Books: Jeanne Of The Marshes

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"How much farther?" she asked. "We are getting toward the house."

"Not yet," Kate answered. "There are the gardens first, but we are
not going there. Wait a moment."

She felt for one of the trees, and passed her hand carefully round
its trunk. Then she took a few steps forward and stopped short.

"Wait!" she said.

She lay flat down upon the grass and was silent for several minutes.
Then she whispered to Jeanne.

"Don't turn on your torch," she said. "Lie down here by my side, put
your ear to the ground, and tell me whether you can hear anything."

Jeanne obeyed her breathlessly. At first she could hear nothing. Her
own heart was beating fast, and the boughs of the trees above them
were creaking and groaning in the wind. Presently, however, she gave
a little cry. From somewhere underground it seemed to her that she
could hear a faint hammering.

"What is it?" she asked.

Kate sat up.

"There is no animal," she said, "which makes a noise like that. It
is somewhere there underground. It seems to me that it is some one
who is trying to get out."

"Some one underground?" Jeanne repeated.

Kate leaned over and whispered in her ear.

"There is a passage underneath here," she said, "which goes from the
Hall to the cliffs, and a room, or rather a vault."

"I know," Jeanne declared suddenly. "Mr. De la Borne showed it to
us. It was the way the smugglers used to bring their goods up to the
cellars of the Red Hall."

"We are just above the room here," Kate said slowly, "and I fancy
that there is some one there."

A sudden light broke in upon Jeanne.

"You think that it is Lord Engleton!" she declared.

"Why not?" Kate answered. "Listen again, with your ear close to the
ground. Last night I was almost sure that I heard him call for
help."

Jeanne did as she was told, and her face grew white as death.
Distinctly between the strokes she heard the sound of a man moaning!

CHAPTER XIV

Once more the two men sat over the remnants of their evening meal.
This time the deterioration in their own appearance seemed to have
spread itself to their surroundings. The table was ill-laid, there
were no flowers, an empty bottle of wine and several decanters
remained where they had been set. There was every indication that
however little the two might have eaten, they had been drinking
heavily. Yet they were both pale. Cecil's face even was ghastly, and
the hand which played nervously with the tablecloth shook all the
time.

"Forrest," he said abruptly, "it is a mistake to clear out all the
servants like this. Not only have we had to eat a filthy dinner, but
it's enough to make people suspicious, eh? Don't you think so? Don't
you think afterwards that they may wonder why we did it?"

"No!" Forrest answered, with something that was almost like a snarl.
"No, I don't! Shut up, and don't be such an infernal young fool! We
couldn't have town servants spying and whispering about the place. I
caught that London butler of yours hanging around the library this
afternoon as though he were looking for something. They were a d--d
careless lot, anyhow, with no mistress or housekeeper to look after
them, and they're better gone. Who is there left exactly now?"

"There's a kitchen-maid, who cooked this wretched mess," Cecil
answered, "and another under her from the village, who seems half an
idiot. There is no one else except Pawles, a man who comes in from
the stables to do the rough work and pump the water up for the bath.
We are practically alone in the house."

"Thank Heaven it's our last night," Forrest answered.

"You really mean, then," Cecil asked, in a hoarse whisper, "to
finish this now?"

"I mean that we are going to," Forrest answered. "You know I'm half
afraid of you. Sometimes you're such a rotten coward. If ever I
thought you looked as though you were going back on me, I'd get even
with you, mind that."

"Don't talk like a fool!" Cecil answered. "What we do, we do
together, of course, only my nerves aren't strong, you know. I can't
bear the thought of the end of it."

"Whatever happens to him," Forrest said, "he's asking for it. He has
an easy chance to get back to his friends. It is brutal obstinacy if
he makes us end it differently. You're only a boy, but I've lived a
good many years, and I tell you that if you don't look out for
yourself and make yourself safe, there are always plenty of people,
especially those who call themselves your friends, who are ready and
waiting to kick you down into Hell. I am going to have something
more to drink. Nothing seems to make any difference to me to-night.
I can't even get excited, although we must have drunk a bottle of
wine each. We'll have some brandy. Here goes!"

He filled a wine-glass and passed the bottle to Cecil.

"You're about in the same state," he remarked, looking at him
keenly. "Why the devil is it that when one doesn't require it, wine
will go to the head too quickly, and when one wants to use it to
borrow a little courage and a little forgetfulness, the stuff goes
down like water. Drink, Cecil, a wine-glass of it. Drink it off,
like this."

