Part 2

"Miss Thorne," said another of the group--in whom she recognised a prominent citizen of Eden, with whom she had, however, but a very slight acquaintance, and who now came forward, doffing his hat with a deferential bow--"perhaps we had better speak to your brother."

"My brother is out. I represent the family at present, and can answer any question you may wish to ask. I presume, gentlemen, you come on business?"

"On business, lady, with which we would not trouble you, if it were not that we must ascertain whether the person of whom we are in search is here. We have ordered a search of the outhouses, where a tramp might take shelter. Meanwhile, with your permission, we will look over the house. A man might enter by one of the upper windows without your suspecting it."

"Indeed, I trust not," said Barbara.

"We have reason to believe that the man we want came this way, and he would be likely to try to gain entrance and get refuge here."

"I hope he will not. But you are most welcome to look round."

Barbara, gracious and self-possessed, accompanied them, in hostess-wise, from room to room on the ground floor. The kitchen looked cheerful with the lighted lamp and stove, the kettle singing merrily on the fire; one cup, saucer, and plate were set out upon the table, with a cake. Evidently Miss Thorne had been busy preparing her modest tea when their arrival interrupted her. The whole party were crossing the hall to the parlour when they heard the clatter of galloping horses' hoofs, and two horsemen dashed into the court-yard, hastily dismounted, and entered the house. And one of these was no other than Colonel Jeff! He and his companion were evidently expected by the "Vigilance" party, who received them quietly, as a matter of course, and indeed an awaited addition to their ranks, one of the men from Eden City observing as he nodded a greeting, "Guessed you wouldn't keep us waiting long."

The Colonel looked at Barbara; she paled a little as she met his gaze, albeit there was no shadow of suspicion in it, only a tender and respectful solicitude lest she should be alarmed or agitated by this invasion. But she compelled herself to return his look calmly and gently, and he was reassured by her tranquillity.

"Any traces?" he demanded, turning to the one who was apparently the leader of the committee.

"Not yet. We're going through the house."

"Upstairs?" added Colonel Jeff, inquiringly, briefly glancing at Barbara, and indicating the staircase at the end of the long hall.

"Are merely three sleeping-rooms," she replied--"my brother's, my own, and our guest-room."

"I perceive that anyone might gain access to your upper rooms by the roof of the lean-to or by the balcony," observed the leader. "By your leave, madam, we will go up and look round. It will be to your advantage also to be assured that there is no one lurking about."

Barbara's heart sank, but she saw it would be fatal to offer any objection. "Certainly," she said, and led the way towards the staircase. The gentleman from Eden City, to whom all the Thornes were known, although not intimately, here put in a suggestion that perhaps it would be more agreeable to the lady's feelings if they were to depute one, or say two gentlemen, to accompany her upstairs. The suggestion was accepted; two searchers were by unanimous vote regarded as sufficient; and Colonel Jeff and his friend were deputed to go up with Miss Thorne and examine the bedrooms.

Barbara was cold and sick with terror, but she kept her self-possession, and tried to cling to one frail straw of hope--that they might by some providential chance overlook the door of the cupboard (which was papered like the walls of the room) and pass it by. She trembled lest Oliver, hearing the tramp of his enemies' steps approaching, should attempt to make his escape by the windows, in which case he would fall straight into the hands of the detachment who were surrounding the house and searching the grounds. Yet--if they should detect and open the cupboard, and she should see him caught like a rat in a trap, dragged out to his death! There was no time for thought; the moment was imminent; in another minute the die of Oliver Desmond's fate would be cast for life or death. Yet a moment to breathe was hers. She turned to Mr. Thorne's room first.

"Allow me," said Colonel Jeff, taking the candle from her hand as she threw open the door and drew back. He stepped in past her and held up the light. His eagle eye swept the room--searched every corner; he saw there was no hiding-place there. His comrade stood back respectfully on the threshold, apparently considerate of the lady's feelings, deeming it sufficient for one to enter the room, and regarding Colonel Jeff as competent to conduct the search alone.

