CHAPTER XX.

RESCUED.

A man standing on one of the lowermost stairs with a lantern lighted Burgo and Mr. Marchment on their way down.

Burgo now found himself on the ground-floor of the tower. He had been unconscious when brought there, and he looked about him with some measure of curiosity. There were a couple of doors facing each other, the larger and more substantial of which he rightly conjectured to be the one which gave admittance to the tower from the outside, and that the other led down to the underground passage. What, however, struck him most was a hole in the wall, where the masonry, which lay in a confused heap on the floor, had been knocked away, leaving a gaping chasm large enough for a man to pass through. But he had only just time to note these things before the sailor with the lantern led the way through the gap in the wall. As Marchment beckoned Burgo to follow him, he said laughingly: "You can see for yourself that I and my fellows were put to some little trouble before we could get at you. But you were such a puzzle to us--some of my men would have it the tower was haunted, and you the ghost--that we couldn't rest till we had found out all about you."

Burgo had vaguely expected that on stepping through the gap he should find himself in the open air, instead of which he was in a tiny chamber, just big enough to hold three men, built in the thickness of the wall, with a narrow flight of steps at his feet, apparently leading down into the foundations of the tower. But there was no time to wonder: down the steps they went in single file, slowly and carefully, coming before long to a larger chamber, measuring about twenty feet by twelve, hollowed out of the body of the cliff on which the tower was built. Burgo could now plainly hear the plash and beat of the tide, which sounded close at hand.

As before, however, there was only just time to glance around, for the man with the lantern was still leading the way. There was still another flight of steps to descend, much broader and of rougher construction than the first, with a massive _grille_, or open-work iron door, at the bottom of them, now wide open, and beyond that a cavern of some spaciousness open to the sea, with, a little lower than the _grille_, a sort of rude causeway formed of big, slippery sea-worn slabs, which reached nearly to the mouth of the cave, and was evidently washed over by every tide. Not far from the end of this landing-place, the tide being now on the turn, a boat was waiting with a couple of men in her. The one with the lantern held out his hand to Burgo to help him over the slippery footway, Marchment followed, and a couple of minutes later the boat was pushed off, and the oars unshipped. As they swept out of the cavern on the summit of a reflex wave, the light of the lantern was extinguished. The oars were muffled, and the men pulled almost without a sound. The night was dark and moonless, canopied with heavy clouds which would probably shed themselves in rain before many hours were over. Not a word above a whisper was spoken till they pulled up under the lee of the _Naiad_, which showed like some huge black monster of the deep, with not a single gleam of light anywhere visible.

"All well?" demanded a voice softly from out the darkness.

"All well!" responded a voice from the boat.

"Await my return," whispered Marchment to Burgo.

Then everybody left the boat save Burgo and one of the men. But barely five minutes had passed before Marchment was back, and one by one four men followed him. They began at once to give way, and, as nothing was said to them, they had doubtless had their orders beforehand. Marchment seated himself in the stern and took the tiller; but first he passed a revolver to Burgo, whispering as he did so: "One never knows what may happen, and it is just as well to be prepared for eventualities."

Burgo took no heed in which direction they were steering, his mind was full of other things; and, indeed, just then he had much to think of. In all probability the next hour would prove one of the most eventful of his life. He was roused from his reverie by the grating of the boat's keel on the sandy beach.

"Here we are," said Marchment in a low voice.

"Where _is_ here?" queried Burgo.

"We are opposite a gully, or break in the cliff, about half a mile to the west of Garion Keep. This we shall ascend, and then make our way back along the summit of the cliff till we reach the Keep, after which we shall put ourselves in your hands and obey implicitly whatever instructions you may choose to give us."

About twenty minutes later the little party were gathered under the garden wall of the Keep, which on that side was about six feet high. As they were coming along Burgo imparted his plan to Marchment, so that there was now no loss of time. One of the sailors, a sturdy, broad-set fellow, proceeded to make what schoolboys call a "back" against the wall, as if for a game of leap-frog, thus serving as a sort of stepping-stone for the others to the top of the wall, whence one after another they dropped to the ground on the other side. They were now in the shrubbery which fringed the lawn on the cliff side of the Keep. Sperani's dogs, as it may be remembered, were turned loose at night in the courtyard which shut in the Keep on the landward side. Two facts had been borne in mind by Burgo--one, that his uncle had caused a bow window with centre glass doors to be built out on the cliff side, and the other that he, Sir Everard, slept on the ground floor. It was in the direction of the bow window, the position of which he could pretty well guess at, that Burgo now led the little party in silence across the lawn. It seemed to him that there would be found the most vulnerable point for gaining admittance to the Keep.

