Part 27

“Oh, for a sword, that I might pierce the monster’s heart!” our hero sighed, but sighed in vain.

At that instant, Steve, now the priest, passed pompously through the room, and catching our hero’s last words, replied: “No, no! Soil not thy hands with such a perjured wretch, nor soil thy sword. These soldiers here should pierce his ears, not thee,” wilfully mistaking the word _heart_ for _ears_--or perhaps he did not understand English so well as his pupil. “Brave men, go forth and hang this captured knave from some great height, and leave him there to crumble into dust.”

Our hero’s blood-thirsty followers lugged Bélître Scélérat out of the room and up the stairs with a haste that proved how well and strongly he was made, and remorselessly prepared to consign him to his ignominious fate.

Then our hero and heroine again broke out into their poetry, the latter saying, “And now, my freedom is achieved. Ah me! I almost now regret that we should leave these shores, this land of blessèd liberty, and travel back alone to our loved France! Ah, in my hour of triumph am I sad? Yes, woe is me, I am!--Oh, Marmaduke, there is no need of this! The priest is here, the bridegroom and the bride! Oh Marmaduke, there is no cause why I should go alone. Ah, thou wilt soon be mine, and I shall soon be thine! Thy husband,--_wife_, I mean. Oh, Marmaduke, dear Marmaduke!”

As Sauterelle ran on in this strain our hero grew pale and sick with dismay. Was he to be made a sacrifice of thus? Must the rescue of necessity lead to this? Oh, it was too awful!

“A beauty here that would befit a queen; and, yes, I feel love springing in my heart! But should _I_ marry? _I_, a boy, and _this_, the daughter of a duke? Oh, that it might be so! As I have said, the French are more excitable than we. But am I not the rescuer-in-chief? In such a case as this, what should I do?”

A triumphant shout of sated vengeance now rang through the building. Bélître Scélérat was securely fastened, not exactly hanged, out of an upper window. A minute later the executioners came clattering noisily down stairs, then filed respectfully past our hero and heroine into another room, and took up a position where they were screened, but from which they could see and hear all that was going on. This action on their part was more conformable to human nature than to the laws of romance or the dignity of heroes.

A sidelong glance disclosed the fact that our hero’s face was of the hue of polished marble, and that large tears of heartfelt emotion were starting from his eyes, while other tears were welling from the pores of his neck and forehead.

“Père Tortenson, Père Tortenson,” cried Sauterelle. “Is he not here? Then go, some one, to look for him, and bring him here to me. The marriage may take place without delay.”

“Dear Sauterelle,” our hero said, “I feel I love thee well indeed, but yet I may not marry thee. Thy friend, thy humble servant, guide, and helper, I will ever be; thy husband--ah!”

Our hero’s grammar says _mine_ and _thine_ are used only in solemn style. Our hero and heroine were aware of this--they were but paying tribute to the solemnity of the occasion.

“No! say not that! You own that you love me as I love thee. What is there then to come between us and our happiness? Is it, alas! my title and my rank? Think not of them; they shall be nought to us. My Marmaduke, I’d lay them all aside for thee. Or what is it? Speak, Marmaduke; I wait to hear thee speak.”

“Alas, dear Sauterelle,--if really I may call thee so,--I am not worthy thee. It is indeed thy title and thy rank. How couldst thou wed a non-commissioned officer like me?”

“Perhaps you are the kidnapped heir of some great English lord.”

“Oh, _could_ it be? Oh, would it were! Then I thy equal--Oh, say not that! No; do not torture me.”

“I understand it now,--my love is not returned,--you do not care for me.”

“Love thee! Indeed I love thee well--love thee, as boy never loved before--love thee, as I ne’er can love again!”

“Oh, Marmaduke! dear Marmaduke! you cause me joy. My Marmaduke, I’ll call again the priest.”

“Thy father!--No, no! I dare not meet thy father!”

“Dread not my father’s ire. He loves his child; his child loves thee. Ah, thou art all mine own, for all that thou hast urged is but a paper wall.”

“Dear Sauterelle, I must admit I love thee well. To be thine own--oh, joy! But no; it cannot be. I have no wealth, no heritage at all. A wife is far from me.”

“Wealth? What is wealth to me? Wealth is an idle word--non-entity--a gin--a snare--a clap-trap. How should we live? Let no such thoughts occur to thee. Though wealth is nought, ’tis true, my father hath it, and thou couldst have enough to live as princes live.”