Forrest drained his wine-glass and set it down. Then he rose to his
feet. His cheeks were still colourless, but there was an added
glitter in his eyes.

"Come, young man," he said, "you have only to fancy that you are one
of your own ancestors. I fancy those dark-looking ruffians, who
scowl down on us from the walls there, would not have thought so
much of flinging an enemy into the sea. It is a wise man who wrote
that self-preservation was the first law of nature. Come, Cecil,
remember that. It is the first law of nature that we are obeying.
Ring the bell first, and see that there are no servants about the
place."

Cecil obeyed, ringing the bell once or twice. No one came. They
stepped out into the hall. The emptiness of the house seemed almost
apparent. There was not a sound anywhere.

"The servants' wing is right over the stables, a long way off,"
Cecil remarked. "They could never hear a bell there that rang from
any of the living-rooms."

Forrest nodded.

"So much the better," he said. "Come along to the library. I have
everything ready there."

They crossed the hall and entered the room to which Forrest pointed.
Their footsteps seemed to awake echoes upon the stone floor. The
hall, too, was all unlit save for the lamp which Forrest was
carrying. Cecil peered nervously about into the shadows.

"It's a ghostly house this of yours," Forrest said grumblingly, as
they closed the door behind them. "I shall be thankful to get back
to my rooms in town and walk down Piccadilly once more. What's that
outside?"

"The wind," Cecil answered. "I thought it was going to be a rough
night."

The window had been left open at the top, and the roar of the wind
across the open places came into the room like muffled thunder. The
lamp which Forrest carried was blown out, and the two men were left
in darkness.

"Shut the window, for Heaven's sake, man!" Forrest ordered sharply.
"Here!"

He took an electric torch from his pocket, and both men drew a
little breath of relief as the light flashed out. Cecil climbed on
to a chair and closed the window. Forrest glanced at the clock.

"It's quite late enough," he said. "It should be high tide in a
quarter of an hour, and the sea in that little cove of yours is
twenty feet deep. Come along and work this door."

"Have you got everything?" Cecil asked nervously.

"I have the chloroform," Forrest answered, touching a small bottle
in his waistcoat pocket. "We don't need anything else. He hasn't the
strength of a rabbit, and you and I can carry him down the passage.
If he struggles there's no one to hear him."

Cecil pushed his way against the panels and opened the clumsy door.
They groped their way down the passage.

"Faugh!" Forrest exclaimed. "What smells! Cecil," he added, "I
suppose half the village know about this place, don't they?"

"They know that it has been here always," Cecil answered, "but they
most of them think that it is blocked up now. We did try to, Andrew
and I, but the masonry gave way. These lumps on the floor are the
remains of our work. Keep your torch down. You'll fall over them."

Forrest stopped short. Curiously enough, it was he now who seemed
the more terrified. The wind and the thunder of the sea together
seemed to reach them through the walls of earth in a strange
monotonous roar, sometimes shriller as the wind triumphed, sometimes
deep and low so that the very ground beneath their feet vibrated as
the sea came thundering up into the cove. Cecil, who was more used
to such noises, heard them unmoved.

"If my people had left me such a dog's hole as this," Forrest
declared viciously, "I'd have buried them in it and blown it up to
the skies. It's only fit for ghosts."

The very weakening of the other man seemed for the moment to give
Cecil added courage. He laughed hoarsely.

"There are worse things to fear," he muttered, "than this. Hold
hard, Forrest. Here is the door. I'll undo the padlock. You stand by
in case he makes a rush."

But there was no rush about Engleton. He was lying on his back,
stretched on a rough mattress at the farther end of the room,
moaning slightly. The two men exchanged quick glances.

"We are not going to have much trouble," Forrest muttered. "What a
beastly atmosphere! No wonder he's knocked up."

Cecil, however, looked about suspiciously.

"Don't you notice," he whispered, "that we can hear the wind much
plainer here than in the passage? I believe I can feel a current of
fresh air, too. I wonder if he's been trying to cut his way through
to the air-hole. It's only a few feet up."

He flashed his light upon the wall near where Engleton was lying.
Then he turned significantly to Forrest.

"See," he said, "he has cut steps in the wall and tried to make an
opening above. He must have guessed where the ventilating pipe was.
I wonder what he did it with."

They crossed the room. The man on the couch opened his eyes and
looked at them dully.