His surmise proved to be correct. When the bow window was found it did not take one of the men--the same who had forced the door of Burgo's prison, and who had been apprenticed to a locksmith before he ran away to sea--very many minutes to effect an entrance. The party now found themselves in a room which had been appropriated by Lady Clinton for her own especial use, from which they made their way into the main corridor of the house. A couple of dark lanterns had already been produced, and their light flashed around. So far everything had succeeded almost beyond Burgo's expectations. Turning to him, Marchment now said: "What is our next proceeding, _mon ami?_" and Burgo was about to answer: "To find my uncle's bedroom," when he was spared the necessity of replying by the unexpected appearance of Vallance, who issued from a room half-way down the corridor. He had been lying, half-dressed and half-asleep, on the couch in Sir Everard's dressing-room, ready to attend on his master at a moment's notice, when he had been disturbed by a noise for which he could not account, and had ventured into the corridor in his desire to ascertain the origin of it.

"Seize that man," cried Burgo, the moment his eyes fell on him; and before the valet could gather his scattered wits he had not merely been seized, but bound hand and foot by two of the seamen, one of whom said gruffly to him: "Look here, my hearty, if you don't want a bullet in your gizzard, you'll keep a still tongue in your head." Then by Burgo's orders he was thrust into an empty room, and the key turned on him.

Another of the men meanwhile, by Marchment's directions, had lighted the Argand lamp which hung from the ceiling at one end of the corridor.

Burgo had at once concluded that Vallance was in attendance on his uncle, and he lost not a moment in passing through the door which the valet had left open, and so from the dressing-room into the bedroom beyond, in both of which a light was burning. There he found his uncle, who was sitting up in bed, and who had already with his enfeebled voice called twice for Vallance without avail.

His mind was clear, his memory unclouded, and he recognised Burgo on the instant. A low cry broke from his lips. "Oh, my boy, my boy!" he exclaimed, "why did you leave me? Where have you been all this weary time? They told me--but it matters nothing what they told me. It was all lies--lies! They thought to deceive me, but they were mistaken. But you have come back to me at last, and you won't leave me again, will you, my boy?" His voice quavered and broke as the last words left his lips.

"Never, so help me Heaven!" exclaimed Burgo fervently as he bent and touched his uncle's forehead with his lips. "But we will talk about the past another time. I have come to take you away from here--and to take you away from her. I have good friends outside to help me. But there is no time to lose. Come--let me help you to dress."

There was a decanter on the table containing brandy. He mixed a portion of it with some water, and at his request Sir Everard drank it off.

The baronet comprehended that a crisis had come, and he wasted no time in asking questions. He let Burgo help him to dress; indeed, he was quite as eager to be gone as his nephew was to get him away.

It was evident that he was very weak, but excitement had lent him a fictitious strength, which, however, would presently evaporate for lack of stamina to back it up. His face, too, had grown greyer and more haggard in the interval since Burgo had seen him last, and his hair was now as colourless as driven snow.

As Burgo was helping his uncle to put on his fur-lined overcoat, he said; "Do you think, sir, that Miss Roylance would leave here in your charge? It would be a thousand pities--would it not?--to leave her behind."

"It would indeed. She is a good girl, a noble girl, and--and I'm afraid she is not very happy here. She ought to go with us by all means." It never struck him to ask how it happened that his nephew was acquainted with Dacia Roylance.

After placing his uncle in an easy-chair, and administering a little more brandy-and-water, he left the room in order to speak to Marchment. Although not more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed since they set foot inside the Keep, he knew that the latter would be growing impatient. And yet to go and to be compelled to leave Dacia behind, and that without the chance of a parting word between them, was a prospect which wrung his heart with anguish of a kind such as heretofore he had not known. If only he could have seized upon Mother Sprowle, or one of the female domestics, and have sent a message to Dacia that he wanted to see her without loss of time But there was no one to send. Except Vallance and his uncle, no one in the house appeared to have been disturbed, for the servants slept in another wing. What to do he knew not.

Marchment and his men were gathered in the entrance-hall out of which the corridor led. The captain of the _Naiad_ had seated himself on one of the lower stairs, and was smoking a cigarette with an air of the utmost _sang-froid_.