“‘Alas,’ you said, ‘perhaps my father lives no more.’”

“Ah, then am I his heir, and all his riches ours. Oh, Marmaduke, why should you longer hesitate to take this step, or longer pause for foolish whims? Then call again the priest. Why loiters he?”

But our hero was not yet sensible of the duty that devolved upon him--he did not yet fully realize his position--he still hung back--and his poetical objections having been one by one confuted, he now had the excess of baseness to offer another.

“Alas, I know not well thy foreign tongue. How couldst thou hear me always in my rough tongue, when thine, so sweet, so soft, so beautiful--”

“No! speak not so!” cried Sauterelle. “I will not hear thee speak so! Oh, slander not the language that is thine. And, ah!--thou art a ready youth, I see it in thine eye,--how sweet the task of teaching thee my polished mode of thought and speech! But yet, even as it is, we can converse quite easily! Père Tortenson, the time for marrying is here.”

“Ah, that is truth!” our hero cried. “You speak my English quite as well as I!”

Then, in a rational moment, he said rationally, “As you have said, dear Sauterelle, we love each other well; but being still so young, so very young, we must not think of marriage yet a while. ’Tis hard to part with thee,--our lot is doubly hard,--but fate is ever merciless. Farewell, my love, we part.”

He tore himself away, as though he would have fled.

“’Tis true that we are young,” said Sauterelle. “Our hearts are warm and young, not chilled and seared with age and woe. To leave me? No! it shall not be! Thou must not go!”

“To love is either happiness or pain; to love, and to be loved again,--oh, this is ecstasy!”

“Oh, Marmaduke, you thrill my heart with joy!”

“Alas, dear Sauterelle, that love and duty should thus clash! But, oh, I must not marry thee; I am so far beneath thee. Dear Sauterelle, thou wilt return to France and be the wife of some great prince, while I, alas! shall wear my life away in hopelessness and grief. And yet, oh Sauterelle, I love thee so! I love thee so! I fear I yet shall yield to love, forgetting duty.”

Then Charles stepped out of his lurking-place, and said respectfully:

“Forgive me, sir, that I should speak to you, but duty is not always what it seems. How can this helpless one return to France alone! A priest at hand, a marriage, sir, is duty in this case. Your father’s house is near--live there till Duke Chaloupe hears of this rescue and this marriage. Then Duke Chaloupe will send us funds for all to go to France.”

“Oh, would that I could think that you are right! I should no longer hesitate.”

Then, forgetting himself and his position, he fell back on prose. “Why should not Lady Sauterelle and the priest return? Are there no hoards of jewels and treasure here in this building, that would pay the passage, at least? Scélérat, perhaps, has millions buried here, which can be found.”

“No he hasn’t,” said Will, thrusting his head into the room. “Not a cent. What did you expect the captive to do after the rescue? What were your ideas on that point?”

“Alas,” groaned Marmaduke, “I had none! I never thought what any of us would do immediately after the rescue; my thoughts were far ahead in the future. Oh, if I had only sent that letter to the Government!”

At that moment a person with majestic mien strode into the room, saying, “I come, I come; who calls Père Tortenson? Is it a marriage, lovely Sauterelle? If so, quite right. Who is the honored bridegroom?”

As Marmaduke’s chivalric notions of right and wrong still admonished him not to enter into marriage with a person of noble birth, he had the uprightness to resist the feelings of his heart once more, though it cost him a hard struggle to do so.

Then the other, casting on a tragic air, said, “Alas for the decay of chivalry! In the old days it was not thus. Then no weak whim of fancied right e’er came between two loving hearts.”

Charles whispered to our hero’s followers, and then, having stepped into the room, they chorused, their voices, attuned by war and conquest, filling the place with harmony: “Your duty, sir, is very plain, and we are grieved that we should have to point it out: a marriage, as you are. A few years hence, and you will be the mighty king of some great land.”

Then Marmaduke shone forth in all his native nobleness. He reverently took Sauterelle’s hand in his own, but before giving the word to the priest he chanted: “In rank, in ti-tle, and in birth; in rich-es, age, and clime; in all things, thou surpassest me, O lovely Sauterelle.”

“Yea, even in height!” chimed in Père Tortenson.