"So you've been improving the shining hour, eh?" Forrest remarked,
pointing to the rough steps. "We shall have to find what you did it
with. Hidden under the mattress, I suppose."

He stooped down, and Engleton flew at his throat with all the fury
of a wild cat. Forrest was taken aback for a moment, but the effort
was only a brief one. Engleton's strength seemed to pass away even
before he had concluded his attack. He sank back and collapsed upon
the floor at a touch.

"You brutes!" he muttered.

Cecil lifted the mattress. There was a large flat stone, sharp-edged
and coated with mud, lying underneath.

"I thought so," he whispered. "Jove, he's gone a long way with it,
too!" he muttered, looking upward. "Another foot or so and he would
have been outside. I wonder the place didn't collapse."

Engleton dragged himself a little way back. He remained upon the
floor, but there was support for his back now against the wall.

"Well," he said, "what is it this evening?"

"The end," Forrest answered shortly.

Engleton did not flinch. Of the three men, although his physical
condition was the worst, he seemed the most at his ease.

"The end," he remarked. "Well, I don't believe it. I don't believe
you have either of you the pluck to go through life with the fear of
the rope round your neck every minute. But if I am indeed a
condemned man. I ought to have my privileges. Give me a cigarette,
one of you, for God's sake."

Forrest took out his gold case and threw him a couple of cigarettes.
Then he struck a match and passed it over.

"Smoke, by all means," he said. "Listen! In five minutes we are
going to throw you from the seaward end of this place, down into the
cove or creek, or whatever they call it. It is high tide, and the
sea there is twenty feet deep. As for swimming, you evidently
haven't the strength of a cat, and there is no breathing man could
swim against the current far enough to reach any place where he
could climb out. But to avoid even that risk, we are going to give
you a little chloroform first. It will make things easier for you,
and we shall not be distressed by your shrieks."

"An amiable programme," Engleton muttered. "I am quite ready for
it."

"Then I don't think we need waste words," Forrest said slowly. "You
have made up your mind, I suppose, that you do not care about life.
Remember that it is not we who are your executioners. You have an
easy choice."

"If you mean," Engleton said, "will I purchase my liberty by letting
you two blackguards off free, for this and for your dirty card-
sharping, I say no! I will take my chances of life to the last
second. Afterwards I shall know that I am revenged. Men don't go
happily through life with the little black devil sitting on their
shoulders."

"We'll take our risk," Forrest said thickly. "You have chosen, then?
This is your last chance."

"Absolutely!" Engleton answered.

Forrest took out the phial from his pocket and held his handkerchief
on the palm of his hand.

"Open the door, will you, Cecil," he said, "so that we can carry him
out."

Cecil opened it, and came slowly back to where Forrest was counting
the drops which fell from the bottle on to his handkerchief. Then he
suddenly came to a standstill. Forrest, too, paused in his task and
looked up. He gave a nervous start, and the bottle fell from his
fingers.

"What in God's name was that?" he asked.

It came to them faintly down the long passage, but it was
nevertheless alarming enough. The hoarse clanging of a bell, pulled
by impetuous fingers. Cecil and Forrest stared at one another for a
moment with dilated eyes.

"Can't you speak, you d----d young fool?" Forrest asked. "What bell
is that?"

"It is the front-door bell of the Red Hall," Cecil answered, in a
voice which he scarcely recognized as his own. "There it goes
again."

They stood perfectly silent and listened to it, listened until its
echoes died away.

CHAPTER XV

For the fourth time the bell rang. The two men had now retraced
their steps. Cecil, who had been standing in the hall within a few
feet of the closed door, started away as though he had received some
sort of shock. Forrest, who was lurking back in the shadows, cursed
him for a timid fool.

"Open the door, man," he whispered. "Don't stand fumbling there.
Remember you are angry at being disturbed. Send them away, whoever
they are. Look sharp! They are going to ring again. Can't you hear
that beastly bell-wire quivering?"

Cecil set his teeth, turned the huge key, and pulled back the heavy
door. He gave a little gasp of astonishment. It was a woman who
stood there. He held out his electric torch and stepped back with a
sharp exclamation.

"Kate!" he cried. "What on earth are you doing here at this hour?
What do you mean by ringing the bell like that?"

The girl stepped into the hall.

"Close the door," she said. "The wind will blow the pictures off the
walls, and I can scarcely hear you speak."

Cecil obeyed at once.

"Light a lamp," she said. "It is not fair that you should have all
the light. I want to see your face too."