They came next to the spare-room, and again the Colonel was the one to enter and look carefully round. Was it not partly in his liege lady's own interests, and for _her_ sake, he was assuring himself that no dangerous intruder lurked in her home and she might sleep in peace?

Then was the turn of Barbara's own room--the sacred temple that enshrined his treasure!

This time he had kept the candle in his hand. Barbara had made no offer to take it back; she feared the trembling of her hand might betray her. Wrought up to a pitch of suspense at which every nerve quivered like a tense chord, she yet by a desperate effort controlled her features and steadied her step, but she felt she could not keep her fingers from trembling. Colonel Jeff's comrade remained as before, standing in the open doorway, while the Colonel, accompanied by Barbara, stepped into the room.

As he strode forward she kept near him; it seemed that she could not let him move an arm's length from her. It took all her self-command to refrain from flinging herself between him and the cupboard door. Wild thoughts of appealing to his mercy shot like lightning through her brain. If only his comrade on the threshold had not been there watching! With that man looking on, the frail, frail hope would be lost if she betrayed any sign of fear or agitation.

Colonel Jeff stood casting his keen glance, around. Barbara stood like a statue, all her life in her strained eyes, as she followed his glance.

Colonel Jeff's eye fell on the cupboard door. He moved towards it. As he did so, he chanced to turn his look on Barbara's face and met her eyes. A swift and sudden change passed for a moment over his own rough-hewn features; his dark eyes blazed upon her with an instant's startled, piercing scrutiny; he set his hand on the cupboard door. And still Barbara stood paralyzed, rooted to the ground as if the unveiled horror of the Gorgon's stare had struck her to stone.

Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. In the whirl of thought that dazed her she remembered that she did not know, she had never asked, if Desmond was armed! A desperate man turns at bay, and sells his life dearly. What if Oliver had a knife or pistol clutched _now_, this moment, in his hand? What if he shot or stabbed Rick Jeffreys before the Colonel could draw his own weapon? There would be a moment's horror--and Rick, her own true, loyal lover, stricken down at her feet, and Oliver, whom she once had loved--was it a century ago?--dragged out and murdered before her eyes!

She felt the springs of life stop at her heart as Rick Jeffreys opened the cupboard door. He raised the flickering candle. For one terrible moment, in which Barbara tasted the bitterness of death, he stood looking in.

Then he deliberately drew back, closed the door, turned and crossed the room to his waiting comrade on the threshold. He did not cast even an instant's glance at Barbara as he passed her.

"Is there any loft?" he demanded, in his usual deep, harsh tone, looking around the passage as if to complete the search.

Barbara heard a voice, that seemed to her not her own, issue from her parted lips, saying, "No, there is no loft."

They saw there was not, and proceeded downstairs. She followed them with trembling limbs. She was almost fainting, but followed because she dared not stay behind. The ominous silence in which Rick Jeffreys had passed her seemed fraught with something worse than even the horror she had dreaded.

The Vigilance Committee did not waste their time, but being assured that the fugitive they sought was not lurking in or about the ranch, they promptly went on their way--the leader, before they departed, however, pausing to express his regret for any inconvenience they might have occasioned the lady by their unexpected inroad.

Colonel Jeff was the last to speak.

"I will make my apologies later," he said, as he took his leave. Barbara caught the sinister gleam of his eye as he spoke, and she knew that "later" time would be soon.

Barely an hour had passed since the tramp of the horses of the departing Vigilantes had died away into the silence of the windless night, when another knock summoned Barbara to the front door.

"I knew you would come back," she said, as the big, powerful form of Colonel Jeff towered upon the threshold, tall and dark against the background of the darkness.

"You knew me well enough for that?" he rejoined, grimly.

She closed the door, and turned towards the parlour.

"In here," she said, quietly.

