CHAPTER XVIII.

IN WHICH THE UNEXPECTED COMES TO PASS.

Never had Burgo passed so wearisome a day as that which followed Miss Roylance's second interview with him. He was burning for the moment to come when he should see her again, but the hours seemed to mock him, and the slow afternoon to drag itself out indefinitely. It was not merely because he looked forward to being able, with her help, to achieve his freedom that he so longed to see her again; it was quite as much, even more perhaps, for her own sake, and because she had cast over him a spell of enchantment which he had neither the will nor the power to struggle against. He had set eyes on her but twice, and yet already he was her slave manacled and helpless. "I thought in my ignorance that I loved Clara Leslie," he said to himself as he paced his prison from end to end, "but I didn't know the meaning of the word. I know it now." And yet this woman to whom he had yielded up his heart without a struggle was both a cripple and a hunchback, and three days before he had never as much as set eyes on her! It was one of those riddles which Love takes a mischievous delight in propounding, but of which it is the merest waste of time to try to find a reasonable and common-sense solution.

At length the afternoon deepened into dusk, and Burgo lighted his lamp, knowing that the longed-for moment could not be much longer delayed. Mrs. Sprowle had been in the habit of bringing him the meal which with her went by the name of supper some time between seven and eight o'clock, and Dacia's two visits had been timed about an hour later. To-night, however, not a little to Burgo's surprise, Miss Roylance followed close on the old lady's heels. His first glance at her face told him that she had important news of some kind to communicate to him--indeed, she hardly waited for Mrs. Sprowle to hand in her plates and dishes and make room at the aperture before she began.

"This is the last opportunity I shall have of seeing you here, and my visit must be limited to a very few minutes. Signor Sperani returns by the last train to-night, and will no doubt at once take charge of the key of the underground passage. Sprowle has been sent by her ladyship on an errand into the village, and has entrusted the key to his mother meanwhile, otherwise you would not have seen me at all. And now, here is a parcel for you, containing a couple of files and a length of rope. Oh dear! oh dear! Never did I think that I should come to be mixed up with such an adventure as this!"

"The service you have done me, Miss Roylance, is one I can never hope to be able to repay."

The words were of the simplest, but there was something in the way they were spoken which brought a flush to Dacia's cheek, and caused her to turn her eyes another way.

"Pray don't think me too presumptuous," resumed Burgo, "but there was a certain letter which you promised to write."

"It was written last night, and my own hands posted it before ten o'clock this morning. And now, Mr. Brabazon, as time is so short," she went on, bringing back her eyes to face his, "let us go in for a little supposition. Suppose, then, that my letter has the desired effect--or rather, that the telegram which will result from it, will have the effect of taking Lady Clinton all the way to Lausanne on a fictitious errand; and suppose, further, that you succeed in effecting your escape--what then?--what is supposed to follow?"

"With myself at liberty, and Lady Clinton temporarily out of the way, the course I propose to myself is a very simple one. In her ladyship's absence there will be no one with either the right or the power to refuse me access to my uncle."

"It seems to me that even if Lady Clinton be got rid of, you will still have to reckon with Sperani and his dogs."

"As for the dogs, a couple of revolver shots may be counted on to give them their quietus; while as regards Sperani, I trust that man to man, I should pretty well prove a match for him."

Dacia shook her head. "There must be no shooting," she said, "and no unseemly struggle. A far better plan will be for you and me to communicate with each other through Mrs. Sprowle--I to let you know when her ladyship has set out for Lausanne, and you to inform me when all is in readiness for your escape. After that it can be easily arranged for me to admit you to the house unknown to any one."

"That two heads are better than one I shall never doubt for the future," said Burgo with a smile.

"But, assuming that you are successful in reaching your uncle, what is to follow? Is it your intention to stay by his side, and be found there by Lady Clinton on her return?"

