Quitting the presence of Mr. Trackem and Lord Westray, Léonie has
hurried to her bedroom, from which the former personage had so
unceremoniously summoned her. The bedroom in question is small and
plainly furnished. A scant, square piece of carpet covers the middle of
the floor. There are two chairs in the room, a tiny iron bedstead, a
washhand-stand, and a large wardrobe. This latter article takes up an
ungenerous share of the space which the little room affords, but it is
evidently an article of some importance, for Léonie goes straight to it
and throws it open, displaying to view some half-a-dozen shelves, upon
which a number of suits of clothes of varied and multifarious shapes,
are neatly arranged.
After scrutinising them for a few minutes Léonie selects a strong
dark-coloured pair of riding breeches, gaiters to match, and a loose
jacket and waistcoat of the same material, which she lays on the bed. To
these are quickly added a grey flannel shirt and a complete silk under
riding suit. She then proceeds with her toilet, and when dressed looks
every inch a comely lad of some seventeen summers, smart, neat, and
natty.
Her next act is to pack a small saddle portmanteau with a change of
underclothing, toilet and washing articles, which completes the outfit
of Mr. Trackem’s youthful detective; for Léonie, though a slave, is not
unmindful of her personal appearance. She knows she is pretty, and likes
to look so, a vanity for which the looking-glass is largely responsible.
A small oil lamp burns fitfully in one corner of the room. She fills a
tiny kettle with water, and placing it on a miniature stand, sets it to
heat above the flame. Then she makes her bed, and tidies up her room
with business-like alacrity, and as the kettle begins to hiss, she takes
from the chimney-piece a cup and saucer, a small tin of preserved coffee
and milk, and a spoon. In a few minutes this Bohemian girl has mixed
herself a steaming cupful of the beverage, and abstracting a couple of
biscuits from a small paper parcel also on the chimney-piece, proceeds
to enjoy her somewhat camp-like meal.
But she wastes no time over it. Léonie is essentially a business-like
person. She has settled in her mind the exact hour at which she must set
out, and she knows she has not many minutes to spare.
In effect, grey dawn is beginning to streak the murky sky with light.
She can hear a distant tower clock chiming the hour of five, and she
sets down her cup on a chair close by and takes up the little
portmanteau. “Time I started,” she mutters to herself, as she cons in
her mind Mr. Trackem’s instructions. Léonie is a most perfectly
disciplined young lady; she has thoroughly learnt the lesson of
obedience. It has never entered her head to disregard or evade her
master’s commands. Mr. Trackem has certainly succeeded in teaching her
to take a pride in her work, and in training her to a faithful discharge
of duty. He has reason to congratulate himself, and to boast that this
girl slave has never failed him yet.
She passes along the passage leading to the staircase, and descends this
latter noiselessly. All is silent throughout the house as she lets
herself out of the front door and closes it softly behind her. Then she
sets off at a smart walk along the Crescent, and gaining a side street
turns down it.
The street in question is more or less a mews, but as yet there are very
few signs of life within it. Léonie, however, seems quite at home in
this place, for she walks down it unhesitatingly, until at length she
comes to a halt opposite a stable door.
Drawing a key from her pocket she unlocks this door and lets herself in.
There are some half-a-dozen horses tied up in an equal number of stalls,
and they greet her with neighs and a good deal of grunting and stamping
about. A rough shaggy-looking dog, with the coat and body of a
stag-hound, and the head and drooping ears of a bloodhound, rises from a
bed of hay in the corner of the stable, and comes up to her with wagging
tail and a doggy smile on his rough and shaggy face. She pats him
kindly. “Come on, Nero,” she says at the same time; “I shall want you.”
Then she goes to the corn bin and measures into the sieve a feed of
oats, which she takes over to a bay horse at the far end of the stable.
This produces a loud protest from the remaining five animals, which to
any one acquainted with horse language is unmistakable.
Perhaps there is a kind corner in Léonie’s heart. Maybe it is only to
secure quiet. Who knows? But she fills up the sieve brimful once more,
and divides the oats amongst the five protesting animals. At any rate,
it gives them contentment for a while, judging by the crunching and
munching that goes on.
A little harness-room adjoins the stable, and Léonie dives into this,
and unearths a neat light man’s saddle with grey girths and a pair of
bright small steels. The saddle is quickly girthed on to the bay horse,
and then a plain double snaffle is produced from the same quarter to be
slipped in the animal’s mouth directly he has finished his meal. Léonie
is anxious to be off before the stable men come in, which will be about
six o’clock.