He looked at her with a kind of fierce astonishment. Into his dark eyes, that seemed to burn black with smouldering fury, there leapt a flash of reluctant admiration, that shook and thrilled him with a passion more of bitter wrath than of love. Instead of being crushed with shame and humiliation, drooping in fear and beseeching, this woman faced him like a queen.

"It is not with _you_ that I have come to speak," he said, his deep voice a trifle huskier than usual. "I have saved you from open shame and public scandal. That's enough between you and me. I've nothing more to do with you, but I've an account to settle with your lover. I deal with him first, and alone. Where is he?"

"Wait," she said, as he made a movement to turn to the door. "He is no lover of mine."

"You will tell me, I suppose," he retorted, "that he was hidden _there_"--he ground his teeth upon the word as if he would crush it--"without your knowledge and consent?"

"I shall not tell you that."

"No, you dare not. I saw your face. I read it in your eyes before I opened that door. You dare not tell me you did not know of his presence?"

"No, I dare tell you the truth--that I did!" she replied, meeting the fiery glance of his sombre eyes fearlessly. In the midst of his concentrated rage--and Colonel Jeff in wrath was well known to be dangerous--he could not help admiring this frail, fair, delicate woman's dauntless courage. "I had no chance of speaking to you alone," she continued, "or I would have told you--explained to you----"

"I want no explanation," he said, harshly, bitterly; "I know enough."

"Stay!" she exclaimed, lifting her fair head with a royal gesture. "That man, the man whom I helped to a hiding-place to save his life--for you know they would have killed him, they came here for his death----"

"And if they did," he interposed, "what is his life or death to you?"

"That man," she continued, waving his interruption aside, "did me a cruel wrong--you know it well. He killed my love for him. Love once dead rises no more. I have no grain of love left for the man who insulted, wronged, deserted me. But I tell you now that _he_ wronged me less than _you_ do if you say to me that you 'know enough!' You do _not_ know enough. You must know all. Rick, you have said you loved me. You have made me love you. You shall hear me now!" She spoke not pleadingly, but with passionate resolution.

"What have you to say?" he rejoined, sternly still, but less bitterly.

"That if you love me you must trust me! If you love me you must respect me! The woman who could turn a helpless, hunted fugitive--even a stranger--from her doors would be unworthy of love or respect."

"This man was no stranger!"

"He came to me as one, not dreaming that I lived here. Would you ask me, _because_ he was not a stranger, to revenge myself for a wrong of years ago by refusing to him the help I would have given to any stranger? You could not think that I would stoop to so base a revenge as to hand him over to death when I would have given up no other man who stood in his place? I would not turn a _dog_ away that came to me for help and shelter. He came here, not knowing whose house this was--came to ask for food and help because he was exhausted, famishing. It was as much a surprise to him to find me here as it was to me to see who the man was who asked me for shelter. And I promised it to him, and I kept my word. He told me what he had done, and that the Vigilance Committee were on his track. I've lived here long enough to know what that means! I would not see the man who appealed to me to save him lawlessly murdered. He has done wrong; he deserves punishment; but he does _not_ deserve the fate they would have dealt to him."

"They'd have strung him up on that big tree outside your gate," said Colonel Jeff, grim still, but relenting, "and serve him right!"

"I did not think he deserved death," rejoined Barbara, firmly; "I risked--more than my life"--her voice quivered for the first time--"to save him."

"You did," he said; "you risked having your good name dragged in the gutter, for the sake of that worthless scamp."

"I risked more than that," she returned in a lower tone.

"More than that?" He shot a keen, questioning glance at her from under his dark, heavy brows.

"Yes--I risked--and have I lost?--_your faith_?"

He paused a moment before he answered: "Barbara, when a man loves as I do, he loves to the end of life--and after!"

A light kindled in her steadfast, questioning eyes.

"Then I have not lost your love, Rick?"

"I love you always."

"But--your faith?" she urged. "One is worthless to me without the other."

"Do you say that my love is worthless, Barbara?"