“Proceed, sir priest,” said Marmaduke.

* * * * *

The plot was now, they supposed, at an end. It would be as well to consider its framers as boys again.

Henry did not wish to prolong the scene, and he whispered to Will: “This is as far as I dare go; but try to think of something--_anything_--to keep up the fun a little longer.”

Stephen pretended to be fumbling in the pockets of his robe. Turning to the Sage, he whispered imploringly, “Oh, George, can’t you ‘ventriloquism’ a little--_ever_ so little?”

“The ghost!” George muttered. “Let us bring in the ghost!”

“The ghost? My stars! we never settled how that was to be done!” Steve said blankly.

“Oh, Steve, I wish you were free to play the spectre!” Will sighed. “What was it that we intended the ghost to do, anyway?”

“Oh, my gracious, I don’t know; I’m all a muddle!”

But the moments were slipping away very fast. Marmaduke heard their mutterings, though he did not understand them, and he was becoming uneasy.

“Proceed with the ceremony,” he repeated.

_Chapter XXXVIII._

THE STARTLERS THEMSELVES ARE STARTLED.

But the tables were to be turned in a startling and wholly unlooked-for manner. The boys had had their day of imposing on simple Marmaduke; and now, in their turn, they were destined to suffer acutely from uneasiness and remorse for several hours.

Such a sentence always finds a place in romances at certain conjunctures, and, if judiciously worded, reflects great credit on the romancer. But the reader cannot always perceive the beauty of such a sentence, and therefore it would be showing more respect for his feelings to follow our Jim.

This hero had slipped away from his companions shortly before Stephen at last appeared as priest. Being only a figure-head on this occasion, his absence or presence did not concern them in the least, and he was suffered to slip out of the backdoor without comment.

He wished to make his way into the upper story without going up the stairs, as to do that it would be necessary to pass the hero and heroine. However, being well-acquainted with the building, and knowing how to climb, he easily made his way into the upper story from the rear. Then he stole noiselessly across the gloomy chamber, and felt his way to the window, where the “imposter,” Bélître Scélérat, hung in state.

It is a fundamental principle that villains, when about to perpetrate their dark crimes, should express their wicked thoughts in “hurried whispers.” This is very foolish on the part of the villains; but it is not easy to see how novels could be written if it were otherwise. Of course the romancers do not always overhear these “hurried whispers,” but the walls in the vicinity have ears, and probably the romancers get at them in that way.

“Now, then,” muttered Jim, “I’ll teach ’em better than to leave me out of their plots till they have to let me in. Charley and Steve intend to come along for this to-morrow, do they, and take it away, and float it burning down the river? I’ll bet they won’t! I’ll burn it all to smoke and ashes now, as it hangs on its pins, and serve ’em right!”

“Hum, _this_ is Jim’s treachery!” sneers the reader. “I was led to expect something better; I am disappointed.”

Gentle reader, if you are a faithful peruser of novels, you must have a great fund of patience. Draw, then, on that fund, and more of Jim’s designs will presently be unfolded. Draw on your imagination, also; for his treachery was never fully made known.

Suiting the action to the word, Jim fumbled in his pocket and took out a bunch of matches, which he had put there for this very purpose. He knew he was doing wrong, and his hand trembled as he struck a light. He knew that his terrible disease might seize him at any moment; and so, fearing to stay longer where he was, he hastily applied the light to the spectral figure, and turned to steal away.

The inflammable material of Bélître Scélérat’s clothes instantly caught fire, and he himself was soon ablaze.

“Now to run and tell Marmaduke he is fooled,” Jim muttered.

In this way, poor simpleton, he thought to ease his conscience! But the “still small voice” will be deceived by no such flimsy excuses.

“Then to yell ‘Fire!’--Oh, if any ghost _should_ be up here, now,--if there _are_ such things as ghosts,--this is the place for them! Now, to get away.----Ow! Ow! Ouowh!”

The cause of these unmusical yells from Jim was that he heard hasty footsteps issuing from a room to the left, and then a ghost-like figure appeared in the flaring light of the burning impostor.

Jim had almost expected to encounter something horrible, and when this apparition hove in sight his terror was all the more intense.