"I hope I have not altogether exhausted your patience," said Burgo as he came up. "My uncle is now ready, and----"

He stopped like one suddenly stricken dumb. His eyes had caught a glimpse of something white on the stairs. Looking up, he beheld Dacia coming slowly down, her crutch under her left arm, and her right hand gliding over the balusters, but on the soft carpet her crutch made no sound. Late as the hour was, she had not gone to bed, and on hearing a murmur of strange voices in the hall she had quitted her room and crept to the darkest corner of the gallery, whence she could see all that went on below without any risk of discovery. Alarmed, and utterly at a loss to account for the presence of armed strangers in the house, who yet had something about them which seemed to mark them out from common burglars, she had not known what to do. But the moment she saw Burgo emerge from the corridor in which his uncle's bedroom was situated she hesitated no longer. So long as he was there, everything must be right.

Marchment had sprung to his feet, and his eyes had followed the direction of Burgo's when the latter's speech stopped suddenly short. At sight of that white-robed figure coming down he flung his cigarette away, and drew somewhat aside.

Dacia was always pale, but to-night, in her white _peignoir_, and by the dim light of the solitary lamp, she looked more like a phantom than a creature of flesh and blood.

"Oh, Mr. Brabazon," she cried with a sort of breathless eagerness, "I am so glad you are here--so glad to have an opportunity of telling you I won't stop now to ask you how it is I find you here; you can tell me that another time. What I want to say is, that in the course of yesterday afternoon (for this is Wednesday morning) Signor Sperani received a telegram, which I am nearly sure, although not able to speak positively, was sent by Lady Clinton. In any case, he has taken the landau and driven to the junction, a dozen miles away--the night mail does not stop at Oakbarrow--and although he has not yet returned, he may be here at any moment. My intention was to have sent you a message by Mrs. Sprowle, but I found that Sperani had taken the key of the underground passage with him."

"Then we may yet be in time to get clear away before his return," said Burgo. "For my uncle's sake I would fain avoid a scene, if it be possible to do so. I shall have much to tell you, Miss Roylance, later on. This is my friend, Mr. Marchment, to whose good offices I owe it that I am here. I was wondering how I could best find, the means of communicating with you, when you appeared. Fortune sometimes does one a good turn unexpectedly. Miss Roylance, my uncle will quit this roof within ten minutes from now, under the charge of Mr. Marchment and myself, and it is his most earnest wish that you should accompany him."

"I! Oh, Mr. Brabazon!" It was as though she had been suddenly transformed from some dim crepuscular phantom into a rosy young goddess of the dawn.

"Consider--think what it will be for you to stay on here alone, with Sperani and her ladyship, after my uncle is gone! He would plead with you himself were he not so feeble and our minutes here so few. But he has sent me to plead for him--would that I could do it with more eloquence, more fervour!" He paused, and drew a deep breath. His eyes were luminous with a love unconfessed in words. "You _must_ go with us, indeed you must! I ask it for his sake--and my own."

She was trembling a little, but her eyes met his bravely; to Burgo it seemed as if they were searching his very soul. There was a pause long enough for half a dozen heart-beats, then Dacia said very gently: "Tell dear Sir Everard, please, that, since it is his wish, I will go with him. Five minutes at the most will see me ready to start."

As she turned to go back upstairs she had a glimpse of her lover's face--for that he was her lover now it would have been folly to deny. It was as the face of one transfigured. Her equable pulses were stirred as they had never been stirred before; the blood in her veins seemed to have been changed into wine--the wine of youth and love and happiness. She felt how good a thing it was to be alive.

Five minutes later everything was in readiness for a start. Marchment had been introduced to Sir Everard, and warmly greeted by him. Dacia had reappeared, habited in blue serge, and with no other luggage than a handbag, a waterproof, and an umbrella; and the baronet, with one of her hands clasped in his tenuous fingers, had said, with a tremulous smile: "My child, you have made me very happy by consenting to keep me company in my exile." Burgo and Marchment had drawn aside to consult as to the best mode of transporting Sir Everard from the house to the boat, for that he would have to be carried was a matter of course. Marchment had just said, with a smile: "There will be nothing for it but for Sir Everard to put his dignity in his pocket, and allow my fellows to carry him pick-a-back, turn and turn about. They are as strong as bulls, and will think nothing of it," when all there were startled into vivid life by a burst of deep hoarse-mouthed baying, intermixed with short, sharp barks and savage growls. It was the Italian's dogs, on guard in the courtyard, who had suddenly given tongue. But the clamour died down almost as quickly as it had arisen, as if the brutes had discovered that they had made a mistake. Then the sound of wheels was audible on the pebbled sweep, followed by the sudden pulling-up of some vehicle at the front door.

