a monster,” added Adam, as he left the room to find his wife.

CHAPTER XXV—THE LAST BATTLE

Lady Arabella had instructed her solicitors to hurry on with the conveyance of Diana’s Grove, so no time was lost in letting Adam Salton have formal possession of the estate.  After his interview with Sir Nathaniel, he had taken steps to begin putting his plan into action.  In order to accumulate the necessary amount of fine sea-sand, he ordered the steward to prepare for an elaborate system of top-dressing all the grounds.  A great heap of the sand, brought from bays on the Welsh coast, began to grow at the back of the Grove.  No one seemed to suspect that it was there for any purpose other than what had been given out.

Lady Arabella, who alone could have guessed, was now so absorbed in her matrimonial pursuit of Edgar Caswall, that she had neither time nor inclination for thought extraneous to this.  She had not yet moved from the house, though she had formally handed over the estate.

Adam put up a rough corrugated-iron shed behind the Grove, in which he stored his explosives.  All being ready for his great attempt whenever the time should come, he was now content to wait, and, in order to pass the time, interested himself in other things—even in Caswall’s great kite, which still flew from the high tower of Castra Regis.

The mound of fine sand grew to proportions so vast as to puzzle the bailiffs and farmers round the Brow.  The hour of the intended cataclysm was approaching apace.  Adam wished—but in vain—for an opportunity, which would appear to be natural, of visiting Caswall in the turret of Castra Regis.  At last, one morning, he met Lady Arabella moving towards the Castle, so he took his courage à deux mains and asked to be allowed to accompany her.  She was glad, for her own purposes, to comply with his wishes.  So together they entered, and found their way to the turret-room.  Caswall was much surprised to see Adam come to his house, but lent himself to the task of seeming to be pleased.  He played the host so well as to deceive even Adam.  They all went out on the turret roof, where he explained to his guests the mechanism for raising and lowering the kite, taking also the opportunity of testing the movements of the multitudes of birds, how they answered almost instantaneously to the lowering or raising of the kite.

As Lady Arabella walked home with Adam from Castra Regis, she asked him if she might make a request.  Permission having been accorded, she explained that before she finally left Diana’s Grove, where she had lived so long, she had a desire to know the depth of the well-hole.  Adam was really happy to meet her wishes, not from any sentiment, but because he wished to give some valid and ostensible reason for examining the passage of the Worm, which would obviate any suspicion resulting from his being on the premises.  He brought from London a Kelvin sounding apparatus, with a sufficient length of piano-wire for testing any probable depth.  The wire passed easily over the running wheel, and when this was once fixed over the hole, he was satisfied to wait till the most advantageous time for his final experiment.

* * * * *

In the meantime, affairs had been going quietly at Mercy Farm.  Lilla, of course, felt lonely in the absence of her cousin, but the even tenor of life went on for her as for others.  After the first shock of parting was over, things went back to their accustomed routine.  In one respect, however, there was a marked difference.  So long as home conditions had remained unchanged, Lilla was content to put ambition far from her, and to settle down to the life which had been hers as long as she could remember.  But Mimi’s marriage set her thinking; naturally, she came to the conclusion that she too might have a mate.  There was not for her much choice—there was little movement in the matrimonial direction at the farmhouse.  She did not approve of the personality of Edgar Caswall, and his struggle with Mimi had frightened her; but he was unmistakably an excellent parti, much better than she could have any right to expect.  This weighs much with a woman, and more particularly one of her class.  So, on the whole, she was content to let things take their course, and to abide by the issue.

As time went on, she had reason to believe that things did not point to happiness.  She could not shut her eyes to certain disturbing facts, amongst which were the existence of Lady Arabella and her growing intimacy with Edgar Caswall; as well as his own cold and haughty nature, so little in accord with the ardour which is the foundation of a young maid’s dreams of happiness.  How things would, of necessity, alter if she were to marry, she was afraid to think.  All told, the prospect was not happy for her, and she had a secret longing that something might occur to upset the order of things as at present arranged.

When Lilla received a note from Edgar Caswall asking if he might come to tea on the following afternoon, her heart sank within her.  If it was only for her father’s sake, she must not refuse him or show any disinclination which he might construe into incivility.  She missed Mimi more than she could say or even dared to think.  Hitherto, she had always looked to her cousin for sympathy, for understanding, for loyal support.  Now she and all these things, and a thousand others—gentle, assuring, supporting—were gone.  And instead there was a horrible aching void.

For the whole afternoon and evening, and for the following forenoon, poor Lilla’s loneliness grew to be a positive agony.  For the first time she began to realise the sense of her loss, as though all the previous suffering had been merely a preparation.  Everything she looked at, everything she remembered or thought of, became laden with poignant memory.  Then on the top of all was a new sense of dread.  The reaction from the sense of security, which had surrounded her all her life, to a never-quieted apprehension, was at times almost more than she could bear.  It so filled her with fear that she had a haunting feeling that she would as soon die as live.  However, whatever might be her own feelings, duty had to be done, and as she had been brought up to consider duty first, she braced herself to go through, to the very best of her ability, what was before her.

Still, the severe and prolonged struggle for self-control told upon Lilla.  She looked, as she felt, ill and weak.  She was really in a nerveless and prostrate condition, with black circles round her eyes, pale even to her lips, and with an instinctive trembling which she was quite unable to repress.  It was for her a sad mischance that Mimi was away, for her love would have seen through all obscuring causes, and have brought to light the girl’s unhappy condition of health.  Lilla was utterly unable to do anything to escape from the ordeal before her; but her cousin, with the experience of her former struggles with Mr. Caswall and of the condition in which these left her, would have taken steps—even peremptory ones, if necessary—to prevent a repetition.

Edgar arrived punctually to the time appointed by herself.  When Lilla, through the great window, saw him approaching the house, her condition of nervous upset was pitiable.  She braced herself up, however, and managed to get through the interview in its preliminary stages without any perceptible change in her normal appearance and bearing.  It had been to her an added terror that the black shadow of Oolanga, whom she dreaded, would follow hard on his master.  A load was lifted from her mind when he did not make his usual stealthy approach.  She had also feared, though in lesser degree, lest Lady Arabella should be present to make trouble for her as before.

With a woman’s natural forethought in a difficult position, she had provided the furnishing of the tea-table as a subtle indication of the social difference between her and her guest.  She had chosen the implements of service, as well as