Setting up horrisonous howls, that would have been a credit to Bob Herriman himself, he forgot all about the dangerous place in the floor,--which, as has been said, the explorers discovered, carefully marked out, and avoided,--and rushed blindly upon it. A groan, a trembling, and it gave way beneath him with the crash of an earthquake.

Marmaduke had just given the word to the priest for the second time, when a succession of frightful howls and yells of agony struck their ears, and a moment later a blinding cloud of dust, plaster, and splinters, pervaded the apartment.

Jim, a scratched and woe-begone object, also fell.

Thus the plotters’ little difficulty was obviated; thus a ghost came to them.

But that was not all. It so happened (rather, _of course_ it happened) that Sauterelle and the general were in the course of the faller.

Before any of the demoralized plotters could think what was the matter, or even think at all, Jim dropped heavily downward, and his feet caught in the rescued one’s outlandish headdress. It was rudely torn off, and Henry’s aching head received so violent a wrench that he could have roared with the pain.

Although Jim’s fall was not stopped, its course was deflected, and his head and body were thrown furiously into Marmaduke’s and Stephen’s arms. He thus escaped with sundry painful bruises, owing perhaps his life to the accident of striking Henry’s headdress and being thrown upon Marmaduke and Stephen.

These two, also, were stunned and slightly hurt; and a pair of unique goggles, that Steve wore as a partial disguise, went the way of the hammer, the axe, and the band-box full of rusty tools.

Confusion reigned for a few moments; but as soon as the general could think at all, his thoughts reverted to Sauterelle.

“Oh, where is Lady Sauterelle?” he cried.

He flew to Henry’s side, to behold--oh what?

Henry had seized his opportunity to strip off his disguise, and now stood revealed in coat, vest, and pants--a very boy-like boy.

The plotters, somewhat recovered from their surprise, and seeing that no one was much the worse for the fright, saw the dupe’s look of horror and consternation, and could restrain themselves no longer. The long pent-up laughter burst from each mouth in one deafening roar. This was what they had plotted for, and it had come.

With a tragic and truly pathetic air, Marmaduke threw up his hands, cried, in piteous tones, that the plotters will remember till their last hour, “I am betrayed!” and fled out of the house like a madman.

For the first time the boys felt heartily ashamed of themselves. They all ran out to call him back and beg his forgiveness, and discovered what they would have known before, if they had not been so engrossed with Jim’s fall and Henry’s unmasking.

The building was on fire and burning furiously! Though it was not five minutes since Jim struck his match, the fire had gained too great a hold to be extinguished.

Jim was appalled. Nothing was further from his thoughts than the burning of the prison-house; though a little reflection would have shown him that a figure fashioned of greasy clothes, and stuffed with rags, straw, shavings, and sundry valuables that slipped in unawares, could not burn within a few inches of a wooden building without setting it on fire.

“Fire! fire!” yelled the heroes, hardly knowing whether to be delighted or otherwise at the prospect of such a bon-fire.

In the excitement of the moment the search after Marmaduke was given up.

“Are--are we all out, or is somebody burnt up?” Will asked, wildly, but with rare presence of mind.

“Oh, boys, I did it, but I didn’t mean to burn the house,” Jim confessed. “All I wanted was to burn your impostor, and tell Marmaduke the truth, and--Ou! ou! ou! ou!” he shrieked. “There it is again! ou, ou!” and the boy with the chills took to his heels.

Jim practised running: on this occasion he was soon out of sight.

The rest looked in the direction pointed out by Jim, and beheld a figure in white gliding towards them. Was it a ghost, or some one wrapped up in a sheet, so foolish as to play the part of a ghost?

“Oh, dear;” gasped Steve, “what is going to happen next?”

All the boys were wrought up to a pitch of great excitement, and were more terrified than they cared to acknowledge. Henry’s thoughts reverted to his Greek history and Nemesis.

But after a moment the Sage observed, with his habitual philosophy, “Well, if it’s the ghost that inhabited that house, he is wise in seeking other quarters, for it will soon be nothing but red-hot ashes.”

Then, afraid that Henry might think him weak enough to believe in ghosts, he added, hastily, “Of course, you know, boys, that there are no such creatures as ghosts; only--”

At this juncture the speaker broke off abruptly, and whatever information he had to impart was lost. The apparition was now quite close to the boys, and as the last words left George’s lips, it flung off something very much like a sheet, and exclaimed, in a voice quite as human as ghostly:

“Well, young gentlemen, since you hesitate to take me for a supernatural being, I shall reveal myself to you.”

