CHAPTER XLVIII

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

The carpet-bag was light, portable, and capacious. It was a contrivance for the convenience of travellers upon which we have not improved, and yet it has been relegated to the limbo of antiquated articles, is no more in commerce, and is replaced by portmanteaus and Gladstone bags, metal armed, and with vulnerable sides, that are scarred by the impact of other baggage equally furnished with iron or brass scutcheons and corner pieces that curl, add no strength, but serve vixenishly to scratch and tear whatever baggage is brought in contact with them.

Our children will hardly know what the old, worthy, serviceable carpet-bag was like――a bag simply constructed, as its name implies, out of bits of carpet.

Furnished with this article, that was of inconsiderable weight, Jane Marley drew a long breath. The bag was supplied with lock and key, but this was a matter of no consideration, as, when filled, she would not let it pass from her hand till its contents were secured in the cypress chest at Bindon, that had been put at her service by Mrs. Jose.

She drew apart the jaws of the bag, disclosing its striped canvas lining, and she set it beside her near the wardrobe.

Her next proceeding was to open the doors of this article of furniture. She started, thinking that she heard a step. She looked about her, but nobody was visible. She held her breath. Nothing was to be heard save the shouts, very distant, of those gathered on the downs.

No one would be surprised, she considered, to see her pass with the bag. Nothing more reasonable than that she should be concerned to remove her portable goods to a place of security.

When the valves of the wardrobe had been thrown wide apart, and the range of dependent dresses revealed in the twilight caused by the darkened window, then she placed the stool in position. This she mounted and pulled at the crooks. At once the drawer slid forward smoothly and noiselessly, bringing with it the series of garments.

Jane put her hand in, and took out as many bundles and purses of gold as she could compass in her hand, and dropped them into the yawning carpet bag. They fell with a muffled thud. She was too much occupied, and in too great haste now to look about her. Time was precious. There was no knowing when the catastrophe would take place. It was by no means sure that some officious coastguardman would not come to her door with offers of assistance or insistence on her immediately vacating the place.

She laid hold of a small metal case that contained jewels. She had formerly looked at and admired the contents, and had fondly dreamed of the time when they would be worn by her Winefred. She was removing this case to drop it where the gold had fallen, when her arms were grasped from behind.

She uttered a cry and strove to turn about.

'Ay! scream with all your lungs! None will help you now. At last I have found out what I long wanted to know!'

The voice was familiar. It was that of Olver Dench――a conviction by no means reassuring. Jane's first impulse was to shut the drawer, but her hands were fast. She thrust at it with her head.

Olver contemptuously laughed, and threw her from the stool, and still gripping her arms above the elbows, with hands like vices, hard and sinuous with working the oars, till their strength was irresistible, he looked into the receptacle.

'Ha, ha!' said he, chuckling; 'a clever trick, i' faith. I have hunted twice through this house, and never thought of this.'

Unable to resist the attraction of the gold, he let go one arm, that he might thrust the freed hand among the packages of coin.

Jane seized her opportunity to wrench herself loose; she caught up the carpet bag and sprang towards the door.

'Not so!' said Dench, with an oath. With a stride he caught her before she had attained her object, and twisted the handle of the bag out of her hand.

'Ah! scream away! No one can hear you.'

Then, frantic with despair and rage, she threw herself upon him, like a wild beast, and he found her more difficult to master than he had anticipated.

She writhed, bent, caught him by the arm, by the throat, she tore, she bit at his hand, and made her teeth meet in his flesh. The frenzy and the force of a demoniac were in her. Roused to desperation at the prospect of losing that which was to make the fortunes of her child, she forgot herself in the fury of the onslaught. If he was strong, she was wiry and nimble. She bowed herself, she beat at him, she strove to drive her bony fingers into his eyes, to rip his skin with her nails. At one moment she all but tripped him up.

He dared not mount the stool. He could not explore the receptacle of so much gold. His every faculty was engaged in self-defence. As he held the carpet-bag, she cast all her weight on his arm, and as she could not break the bones in it, she snapped at his fingers like a dog.

Time was flying. An end must be put to this conflict. In her rage she lost breath. The cataclysm might come upon them at any moment, and to be beneath a roof then might prove fatal.

With a curse, Olver gathered up his masculine strength, and having drawn from his pocket some whipcord, he twisted her arms behind her back; plunge, toss, sway herself as she might, he held her wrists together, threw her down on her face, planted his knee on her back, and deliberately bound her arms behind her so securely that it was impossible for her to disengage them.

She did her utmost to be free. She plucked one arm this way, the other that, but, although the cord tore the skin and blood came, she was unable to release her wrists.

