The Wild Geese, Stanley John Weyman [best books to read for beginners txt] 📗

in anger. It was James's voice. "Tell him? Curse me if you shall!" Colonel John heard him say. The next moment the door was sharply closed and he caught no more.

But he had heard enough to quicken his pulses. What was it she wished to tell him? _Souvent femme varie?_ Was she already seeking to follow up the hint which she had given him on Bale's behalf? And was the special surveillance to which he had been subjected for the last two days aimed at keeping them apart, that she might have no opportunity of telling him--something?

Colonel John suspected that this might be so. And his heart beat, as has been hinted, more quickly. At the evening meal he was early in the room, on the chance that she might appear before the others. But she did not descend, and the meal proved unpleasant beyond the ordinary, James drinking more than was good for him, and taking a tone, brutal and churlish, if not positively hostile. For some reason, the Colonel reflected, the young man was beginning to lose his fears. Why? What was he planning? How was he, even if he had no respect for his oath, thinking to evade that dilemma which ensured his guest's safety?

"Secure as I seem, I must look to myself," Colonel John thought. And he slept that night with his door bolted and a loaded pistol under his pillow. Next morning he took care to descend early, on the chance of seeing Flavia before the others appeared. She was not down: he waited, and she did not come. But neither did his watchers; and when he had been in the room five minutes a serving-girl slipped in at the back, showed him a scared face, held out a scrap of paper and, when he had taken it, fled in a panic and without a spoken word.

He hid the paper about him and read it later. The message was in Flavia's hand; he had seen her write more than once. But if he had not, he knew that neither James nor the O'Beirnes were capable of penning a grammatical sentence. Colonel John's spirits rose as he read the note.

"_Be at the old Tower an hour after sunset. You must not be followed._"

"That is more easily said than done," he commented.

Nor, if he were followed through the day as closely as on previous days, did he see how it was to be done. He stood, cudgelling his brains to evolve a plan that would enable him to give the slip to the three men and to the servants who replaced them when they were called away. But he found none that might not, by awakening James's suspicions, make matters worse; indeed, it seemed to him that James was already suspicious. He had at last to let things take their course, in the hope that when the time came they would shape themselves favourably.

They did. For before noon he gathered that James wanted to go fishing. The O'Beirnes also wanted to go fishing, and for the general convenience it became him to go with them. He said neither No nor Yes; but he dallied with the idea until it was time to start and they had made up their minds that he was coming. Then he declined.

James swore, the O'Beirnes scowled at him and grumbled. Presently the three went outside and held a conference. His hopes rose as he sat smiling to himself, for their next step was to call Darby. Evidently they gave him orders and left him in charge, for a few minutes later they went off, spending their anger on one another, and on the barefoot gossoons who carried the tackle.

Late in the afternoon Colonel John took up his position on the horse-block by the entrance-gates, where the June sun fell on him; there he affected to be busy plaiting horse-hair lines. Every two or three minutes Darby showed himself at the door: once in a quarter of an hour the old man found occasion to cross the court to count the ducks or rout a trespassing beggar. Towards sunset, however, he came less often, having to busy himself with the evening meal. The Colonel smiled and waited, and presently the butler came again, found him still seated there, and withdrew--this time with an air of finality. "He's satisfied," the Colonel muttered, and the next moment--for the sun had already set a full hour--he was gone also. The light was waning fast, night was falling in the valley. Before he had travelled a hundred yards he was lost to view.

The fishing-party had started the contrary way, so that he had nothing to fear from them. But that he might omit no precaution, when he had gone a quarter of a mile he halted and listened, with his ear near the ground, for the beat of pursuing footsteps. He heard none, nor any sounds but the low of a cow whose calf was being weaned, the "Whoo! hoo! hoo!" of owls beginning to mouse beside the lake, and the creak of oars in a boat which darkness already hid. He straightened himself with a sigh of relief, and hastened at speed in the direction of the waterfall.

He gave Flavia credit for all the virtues, if for some of the faults of a proud, untamed nature. Therefore he believed her to be fearless. Nevertheless, before he stood on the platform and made out the shape of the Tower looming dark and huge above him, he had come to the conclusion that the need which forced her to such a place at such an hour must be great. The moon would not rise before eleven o'clock, the last shimmer of the water had faded into unfathomable blackness beneath him; he had to tread softly and with care to avoid the brink.