"Certainly not. My first object will be to endeavour to induce my uncle at once to leave the Keep, of course in my charge, and I don't think the dear old boy will need much persuasion. Where he may choose to go, whether back to London, or abroad, or elsewhere, will, of course, rest with himself; but if I have any voice whatever in the matter, it will be to some place to which Lady Clinton will be denied admittance. When once my uncle has been rescued from her clutches, he must never be allowed to fall into them again."

"She is a very determined woman, Mr. Brabazon."

"As I have ample reason to know. Still, I hope to be able to set her at defiance. When my uncle gets clear away from her he will be a different man; and if he will only hold fast to his determination not to see her, and to communicate with her only through his lawyer, she will be helpless. That he will be prepared to make her a liberal allowance, I do not doubt; but the question is not one of money only, but of life and death."

"Your last words, Mr. Brabazon, remind me of a singular dream I had the other night. I was in some place, I don't know where, among a number of figures, each of whom, except myself; wore a domino and mask. Each figure came up to me in turn, and having whispered in my ear the same words from Shakespeare: 'A deed without a name,' passed on. By-and-by there was only one figure left, but his whisper was different from the others: 'If you would know why I am not still among the living, ask _her_, was what he said. Then for a moment he drew his mask aside, and I saw the face of my Uncle Innes, as I saw it for the last time, when he lay in his coffin. And then with a cry I awoke. But there is Mrs. Sprowle calling to me from the foot of the stairs. I have overstayed my time. On no account must her son come back and find me here. Good-bye, Mr. Brabazon, till I meet you again, a prisoner no longer. You may rely upon hearing from me as soon as I have anything to tell you."

To-night she gave him her hand as frankly as she might have done had he been her brother; nor did her colour come, nor did she suffer her eyes to drop before the steadfast flame of his. But, as she made her way downstairs half a minute later her heart was throbbing tumultuously, and she felt as if she were aflame from head to foot.

In the early hours of next morning, long before daylight, Burgo set to work with one of the files Dacia had brought him. The height of the window compelled him to stand on a chair while he worked. He found that he would have to file through both the bars with which the window was guarded, and even then the aperture would be none too large to allow of the passage of his body. Judging from the fact that the bars were very little corroded by time or weather, Burgo concluded that they bad been a comparatively modern addition to the old building. He calculated that it would take him quite three or four days of stiff work, with a few hours of the night thrown in, before he reached the end of his task. Although he had no reason whatever to distrust Mrs. Sprowle, he decided that it might be advisable to keep her in ignorance of what he was about. The grating of the key in the lock below stairs always gave him due warning of her approach.

It was on the evening of the third day after his last interview with Dacia that Mrs. Sprowle handed Burgo the following note when she brought him his supper:

"Telegram to hand this forenoon. Lady C. started on her way to Lausanne by the four o'clock train. She will get through to London in time to catch the Continental Express to-morrow morning. It is left to me and Vallance to look after Sir Everard during her absence. Let me know by return how you are progressing, and when you will be ready to take _the next step_.

"D. R."

To which Burgo replied:

"Everything going admirably. Shall be ready for next step to-morrow night. Let me know in course of to-morrow _the hour and the place_.

"B. B."

He had been hard at work with his file during a great part of the day, and after he had eaten his supper he lighted his pipe and began the slow constitutional pacing from end to end of his prison chamber in which he spent some hours of each day. Yes, everything would be ready by to-morrow night, he told himself. One bar was filed completely through and removed and hidden behind his portmanteau, while five or six more hours of hard work would enable him to treat the other in the same way. But although he could not help exulting as he thought of what a few more hours would bring to pass, he was yet conscious of something tugging at his heartstrings which was far removed from exultation or gladness of any kind. He could not forget--it was a thought which haunted him waking or sleeping--that with the quitting of Garion Keep by his uncle and himself would be severed the solitary strand which for a little while had served to bind Miss Roylance and him so strangely together. Yes, they must part, and it was impossible to say whether they should ever meet again. Yet a voice within him whispered that they _must_ meet again, that neither fate nor chance could avail to sunder them for ever. Already it seemed to him as if this girl had become an inalienable part of himself; he could no longer conceive of his future as wholly dissevered from her. He had seen her for the first time less than a week ago, and yet he felt as if he had known her for a century. It was as though he and she had been united in some prior state of existence, and that Destiny had once more brought them together. In her he felt assured that his life had found its complement. It was true that she was deformed and walked with the help of a crutch, but what of that? When he had won her for his wife, as he fully meant to do, his love and protecting care would have one claim on them the more: that was all.