Consulting her watch, she sees it is nigh on half-past five. As the
clock chimes that hour the girl leads the horse out into the mews,
followed by Nero. Closing the stable door and locking it, she turns to
her steed, and gathering the reins in her left hand puts her foot in the
stirrup, and swings herself lightly on to his back.
“Come on, Nero,” she calls again to the dog as she puts her horse into a
trot and leaves the mews behind her.
Her course is taken for Waterloo Station. None whose gaze fall upon her
as she rides through the awakening streets, followed by her shaggy
companion, would take her for what she is, a female detective in the
employ of Mr. Trackem. But then a well-got-up detective ought to be
unrecognisable, and Léonie, the handsome, gentlemanly youth to all
appearance, _is_ well got up.
On reaching Waterloo, Léonie sees to the boxing of her horse and dog.
She elects, too, to travel with them in the horse-box as far as
Bracknell, which place is reached at nine o’clock. Here the horse-box is
run into a siding.
Léonie loses no time, for she knows that every moment is precious. She
sees to the unboxing of the horse, and before remounting him slips a
shilling into the porter’s hand.
“How far is ‘The Hut’ from here?” she inquires as she does so.
“What, the Duke of Ravensdale’s Hut, sir? Oh, nigh on two miles. But
there’s no one there, sir. It’s shut up; there’s only the forrester and
his wife.”
“Just, the persons I want to see. You mean of course——, there now, the
name has quite slipped me,” exclaimed Léonie, with well-feigned
appearance of annoyance at the name having just that moment escaped her
memory.
“Why, Miles Gripper, old Miles Gripper and his wife, sir,” puts in the
porter, eager to supply the young gentleman’s defective memory. “They
are well known to the country round, sir.”
“Of course, of course; how stupid of me to forget!” answers Léonie
briskly. “Well, now, my man, just tell me how I must frame for ‘The
Hut.’”
“Just cross that there bridge, sir,” explains the porter, pointing
upwards, “and bear away down to the right. Keep straight on that road,
sir, till you can’t go no further; there you’ll see a road going left
and right. Take the right turn, sir, and after that the next right turn
what ever is, and then stick to that road, and never mind any turns that
you see, until you come to two cross-roads, the left one with a
signboard directing to Aldershot. Don’t you go taking either of those
two turns, sir, but ride on another fifty yards, and you’ll see a small
wooden gate on the left. That leads to ‘The Hut’. It’s away in the
forest.”
“Thank you, my man,” says Léonie politely. “I think I understand. I go
up over that, bridge, bear to the right, keep straight on till I must
turn right or left, then take the right turn, and the very next that is,
ride straight on until I reach the cross-roads, then about fifty yards
further, where a gate on the left leads up to ‘The Hut.’ Is that it?
“Exact, sir. You couldn’t have it more exact, sir. If you follow those
directions you can’t mistake,” answers the porter glibly. The shilling
and the young gentleman’s whole appearance has impressed him.
“Well, good-morning, my man, and many thanks,” says Léonie, as she
begins to move her horse away. She is surprised when the next moment the
porter comes up alongside her.
“Beg pardon, sir, no offence, sir, but be you a friend of the duke?”
Léonie is perplexed, but she answers evasively, “What do you want to
know that for, my man?”
“Because,” answers the honest fellow with an eager look in his eyes,
“because, sir, I’ve been reading all about how the Government is
a-hunting of him and that great man Mr. Hector D’Estrange. Least they
say Mr. D’Estrange is a woman. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I don’t
see what it matters whether Mr. D’Estrange is a man or a woman, sir.
He’s the people’s friend, sir; he wants to help us poor folk. There is
no humbug about him, sir, and we love him for that, we do. If you know
them, can you tell me if they are safe, sir? Forgive a poor fellow
asking this, sir—but oh! I’d die for them, I would, sir!”
The blood rushes to Léonie’s face. What is it that brings it there?
Perhaps a vague, undefined feeling of shame that she should be bent on
an errand so degrading with the true words of the honest working man
ringing in her ears.
“Yes, they are safe,” she says hurriedly. “Here, take this, my man.”
She throws him another shilling, and as he stoops to pick it up, she
puts her horse into a quick trot, and widens the distance between
herself and her interlocutor. What does Léonie know of goodness,
gratitude, or any high and noble virtue? In that young, cold,
calculating heart of hers, what room is there for devotion or love? She
wonders, as she rides along, why that man’s words brought that flush to
her face, and what that strange feeling was that made her heart beat and
her pulse throb. She puts it down to a fear that her object and mission
might be recognised.