He peered about him, hoping to see her figure emerge beside him. He did not, and, disappointed, he coughed. Finally, in a subdued voice, he called her by name, once and twice. Alas! only the wind, softly stirring the grass and whispering in the ivy, answered him. He was beginning to think--with a chill of disappointment, excessive at his age and in the circumstances--that she had failed to come, when, at no great distance before him, he fancied some one moved. He groped his way forward half a dozen paces, found a light break on his view, and stood in astonishment.

The movement had carried him beyond the face of the Tower, and so revealed the light, which issued from a doorway situate in the flank of the building. He paused; but second thoughts, treading on the heels of surprise, reassured him. He saw that in that position the light was not visible from the lake or the house; and he moved quickly to the open door, expecting to see Flavia. Three steps led down to the basement room of the Tower; great was his surprise when he saw below him in this remote, abandoned building--in this room three feet below the level of the soil--a table set handsomely with four lighted candles in tall sticks, and furnished besides with a silver inkhorn, pens, and paper. Beside the table stood a couple of chairs and a stool. Doubtless there was other furniture in the room, but in his astonishment he saw only these.

He uttered an exclamation, and descended the steps. "Flavia!" he cried. "Flavia!" He did not see her, and he moved a pace towards that part of the room which the door hid from him.

Crash! The door fell to, dragged by an unseen hand. Colonel John sprang towards it; but too late. He heard the grating of a rusty key turned in the lock; he heard through one of the loopholes the sound of an inhuman laugh; and he knew that he was a prisoner. In that moment the cold air of the vault struck a chill to his bones; but it struck not so cold nor so death-like as the knowledge struck to his heart that Flavia had duped him. Yes, on the instant, before the crash of the closing door had ceased to echo in the stone vaulting above him, he knew that, he felt that! She had tricked him. She had deceived him. He let his chin sink on his breast. Oh, the pity of it!


CHAPTER XIX

PEINE FORTE ET DURE

For many minutes, fifteen, twenty perhaps, Colonel John sat motionless in the chair into which he had sunk, his eyes fixed on the flames of the candles that, so still was the night, burned steadily upwards. His unwinking gaze created about each tongue of flame strange effects of vapour, halo-like circles that widened and again contracted, colours that came and went. But he saw these things with his eyes without seeing them with his mind. It was not of them, it was not of the death-cold room about him, in which the table and chairs formed a lighted oasis out of character with the earthen floor, the rough walls, and the vaulted roof--it was not of anything within sight he was thinking; but of Flavia!

Of Flavia, who had deceived him, duped him, cajoled him. Who, for all he knew--and he thought it likely--had got rid of Uncle Ulick. Who had certainly got rid of Bale by playing on his feeling for the man. Who, by affecting a quarrel with her brother, had thrown him off his guard, and won his confidence, only to betray it. Who, having lured him thither, had laughed--had laughed! Deep sighs broke at long intervals from Colonel John's breast as he thought of her treachery. It cut him to the heart. He looked years older as he sat and pondered.

At length, with a sigh drawn from his very soul, he roused himself, and, taking a candle, he made the round of the chamber. The door by which he had entered was the only outlet, and it was of stout oak, clamped with iron, and locked. For windows, a pair of loopholes, slits so narrow that on the brightest day the room must be twilit, pierced the wall towards the lake. If the room had not been used of old as a prison, it made an admirable one; for the ancient walls were two feet thick, and the groined roof was out of reach, and of stone, hard as the weathering of centuries had left it. But not so hard, not so cruel as her heart! Flavia! The word almost came from his lips in a cry of pain.

Yet what was her purpose? He had been lured hither; but why? He tried to shake off the depression which weighed on him, and to think. His eyes fell on the table; he reflected that the answer would doubtless be found among the papers that lay on it. He sat down in the chair which was set before it, and he took up the first sheet that came to hand, a note of a dozen lines in her handwriting--alas! in her handwriting.

"SIR," so it ran,--

"You have betrayed us; and, were that all, I'd still be finding it in my heart to forgive you. But you have betrayed also our Country, our King, and our Faith; and for this it's not with me it lies to pardon. Over and above, you have thought to hold us in a web that would make you safe at once in your life and your person; but you are meshed in your