On one point he assured himself--that on no account would he part from her till he had revealed to her something of that which lay so close to his heart--till he had drawn from her, if it were possible for man to do so, a promise that their parting should be anything rather than a final one.

When he had smoked the last pipe to which he had allowanced himself, for by this time his stock of tobacco was running low, he opened wide the casement and stood there for some time, inhaling the salt coolness of the night air, in which there was a faint tang of seaweed, and staring into the infinitude of darkness outside his window, which to-night was unillumined by either moon or stars. The tide was coming in with a low monotonous thunder, which rose and fell rhythmically as it drew forth and back in unceasing repetition. It would be high-water about an hour after midnight. Presently Burgo would put out his lamp and turn in, to wake up long before daybreak and resume work with his file. Again and again he murmured exultingly to himself: "To-morrow night I shall be a free man!"

But although the main current of his thoughts was still with Dacia, he was not so oblivious of things external to him as not to be aware of an occasional gleam of light which came and went like a firefly within a certain limited space of darkness, and nearly in a direct line with his window. He recognised it at once for what it was--some one with a lantern moving on board the steam yacht which for the last three days had lain at anchor opposite the tower, about a hundred yards beyond low-water mark. Burgo had spent some of his unoccupied hours in watching it, and wondering as to the nature of the business which had brought it to that remote part of the coast, and kept it there for so long a time. But to wonder was all that was permitted him. Had he been free to question the landlord of the "Golden Owl" on the point, he would have learnt that the yacht's name was the _Naiad_, that its owner was an Irishman of the name of Marchment, that it had put into Crag End while certain slight repairs were effected in its machinery, and in order to obtain a supply of fresh provisions; and that Mr. Marchment, after having lian for one night in the little harbour, had declared its odours at low water to be unbearable, and had thereupon steamed out to the position which the yacht had since occupied. Such was the sum and substance of what was known about the _Naiad_ at Crag End. Its crew came and went, and were hail-fellows with the inhabitants, while the very liberal prices paid by its owner for such country produce as he required had raised him in the course of a few hours to the height of popularity.

Burgo watched the light with indifferent eyes while it moved to and fro, but at the end of a few minutes it went suddenly out, and was seen no more. But for the shifting light he would not have known that the yacht was still there. On such a night from where he stood it was wholly invisible.

Burgo could not tell how long he had been asleep, for it was still pitch dark, both inside the tower and out, when he was awakened by a dull, heavy hammering noise which sounded at once remote and near at hand, as though it were close by, and yet divided from him by some intervening substance, which had the effect of partially deadening the sound. To be thus awoke in the dead of night was sufficiently startling, and Burgo sprang to his feet on the instant. After listening for the space of a few seconds, as the noise still continued, he struck a match and lighted his lamp. A glance at his watch told him that the time was twenty minutes past one.

Crossing to the door, he pushed back the slide and listened. The sound now reached him much more clearly than before, showing that it proceeded from some point inside the building--a dull, heavy, continuous thump--thump, as though someone or something were hammering a way into or out of the tower. Whence did it proceed? What could be the meaning of it? Utterly confounded, Burgo could do nothing but stand and listen.

Then, after a few minutes, which he had employed in partly dressing himself, there came a crash, and a fall as of some heavy body, followed by a confused murmur of voices. This was succeeded by a sound of many footsteps crowding up the stone stairway. Burgo drew back a few paces and waited, his eyes fixed on the aperture.