"If it is given without your trust, it is the setting without the jewel. _Trust_ me, Rick--or, _leave me_!"

"I trust you, my love," he replied, catching her hands and holding them fast and close in his strong clasp. "Who could look in those eyes of yours and doubt that you're true and pure as truth itself? But, my darling, you've been foolish--with a woman's noble folly! Rash and reckless--with an angel's courage! You have ventured too much--in such a cause. These matters are not for women. Our Vigilante justice may be rough and ready, but it fits the time and place. Anyhow, we keep the neighbourhood so that the worst class of characters give it a wide berth. You should not have crossed its path, my Barbara. It was not safe for you; and for all that you have hazarded, he is not safe; they'll get him yet."

"No, they will not; you will not betray him?"

"No. To betray him would be betraying you! Not for his sake, but for yours, I'll hold my tongue. But what will he do? He cannot stay here."

"He need not. He can have my brother's horse, my brother's overcoat and hat. He can take the trail up the gully under cover of the night, or with the first streak of dawn."

"But your brother? Tom Thorne's a pretty hard citizen; what will he say?"

"I don't know. And, Rick, I don't care! I've taken this on myself, and I'll see it through. I know Tom may be hard--and Hatty, too. The worst they can do is to turn me out of the house. And if they do----"

"You'll come to _mine_! Be mistress of all I have--queen of my home--my _wife_!"

* * * * *

As the first pale pearly streak of dawn was stealing over the snow-capped peaks of the Sierras, Oliver Desmond bowed his head--as he had never bent it to mortal man--before the woman who had risked so much for his safety, and raised her hand to his lips, as if it were the hand of a shrined saint. And Colonel Jeff stood by, grim and silent. For good or ill, Rick Jeffreys was thorough. He had promised, and he would keep his word.

"You are the best and bravest of women," Desmond said. "Forget that I have ever crossed your path. I shall cross it no more. But I shall never forget."

Barbara is Colonel Jeff's happy and idolized wife to-day; and between her and her husband there is no forbidden subject--not even that of Oliver Desmond. For the faith between them is perfect; Rick knows that whoever may have ruled her yesterdays--he and he only holds Barbara's heart to-day, and the shadow of Oliver Desmond has passed from off her life for ever. It was long after that eventful night that they heard how his ill-starred career had come to an untimely close; but his last words to Barbara were true; he crossed _her_ path no more--and I for my part think that he never forgot.

_The Royal Humane Society._

II.

CAPTAIN BRYAN MILMAN.

The following is a narrative of an escape from peril, and the rescue of five lives by individual gallantry, rarely equalled, and never exceeded, in the records of high and noble daring. It is from the pen of Captain Bryan Milman (now General Milman), of the 5th Fusiliers, in a letter addressed to his father, Major-General Milman, late of the Coldstream Guards:

"Mahebourg, Island of Mauritius,

"June 30, 1848.

