Dead Men Tell No Tales, E. W. Hornung [early readers .txt] 📗

open doorway grew greater at every stride.

“He hasn't seen us yet—”

“No, I hear him threatening me still.”

“Now he has, though!”

A wild whoop proclaimed the fact, and upright we tore at top speed through the last ten yards of grass, while the black rushed down one of the side paths, gaining audibly on us over the better ground. But our start had saved us, and we flew up the steps as his feet ceased to clatter on the path; he had plunged into the grass to cut off the corner.

“Thank God!” cried Eva. “Now shut it quick.”

The great door swung home with a mighty clatter, and Eva seized the key in both hands.

“I can't turn it!”

To lose a second was to take a life, and unconsciously I was sticking at that, perhaps from no higher instinct than distrust of my aim. Our pursuer, however, was on the steps when I clapped my free hand on top of those little white straining ones, and by a timely effort bent both them and the key round together; the ward shot home as Jose hurled himself against the door. Eva bolted it. But the thud was not repeated, and I gathered myself together between the door and the nearest window, for by now I saw there was but one thing for us. The nigger must be disabled, if I could manage such a nicety; if not, the devil take his own.

Well, I was not one tick too soon for him. My pistol was not cocked before the crash came that I was counting on, and with it a shower of small glass driving across the six-foot sill and tinkling on the flags. Next came a black and bloody face, at which I could not fire. I had to wait till I saw his legs, when I promptly shattered one of them at disgracefully short range. The report was as deafening as one upon the stage; the hall filled with white smoke, and remained hideous with the bellowing of my victim. I searched him without a qualm, but threats of annihilation instead, and found him unarmed but for that very knife which Rattray had induced me to hand over to him in town. I had a grim satisfaction in depriving him of this, and but small compunction in turning my back upon his pain.

“Come,” I said to poor Eva, “don't pity him, though I daresay he's the most pitiable of the lot; show me the way through, and I'll follow with this lamp.”

One was burning on the old oak table. I carried it along a narrow passage, through a great low kitchen where I bumped my head against the black oak beams; and I held it on high at a door almost as massive as the one which we had succeeded in shutting in the nigger's face.

“I was afraid of it!” cried Eva, with a sudden sob.

“What is it?”

“They've taken away the key!”

Yes, the keen air came through an empty keyhole; and my lamp, held close, not only showed that the door was locked, but that the lock was one with which an unskilled hand might tamper for hours without result. I dealt it a hearty kick by way of a test. The heavy timber did not budge; there was no play at all at either lock or hinges; nor did I see how I could spend one of my four remaining bullets upon the former, with any chance of a return.

“Is this the only other door?”

“Then it must be a window.”

“All the back ones are barred.”

“Securely?”

“Yes.”

“Then we've no choice in the matter.”

And I led the way back to the hall, where the poor black devil lay blubbering in his blood. In the kitchen I found the bottle of wine (Rattray's best port, that they were trying to make her take for her health) with which Eva had bribed him, and I gave it to him before laying hands on a couple of chairs.

“What are you going to do?”'

“Go out the way we came.”

“But the wall?”

“Pile up these chairs, and as many more as we may need, if we can't open the gate.”

But Eva was not paying attention any longer, either to me or to Jose; his white teeth were showing in a grin for all his pain; her eyes were fixed in horror on the floor.

“They've come back,” she gasped. “The underground passage! Hark—hark!”

There was a muffled rush of feet beneath our own, then a dull but very distinguishable clatter on some invisible stair.

“Underground passage!” I exclaimed, and in my sheer disgust I forgot what was due to my darling. “Why on earth didn't you tell me of it before?”

“There was so much to tell you! It leads to the sea. Oh, what shall we do? You must hide—upstairs—anywhere!” cried Eva, wildly. “Leave them to me—leave them to me.”

“I like that,” said I; and I did; but I detested myself for the tears my words had drawn, and I prepared to die for them.

“They'll kill you, Mr. Cole!”

“It would serve me right; but we'll see about it.”

And I stood with my revolver very ready in my right hand, while with the other I caught poor Eva to my side, even as a door flew open, and Rattray himself burst upon us, a lantern in his hand, and the perspiration shining on his handsome face in its light.

I can see him now as he stood dumfounded on the threshold of the hall; and yet, at the time, my eyes sped past him into the room beyond.

It was the one I have described as being lined with books; there was a long rent in this lining, where the books had opened with a door, through which Captain Harris, Joaquin Santos, and Jane Braithwaite followed Rattray in quick succession, the men all with lanterns, the woman scarlet and dishevelled even for her. It was over the squire's shoulders I saw their faces; he kept them from passing him in the doorway by a free use of his elbows; and when I looked at him again, his black eyes were blazing from a face white with passion, and they were fixed upon me.

“What the devil brings you here?” he thundered at last.

“Don't ask idle questions,” was my reply to that.

“So you were shamming to-day!”

“I was taking a leaf out of your book.”

“You'll gain nothing by being clever!” sneered the squire, taking a threatening step forward. For at the last moment I had tucked my revolver behind my back, not only for the pleasure, but for the obvious advantage