“Do it, then,” said Steve, in street Arab style. “Do it, for we must be off to look for a comrade.”

“This to me!” cried the new-comer, angrily. “I’d have you know that I am Benjamin Stolz.”

“Oh, horrors!” groaned Steve. “It’s the man that owns ‘Nobody’s House.’”

Mr. Stolz spoke again. (By the way, his full name was Benjamin Franklin Stolz.) Laying aside the bantering tones in which he first addressed them, he spoke fiercely:

“Young men, I want to know who owns that burning house?”

“The one straight ahead of us?” Will asked, as if they were in the midst of a burning city, with buildings on fire on every side.

Mr. Stolz stooped, picked up a small stone, and flung it towards the fire, saying, “That is the building I have reference to, unhappy youth. If you can’t see it yet, I will carry you up to it. I repeat, _who is supposed to own that place_?”

“I am to blame for all this, Mr. Stolz,” Charles had the courage to say. “I persuaded the boys to come and make use of it; but I thought it was so useless, and had been left idle so many years, that no one valued it. I beg pardon, Mr. Stolz.”

Stolz hesitated. The boy’s willingness to receive all the blame touched him. “He is a fine little fellow,” he said to himself, “but now that I have started this I must go through it.”

Charles gained, rather than lost, by his confession, yet he did not escape punishment. Perhaps he did not expect that.

“Well,” began Mr. Stolz, “think twice, or even four or five times, before you plan to ‘make use of’ the property of others again. When I choose to burn down my establishments, I shall do it myself, and not call in schoolboys to do it for me. Did any of you ever hear what the law says about burning a man’s house? Law, and the newspapers, and insurance agents, call it _incendiarism_. Judges and juries call _incendiarism_ a very nefarious occupation. Now, don’t wait to see the walls collapse--begone! all of you! To-morrow I shall send a writ of summons to each of you! Begone! Good night.”

Having discharged his horrible threat about the writ of summons, Stolz turned and strode towards the blazing and roaring fire, a very odd smile on his lips.

The “incendiaries” did not see that smile, and they stood staring at his retreating figure, speechless and hopeless. This was the end of their plot! Ah, its growth had been difficult and uneven--its end was sublimely tragical!

Not one of them had accused Jim of firing the building, though, from his own confession, each one knew that Jim only was guilty of the deed. However, they deserve no praise for this, since they were all so utterly confounded that not one of them remembered it. But as Mr. Stolz was the ghost that caused Jim’s panic, flight, and fall, he must certainly have known all about it, and consequently it was better that they should hold their peace.

After a solemn silence, Stephen asked faintly, “Boys, what’s a writ of summons? Isn’t it something awful?”

The Sage brightened and answered him thus: “Yes, Steve, it is a dreadful instrument of justice to deliver culprits up to the fury of Law--to trial, punishment, and torture.”

Steve, who had a very vague notion of what the word _instrument_ means, instantly thought of thumb-screws, racks, and divers other engines of torture, that our “chivalrous” forefathers were so ingenious as to invent and so diabolical as to use.

“Boys,” said Charles, “we are in a worse scrape than ever before. It would be an awful thing if we should be sent to prison! Oh, it would kill my mother! Henry, do you really think Stolz could send us to prison?”

“I don’t know,” said Henry, in a mournful voice, little above a whisper.

“Look here, boys,” spoke the Sage, with his time-honored phraseology, “we have lost track of Marmaduke altogether. We must find out what has become of him.”

“O dear, if he is missing, I shall not care to live!” Henry declared sincerely. “Where do you suppose he is, boys? Is he a boy to take such a thing very much to heart?”

“I’m afraid he is,” Will acknowledged. “He takes everything so seriously that this will be almost too much for him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Henry asked bitterly.

With wildly beating hearts the little band began to search for the missing one, calling him imploringly by name and begging his forgiveness. The search was continued till Henry became so completely exhausted that he could no longer drag himself along; and then it was incumbent on the others to take him home.

As they drew near the village, one of them proposed to stop at Marmaduke’s home and inquire after him, in the faint hope that he might be there. The others agreed to this, but with little hope of receiving a favorable answer.

“Is Marmaduke at home?” Charles asked timidly, as Mr. Fitz-Williams opened the door.