"The following account of an almost miraculous escape that I and five other officers have had from drowning will interest you all, I have no doubt. The names of the others are Colquitt, Bellew, Fitzgerald, Home (all of the 5th Fusiliers), and Palmer, a commissariat officer, in whose boat we were at the time of the accident. Colquitt and Fitzgerald are in the first battalion, and had come down here to stay with me and Bellew. On the 25th we made a boating party, for them to visit one of our detachments about fifteen miles from hence, at Grand River, south-east. We left this about eleven a.m., and after reaching our destination all safe, left it about three o'clock p.m. for home, the weather then looking anything but promising. When about four miles from home and from the shore, we were overset by a squall. It came upon us so suddenly that we had no time to do anything; torrents of rain fell at the same time, and there we were, drifting along on the side of the boat (which luckily did not sink) without a chance of assistance, and the night setting in. This happened about half-past five o'clock, and at this season it is dark at six. We drifted in this way for about two hours, and at last grounded in about seven feet of water. It was very nearly dark, and all that we could see were the tops of the mountains in the horizon. We supposed we were about two miles from shore. All of us but myself had stripped on being upset, as I knew, if we came to a swim, that I could take my clothes off in a moment. As it turned out, I think I was lucky in this, for they perhaps, though wet, kept me a little warmer than my companions. Nothing seemed to give us a chance of being saved, except holding on till daylight, and as it was terribly cold, this seemed next to impossible. At last it struck me I might be able to swim ashore to procure assistance, and I got permission from the others to do so. Our boatman, a Creole, who also said he would go, started with me to make the attempt. I left them with a hearty 'God bless you!' from all. After swimming some time, I lost sight of the boatman, and was left to myself. I swam back a little, shouting as loud as I could; but getting no answer, and feeling for my own sake that I must push on, I turned my head towards the mountain tops (my only guides), and struck out my best. I must have been swimming for more than an hour when I landed. I found myself a little tired, and very much benumbed, barefooted, _en chemise_, and not able to see ten yards before me, it was so dark. My first impulse was to fall on my knees and thank Providence; after which, curious to say, my military schooling came to my aid in the 'extension motions,' which brought some little feeling into my limbs, and enabled me to continue my work. After feeling my way for about half an hour along the shore, shouting all the time, I came to a cottage, where I was hospitably received. They told me that they had heard my cries some time, but fancied I was some drunken man returning home, or else they would have come out to my assistance. The poor black gave me some dry clothes, and made me a cup of tea, and then conducted me to the proprietor of the estate, who lived close by, and had the nearest pirogue (a small boat like a canoe, dug out of a solid trunk of a large tree) in the neighbourhood. M. Chiron, the name of the proprietor, a man of colour, as soon as I explained my situation and my want of a boat to go and assist the others, immediately offered to go himself, and his son also insisted on going with him. I jumped at the offer, of course, and we immediately walked down to where his pirogue was moored, and started, myself at the bottom to serve as guide. By the blessing of Providence, after about an hour's search, we heard the cries from the wreck. I think I never felt so happy or so light-hearted in my life as I did at this moment; for there were so many chances against us finding it. We could not see many yards from our own boat. It was then about eleven o'clock, so that my companions had been exposed on the boat for upwards of five hours. Luckily, with great care, we got them safely into the pirogue, without capsizing her; and by twelve o'clock we were safely housed under M. Chiron's hospitable roof, who fed, clothed, and lodged us for the night. In the morning, the unfortunate Creole boatman was found dead, from cold and cramp, about half a mile from the place he was supposed to have landed at. The kindness, hospitality, and truly courageous assistance afforded us by M. Chiron, at the risk of his own life and that of his son, are deserving of all praise. It was a service of danger to go out even at all in a pirogue on such a rough night: much more to go and seek for five drowning men three miles at sea. He wished his son not to go; but the latter would not allow his father to go without him. Constantly during our long search, when the son was getting tired of pulling the boat, the father would cry out and encourage him, saying 'Courage, mon fils.'

(Signed) "BRYAN MILMAN,

"Capt. 5th Fusiliers."

GENERAL SIR CHARLES CRAUFURD FRASER, K.C.B., V.C.

"The Army List makes no allusion to the gallant way in which Major Charles Craufurd Fraser, of the 7th Hussars, won the Victoria Cross--that coveted and hardly-won decoration which, to the honour of England, graces not a few of the breasts of humble privates as well as generals. The London _Gazette_, however, tells us that the Victoria Cross was awarded to Charles Craufurd Fraser 'for conspicuous and cool gallantry on the 31st December, 1858, in having volunteered, at great personal risk, and under a sharp fire of musketry, to swim to the rescue of Captain Stisted and some men of the 7th Hussars, who were in imminent danger of being drowned in the River Raptee, while in pursuit of the rebels. Major Fraser succeeded in this gallant service, although at the time partially disabled, not having recovered from a severe wound received while leading a squadron in a charge against some fanatics in the action of Nawabgunge on the 13th of June, 1858.'"

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD, R.N.