“I’m getting nervous, I believe,” she laughs to herself. “That will
never do. Mr. Trackem has always told me to be cool and self-possessed.
What a fool I was to let that man see he had flustered me! Léonie, you
are an idiot!”
She tightens her horse’s rein, and just touches him lightly with her
heels as she speaks, and the animal breaks into a canter. Nero gallops
happily by her side. The dog is enjoying his outing in the country. Two
miles at this pace is quickly got over, but Léonie draws rein as she
reaches the cross-roads. To the left stands a signboard, and “Aldershot”
is written on it.
“Fifty yards further on,” mutters the girl as she trots forward. The
porter’s directions are very exact; the wooden gate is before her.
She rides through it, and enters a narrow carriage drive, closed in on
both sides by tall pine-trees. Thick rhododendron bushes fill up a few
open spaces here and there. The little road is steep and precipitous,
leading sharply upwards. Léonie throws the reins on her horse’s neck and
gives him his head. She has no fear that her four-footed friend will
stumble. Horse and rider know each other well.
Suddenly, however, she picks up the reins and urges him forward. A
sudden thought has struck Léonie. She must not be caught napping. The
time has come to employ her detective wiles, and she acts on the impulse
that has seized her. Such a pace up such an incline is naturally trying
to her steed. Thus, when rounding a sharp turn in the forest road she
comes into full view of ‘The Hut,’ her animal’s sides are heaving pretty
freely, and he is decidedly blowing.
She brings him up to the little front entrance at the same pace, and
reins him up abruptly. In another moment she has pealed the bell.
She can hear a slight scuttling inside, and voices whispering, which
causes a delay not at all in keeping with her plans, so she peals the
bell again.
Then steps come rapidly forward, and an elderly man in a dark green cord
suit and brass buttons opens the door.
“I have a message for the Duke of Ravensdale,” exclaims Léonie in a low,
confidential voice. “You are Miles Gripper, are you not? Ask his Grace
if I can see him. It is of the utmost importance, admitting of no
delay.”
Miles Gripper scratches his silver head and looks perplexed. He is a
faithful servant and an honest one. His instructions have keen most
specific. He has been told to feign absolute ignorance of the duke’s
movements or whereabouts, though he knows them well. But Léonie’s words
have staggered him.
“Gracious!” he ejaculates. “But his Grace is not here, sir.”
“Not here!” gasps Léonie, with well-feigned dismay. “Good God! what is
to be done?”
“Is his Grace in danger?” blurts out the forrester tremulously. “Oh,
sir! what is it?”
“Danger!” echoes Léonie. “I should just think so. Look here, my man, I
have come post-haste from London to see him. He must be warned, or both
he and Gloria de Lara will be in custody before the day is down. Can I
trust you to take his Grace a message? I was told you were a faithful
and trustworthy servant of his.”
Miles Gripper is completely taken in. His honest heart bounds with
loyalty at Léonie’s words.
“Ah, sir! and that’s just true. His Grace has no one more devoted than
old Miles Gripper. I’d give my life for his Grace, I would. But, God
forgive me, how can I take your message, sir, in time? He’s far from
here by now.”
“What! far from here?” again gasps Léonie; “but not out of riding
distance, surely? Tell me where he is, and, tired as my horse is, I’ll
do all that is in human power to reach him. God grant I may not be too
late!”
What does Léonie know of God? Still less does she care about Him. God,
to Léonie, is an expression, a forcible expression, and no more. The
expression serves her well on this occasion, however. Miles Gripper’s
honest heart is no match for detective acting. Believing that he is
serving the duke, he passes the secret, which he was bidden to keep,
into the care of this apparently devoted and self-sacrificing adherent
of his master.
“And drat ye for a big-headed fool, when his Grace express forbade ye
say aught of his whereabouts save to the Lady Flora,” Léonie hears a
sharp, angry woman’s voice exclaiming. But she waits to hear no more.
She is on her horse, and trotting quickly down the hill with the secret
she had been puzzling her brains how to win, safe in her keeping. Small
wonder at Dame Gripper’s ire.
“Come on, Nero, laddie,” laughs the girl detective. “I thought I should
want you, doggie, but I can do without you now. However, come along.”
She rides back to the cross-roads and the signboard. On one of this
latter’s arms is printed “Marlow.”