"But Kate," Cecil interrupted, "why did you come like this? Why did
you not--"

She interrupted.

"Never mind," she answered sternly. "Perhaps I did not come to see
you at all. Light the lamp. There is something I have to say to
you."

Forrest stepped forward from the obscurity and struck a match. The
girl showed no signs of fear at his coming. As the lamp grew
brighter she looked at him steadfastly.

"So this is the reason we are waked up in the middle of the night,"
Forrest remarked, with a smile which somehow or other seemed to lose
its suggestiveness. "A little affair of this sort, eh, Mr. Cecil?
Why don't you teach the young lady a simpler way of summoning you
than by that infernal bell?"

Still Kate did not reply. She was standing with her back to the oak
table in the centre of the hall, and the men, who were both watching
her covertly, were conscious of a certain significance in her
attitude. Her black hair was tossed all over her face; from its
tangled web her eyes seemed to gleam with a steady inimical gaze.
Her dress of dark red stuff was splashed in places with the salt
water, and her feet were soaking. With her left hand she clasped the
table; her right seemed hidden in the folds of her skirt.

"What do you want, Kate?" Cecil asked at last. "What do you mean by
coming here like this? If you want to see me you know how, without
arousing the whole household at this time of night."

"You are not fool enough," Kate said calmly, "to imagine that I came
to-night to listen to your lies. I came to know whom it is that you
are keeping hidden away in the smugglers' room."

Neither man answered. They looked at one another, and Cecil's face
grew once more as pale as death.

"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "What rubbish is this you are
talking, Kate?" he added, in a sharper tone. "There is no one there
that I know of."

"You lie," she answered calmly. "You lie, as you always do whenever
it answers your purpose. Only an hour ago I lay upon the turf in the
plantation there, and I heard a man moaning down in the store-room.
Now tell me the truth, Cecil de la Borne. I do not wish to bring any
harm upon you, although God knows you deserve it, but if you do not
bring me the man whom you have down there, and set him free before
my eyes at once, I'll bring half the village up to the mound there
and dig him out."

Forrest stepped forward. His manner was suave and his tone was
smooth, but there was a dangerous glitter in his eyes.

"This is rather absurd, Cecil," he said. "I do not know whom this
young lady is, but I feel sure that she will listen to reason. There
is no one down in the smugglers' store-room. If she heard anything,
it was probably the rabbits."

"Lies!" Kate answered calmly. "You are another of the breed; I can
see it in your face. I would not trust the word of either of you."

Forrest shrugged his shoulders. He glanced towards Cecil with a
slight uplifting of the eyebrows.

"Your friend, my dear Cecil," he remarked, "is like most of her sex,
a trifle unreasonable. However, since she says that she will believe
no evidence save the evidence of her eyes, show her the smugglers'
room. It would be a quaint excursion to take at this time of night,
but I will go with you for the sake of the proprieties," he added,
with a little laugh.

Cecil looked at him for a moment steadily, and then turned away.
There was fear now upon his face, a new fear. What was this thing
which Forrest could propose?

"She can come if she insists," he said slowly, "but the place has
not been opened for a long time. The air is bad. It really is not
fit for any human being."

The girl faced them both without shrinking.

"Perhaps you think that I should be afraid," she answered. "Perhaps
you think that when I am there it would be very easy to dispose of
me, so that I shall ask no more inconvenient questions. Never mind.
I am not afraid. I will go with you."

Cecil shrugged his shoulders as he led the way across the hall.

"There is nothing to fear," he said, "except the bad air and the
ghosts of smugglers, if you are superstitious enough to fear them.
Only, when you are perfectly satisfied, and you are convinced that
your errand here has been fruitless, perhaps I may have something to
say."

The girl's lips parted. Curiously enough there was a note almost of
real merriment in the laugh which followed.

"I am not very brave, my dear Cecil," she said, "but I am not afraid
of you. I think that one does not fear the things that one
understands too well, and you I do understand too well, much too
well."

They reached the empty gun-room. Cecil threw open the hidden door.

"Will you go first or last?" he said to the girl. "Choose your own
place."

The girl laughed.

"The door seemed to open easily," she remarked, "considering that it
has not been used for so long."

"Never mind about that," Cecil said sharply. "Are you coming with
us?"

"I am coming," Kate answered composedly, "and I will walk last."

"As you please," Cecil answered. "Come, Forrest, you may as well see
this thing through with me."

As they stumbled along the narrow way, Cecil whispered in Forrest's
ear.