First of all the darkness of the staircase was illumined, and then a hand appeared holding on high a ship's lantern, followed by the head and figure of the man to whom the hand belonged, crowding on whose heels came three more men, each of whom carried a revolver, while one, apparently the leader, was further armed with a drawn cutlass. This last personage it was--a fair, good-looking man of thirty, with a short reddish beard and moustache, and wearing a pea-jacket and a peaked cap with a gold band--who, bringing his face into proximity with the opening, proceeded to take silent stock of Burgo and his surroundings. That what he saw filled him with surprise was evident enough from his expression. After satisfying himself that the door was locked and the key missing, he said, addressing himself to Burgo: "Pardon the question, sir, but may I ask whether you are here as a prisoner?"

"That, sir, is my unfortunate position."

"May I inquire for how long a time you have been shut up in this place?"

"For somewhere about a fortnight."

"But during the last few days you have been busy in trying to accomplish your escape?"

Burgo started. "It is quite true, but I should like to know by that means you have become aware of the fact."

The stranger smiled. "The explanation is a very simple one. I am the owner and captain of the steam yacht which you have doubtless remarked during the last few days as being anchored off shore, nearly opposite your window. Now, after having been distinctly given to understand by some of the natives, whom I questioned on the point--for I am a bit of an archaeologist, and such matters interest me--that the tower was in a semi-ruinous condition, and had been uninhabited for the last fifty years, it was certainly somewhat startling to see each evening the window lighted up from within till close on midnight, as also during several hours of each day to behold a human figure perched close against the panes, and engaged in some mysterious occupation which, for a time I was wholly puzzled to make out. At length, with the help of my binocular, I came to the conclusion that the figure was that of a man at work with a file, or some other instrument, on one of the two upright bars which safeguarded the window on its inner side. It is as a result of the knowledge thus obtained by me that you see me here at this moment."

He spoke rapidly, and with a clear decisiveness of tone and manner, like one who was accustomed to imposing his orders upon others, and looked to have them obeyed.

"And now, sir," he resumed, "if after what I have told you, you choose to confide your name to me, and also to inform me to what circumstances your incarceration in this place is owing, it may be that I shall find myself in a position to give you back your freedom in a much readier way than your own unaided efforts would allow of your achieving it."

Thereupon he turned and spoke a few words in a low voice to one of his followers, with the result that all three of them proceeded to tramp downstairs, one after the other, leaving the captain of the _Naiad_ standing outside the door alone.

By this time Burgo, whose conclusions in moments of emergency were rapidly arrived at, had made up his mind to tell enough of his story to this new-found friend to enlist the latter's sympathies, and thereby insure his own proximate release. He was taken with the stranger's manner and expression; they were manly and straightforward, although not without a touch of imperiousness. You had only to look into his eyes to feel assured that treachery or double-dealing and he were far as the poles asunder.

"My name is Burgo Brabazon," he began, "and I am the nephew of Sir Everard Clinton, who----"

It was now the stranger's turn to start. "Stop," he said abruptly, before Burgo could utter another word. "Tell me your name again, please. I am not sure I caught it aright."

Burgo told him.

"Are you, may I ask, a son of the late Lieutenant Godfrey Brabazon of the Royal Navy, who served at one time on board the _Arcturus?_"

"My father's name was Godfrey Brabazon, and he was a naval lieutenant, but he died when I was little more than a child; and as to whether he ever served on the vessel you speak of I have no knowledge."

"Perhaps, then, you can tell me where he was born, or maybe, I ought rather to say, where he lived for several years as a youth."

"My father was a Tiverton man, born and bred."

"That does away with the last shadow of a doubt. Mr. Brabazon, I am especially glad to make your acquaintance, and still more pleased that it is in my power to be of some slight service to you."

Before more could be said, one of the men came pack, and after whispering something to him, to which he replied by a curt nod, disappeared once more.

Turning again to Burgo, the captain of the _Naiad_ said: "I am called away, but you may rely upon seeing me again in less than an hour. A few minutes after that, Mr. Brabazon, you will be a free man."

He nodded, turned away, and was gone.