The eyes of Burgo and Dacia met. "It is Signor Sperani come back," said the girl in a low voice. Upon all present there was a sense as if something unforeseen were about to happen.

A few seconds later there was a cautious knocking at the door, which it was doubtless intended that Vallance should have responded to, instead of which it was Mr. Brabazon who now stepped forward and flung wide the door. On the threshold stood Sperani and her ladyship. They made a couple of steps forward and then paused--thunderstruck.

On her arrival in Paris, Lady Clinton, finding herself with a couple of hours to spare before the departure of the express for Pontarlier, as most fond mothers would have done, telegraphed to Lausanne, requesting to be informed whether her son was better or worse. In about an hour's time came the reply: "Cannot understand purport of your message. Young Offredi in most robust health. Has not suffered an hour's illness since his arrival at Lausanne."

Lady Clinton let the express go without her. One or two more messages passed between herself and the head of the _lycée_, and then she set her face homeward, satisfied that for once in her life she had been outwitted, and a prey to fears such as turned her soul faint within her. Who was the unknown enemy that had lured her from home by a fictitious telegram? And by what hidden motive had he, or she, been influenced? What might not have happened during her absence from the Keep? Above all, what might not have been _discovered?_

As she stood for a few seconds just within the doorway, white, haggard, travel-soiled, nothing of her seeming alive save her eyes, and as she took in the picture before her--her husband, supported on one side by Mr. Brabazon and on the other by Miss Roylance, with a group of armed strangers in the background--she could not but recognise that the game for which she had played so high and so desperately, and had risked so much, was lost almost beyond redemption. Still, she was a woman of an indomitable courage and resource, and she would have one final throw. If that should fail, then----!

All in an instant her face changed. It was as if a mask had suddenly fallen aside, leaving exposed to view the living, breathing, palpitating woman which it had hidden; while the cold, hard light of her eyes became veiled, as it were, with a luminous haze, through which she gazed at her husband with an expression of imploring tenderness, the power of which she was not now testing for the first time.

"What is the meaning of all this, Everardo mio?" she said in Italian, and with an unwonted thrill in her full, rich tones. "What business has brought these strangers here? And why are you out of bed at this hour of the night?"

She moved quickly forward as if to join him, but an imperious gesture on the part of Sir Everard arrested her mid-way.

"It means, Giulia," said the baronet, his left hand clasped firmly within his nephew's arm, "it means that here--now--to-night I leave you for ever. Never will I willingly set eyes on you again. By what reasons I have been actuated in coming to this resolve, you do not, I am sure, need to be told. Who should know them better than yourself? When one touches, as you and I do at this moment, one of the supreme crises of life, mere words seem idle and irrelevant. Therefore I leave you, without saying more, to the keeping of whatever conscience may still be existent within you. Madam, my lawyer will communicate with you in the course of a few days. Burgo, I am ready."

He had spoken with such a cold, sustained dignity, and with a manner so magisterial and aloof--as though he were a judge addressing some criminal in the dock--that the last faint ray of hope which her ladyship might have cherished was, there and then, quenched for ever. Her features stiffened into an expression of ineffable scorn, hate, and baffled rage. Her eyes blazed, and could looks have killed, few there would have been left alive. As Sir Everard and the others advanced she drew aside, not without dignity, so as not to impede their going. "And you too, Dacia?" she murmured, as Miss Roylance passed her.

"And I too, madam," responded the girl.

Sperani had disappeared, like the coward that he was. He had scented a possible scrimmage, and it had seemed to him that he would be better out of the way.

No thought of quitting the house except by way of the front door had occurred to Sir Everard, nor had it struck him to ask by what means Burgo and the rest had gained admittance to the Keep at that hour of the night. There, by a fortunate chance, they found the landau which had brought back Sperani and his sister still waiting. Nobody had given the driver any instructions, and there he was. Sperani's first act on alighting had been to chain up his dogs. There was no longer any question of how Sir Everard should be got to the boat. He and Miss Roylance were assisted into the carriage, and the little procession set off at a walking pace.

The front door of the Keep had been left open, and Burgo, glancing back, could discern a tall, black-clothed figure--which, as it stood framed by the doorway, with the lamp-light thrown on it from behind, looked as if it might be chiselled out of black marble--staring straight out into the night. Then, as the carriage passed out of the gates, which one of the sailors had hurried forward to open, Burgo beheld the figure fling up its arms and then fall forward on the flagged floor.

Already the first tentative pencillings of the dawn were visible in the eastern sky.

As Burgo paced along by the side of the landau he called to mind that that day week would be the 12th of October.