"What are we going to do with her?"

"God knows!" Forrest answered. "Do you suppose that any one knows
where she is? Who is she?"

"One of the village girls," Cecil answered, "an old sweetheart of
mine. They are strange people, and have few friends. I doubt whether
any one knows that she is out to-night."

Forrest passed on.

"If we are going to put our necks into the halter," he muttered, "a
little extra trouble won't hurt us."

They paused before the door. The girl was looking at the padlock.

"A new padlock, I see," she remarked. "Listen!"

They all listened, and now there was no doubt about it. From inside
the room they could hear the sound of a man, half singing, half
moaning.

"Are those rabbits?" the girl asked, leaning forward, so that her
eyes seemed to gleam like live coal through the darkness. "Cecil,
you are being made a fool of by this man. I don't wish you any harm.
Do the right thing now, and I'll stick by you. Let this man free,
whoever he is. Don't listen to what he tells you," she added,
pointing toward Forrest.

Cecil hesitated. Forrest, who was watching him closely, could not
tell whether that hesitation was genuine or only a feint.

"It was only a joke, this, Kate," he muttered. "It was a joke which
we have carried a little too far. Yes, you shall help me if you
will. I have had enough of it. Go inside and see for yourself who is
there."

Cecil threw open the door and Kate stepped boldly inside. Forrest
entered last and remained near the threshold. Engleton started to
his feet when he saw a third person.

"We have brought you a visitor," Forrest cried out. "You have
complained of being lonely. You will not be lonely any longer."

Kate turned toward him.

"What do you mean?" she said. "We are going to leave here together,
that man and myself, within the next few minutes."

"You lie!" Forrest answered fiercely. "You have thrust yourself into
a matter which does not concern you, and you are going to take the
consequences."

"And what might they be?" Kate asked slowly.

"They rest with him," Forrest answered, pointing toward Engleton.
"There is a man there who was our friend until a few days ago. He
dared to accuse us of cheating at cards, and if we let him go he
will ruin us both. We are doing what any reasonable men must do. We
are seeking to preserve ourselves. We have kept him here a prisoner,
but he could have gained his freedom on any day by simply promising
to hold his peace. He has declined, and the time has come when we
can leave him no more. To-night, if he is obstinate, we are going to
throw him into the sea."

"And what about me?" Kate asked.

"You are going with him," Forrest answered. "If he is obstinate fool
enough to chuck your life away and his, he must do it. Only he had
better remember this," he added, looking across at Engleton, "it
will mean two lives now, and not one."

Engleton rose to his feet slowly.

"Who is she?" he asked, pointing to the girl.

"I am Kate Caynsard, one of the village people here," she answered.
"I heard you working to-night from outside. You heard me shout
back?"

He nodded.

"Yes!" he said. "I know."

"I will tell the truth," the girl continued. "I was fool enough once
to come here to meet that man"--she pointed to De la Borne--"that is
all over. But one night I was restless, and I came wandering through
the plantation here. It was then I saw from the other end that the
place had been altered, and it struck me to listen there where the
air-shaft is. I heard voices, and the next day they were all talking
about the disappearance of Lord Ronald Engleton. You, I suppose,"
she added, "are Lord Ronald."

"I believe I was," he answered, with a little catch in his throat.
"God knows who I am now! I give it up, De la Borne. If you are going
to send the girl after me, I give it up. I'll sign anything you
like. Only let me out of the d--d place!"

A flash of triumph lit up Forrest's face, but it lasted only for a
second. Kate had suddenly turned upon them, and was standing with
her back to the wall. The hand which had been hidden in the folds of
her dress so long, was suddenly outstretched. There was a roar which
rang through the place like the rattle of artillery, the smell of
gunpowder, and a little cloud of smoke. Through it they could see
her face; her lips parted in a smile, the wild disorder of her hair,
her sea-stained gown, her splendid pose, all seemed to make her the
central figure of the little tableau.

"I have five more barrels," she said. "I fired that one to let you
know that I was in earnest. Now if you do not let us go free, and
without conditions, it will be you who will stay here instead of us,
only you will stay here for ever!"

CHAPTER XVI

The smoke cleared slowly away. Engleton had risen to his feet, the
light of a new hope blazing in his eyes. Forrest and Cecil de la
Borne stood close together near the door, which still stood ajar.
The girl, who stood with her back to the wall, saw their involuntary
movement towards it, and her voice rang out sharp and clear.

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