Then he rent away a piece of one of the dresses and rammed the rag between her teeth into her mouth, after which he bound his spotted red-and-white kerchief over her mouth.

This accomplished he stood up and laughed, and, mounting the stool, proceeded to empty the drawer.

Some of the parcels of gold he put into his pockets, others he threw down to be carried in the carpet-bag.

Jane, now hopeless of securing the spoil for herself and child, was filled with a raging desire to prevent Olver from enjoying it. She sought to prolong the struggle till one of two things should happen, either the earth should reel and bring down the house over their heads, or else till some of the preventive men should come, and intervene, when she would declare all, so that neither might possess the treasure.

Lifting herself with difficulty to her knees, having no power with her hands, and unable to tear with her teeth, glaring at Olver with inextinguishable, insatiable hate in her eyes, she struggled forward on her knees till she was able to fling her weight against the man as he was engaged, standing on the stool, with the drawer.

With a curse he roared, 'Jane! Leave me alone, or, by Heaven, I will knock you over the head with the stool!'

She did not heed his threats.

With tigerish eyes she followed his every motion. He aimed at her with his fist weighted with a purse of gold, but she ducked. He missed his aim, and as he staggered, she struck the stool from under him, and he came reeling over and nearly lost his feet. She at once kicked the stool into the fire.

But he had not fallen. He was brought up by the clock which at the impact went over with a crash. He sprang to the hearth, took the stool and swung it over his head in menace. Possibly he was afraid to completely silence her lest in the event of discovery he might be called to account.

He replaced the stool where he required it, and said, 'I dare you to touch me again! If you do, you shall be reduced to quiet so as to trouble me no more! Beware, Jane, you she-devil!'

When he had mounted the stool, she rose to her feet and made her way to the door.

He continued to clear the drawer of the money that was in it, but he observed her out of the corner of his eye, and he soon discerned her purpose.

She had retreated backwards till she had reached the door, and now facing him, with her bound hands she was endeavouring to turn the key.

'No!' he shouted. 'I see your game.'

He dashed at her, spun her about, and dealt her such a blow with his fist that she fell on the floor.

'You will remain still now,' said he; and he resumed his work.

Jane was partially stunned. For a moment only she was unable to rally her senses, but she was incapable of offering further resistance.

She saw what was going on, lying with gagged mouth and labouring lungs. She could not breathe fast enough, and the air screamed through her nostrils. The blood mounted and purpled her face, and swelled her veins to bursting.

At last everything had been removed, and the carpet-bag was filled with the contents of the drawer. Dench thrust back the row of crooks and swaying garments to the place normally occupied by them, and again chuckled at the ingenuity of the contrivance that had twice baffled him. Then he leisurely descended from the stool, and halted on his way to the door to look at Jane Marley as she lay bound at his feet. The laugh was still on his lips.

Her head in falling had struck the overturned clock, or been cut by the broken glass of the face, and it was bleeding. Her profuse black hair, tinged with grey, was dishevelled, and lay in a tangle about and under her head; the face was turned on one side, and the eyes flared at him like coals in a blast furnace. He set his teeth. A malignant expression came over his face.

'Eh, Jane! Better to have gone shares as I once proposed, than lose all and come to this!'

He prepared with lifted foot to kick her in the face with his boatman's shod boot, when a shiver ran through the house――a shiver like that which passes over a man when, so it is asserted, an enemy treads on his predestined grave.

'Time to be off, by ――――,' said he, and darted to the door. 'Jane――I leave you to your fate.'

He unlocked the door, passed through; he had removed the key. He locked it from without, and threw the key away among the bushes.

For a few moments he stood irresolute what to do, in which direction to turn.

He was unwilling, carrying the carpet-bag, to pass through the crowd of spectators, and he stayed to consider whether by any means he could reach the ferry unobserved.

There was an open patch before the cottage, screened by bushes so as not to be overlooked from the down. He took a few steps in one direction on it, then halted――and took another.

He had the carpet-bag in his hand.

Meanwhile, within, Jane had heaved herself to her knees, and then to her feet.

She staggered to the window. The table was before it. By an effort she succeeded in mounting the table, and then, with her bound hands she plucked at the curtain and drew it, next by a pull tore down the little blind. And now she could look out.

Looking out she saw Dench standing irresolute――as one dazed.

She saw something more.

At that moment, the house swayed like a ship. The surface of the land broke up, and seemed transmuted into fluid, for in one place it heaved like a mounting billow, and in another sank like the trough of a wave.

It was to Jane, peering through the little window as though she were looking at a tumbling sea through the porthole of a cabin.

Again the house lurched, and so suddenly and to such an acute angle, that Jane fell from the table.