“That’s it,” she mutters to herself, as she turns her horse’s head into
the long straight road, which, girt on either side by tall dark trees,
stretches far as the eye can reach. “I’m safe on the track now, I am.”
Léonie is happy. One of the most difficult obstacles in her path has
been lightly cleared, and quite unexpectedly too. Yes, she is happy, if
it be possible for one so hard and callous to be so. Perhaps the dawn of
a better day is coming for this child of an unholy love. As she rides
along in the bright spring morning however, with her rough dog galloping
by her side, she has no higher aim in life than to carry out
successfully the “little job” which Mr. Trackem has confided to her
care.
END OF BOOK II.
[Illustration]
_BOOK III._
CHAPTER I.
It is the last day of summer, and the evening hour is creeping on apace.
A truly glorious day it has been, warmed by a brilliant sun, the heat of
which has been tempered by one of those gentle zephyrs that love to play
where all is warmth and sunshine.
But now the day is dying, fading, as it were, gradually away. Time,
which the science of man can never stay, stalks slowly on his path. It
is he who declares that the spell of life which has lit the day with its
brilliance, must pass onward into the darkness of advancing night.
For what is life but a greater day of warmth and sunshine, storm and
rain? What is death but the night which brings rest after the toils or
pleasures of that day? What is the future life beyond, but a new day
breaking into existence, perchance in a world more lovely than our own?
So thinks Gloria de Lara as she leans on her oars and watches the dying
glories of this fading day vanish beneath the waves of the western sea.
The zephyr which has played so joyously amidst the light and sunshine of
earlier hours, has fled to his couch of rest, and now not a breath stirs
the glassy waters of Glenuig Bay, which, lit by the radiance of the
setting sun, blazes all around like a lake of molten gold.
Above its gleaming waters and those of Loch Eilort tower heather-girt
mountains in their mantles of purple and of blue. Higher still above
these well-clad slopes the grey stone of shaggy crags looks down, and
higher yet above these lonely scenes the golden eagle hovers, secure
from the destroying hand of man. Not altogether lonely though, if one
may judge from a pale, thin line of smoke that suddenly curls upwards
through the still air from one of those high grey crags. It catches the
eye of Gloria de Lara as she leans upon her oars, and sends a flush of
surprise to her thoughtful, dreaming face.
“So soon!” she exclaims, and there is a ring of wonder in her tone; but
she settles herself to her oars, and sends the boat along with quick,
powerful strokes. She has pointed its head for the open sea, straight,
in fact, for the channel that joins the heaving swell of the grey
Atlantic with the placid waters of Loch Eilort.
Months have passed away since we were last in Gloria de Lara’s company.
We left her when the spring of the early year was just budding into
life, we rejoin her now on the eve of spring’s destroyer’s
advent—autumn.
How has it fared through these months of light and sunshine with this
woman and her cause? A retrospect will show.
We have seen how Léonie, on reaching ‘The Hut,’ had found it vacated,
and had ridden on in the direction of Great Marlow. Truth indeed, she
took the same route over which Gloria, Speranza, and Evie Ravensdale had
ridden the night before. No sooner had it been decided to quit ‘The
Hut,’ than Gloria had despatched Rita Vernon to London, to apprise Flora
Desmond of the change, and then she and her two companions had ridden on
in the darkness of night towards Great Marlow. On reaching the outskirts
of the town, the three had turned down a narrow lane leading in the
direction of Bisham Abbey woods, and Gloria, with a confidence which
familiarity with a place always engenders, had led the way. Finally, the
lane had opened into green fields with a line of bridle gates leading
through them, and these she had carefully followed for a time. At
length, however, Gloria had borne away from the beaten track, and
directed her horse’s head towards a long strip or belt of trees, at the
further end of which stood a solitary cottage with a large barn behind
it, and some compactly built dog-kennels in the rear. In one of the
windows of this lonely dwelling a solitary light was burning, a light
which told the fugitive in silent words of the faithful watch that was
being kept.
Now this was the cottage of the head keeper of the Bisham Abbey estate,
both of whose daughters were troopers in the White Guards’ Regiment. The
entire family was loyal to Gloria de Lara’s cause, and this cottage was
one amidst many a dwelling of the people where Gloria knew she had only
to knock to gain admittance, only to show herself to obtain a loyal
greeting and hospitable and secure shelter from tracking foes. The
organisation which had thus contrived to spread a network of secret and
devoted friends throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland was surely no mean and contemptible one,
and spoke volumes for the constructive and administrative capacity of
Gloria de Lara and Flora Desmond. In every county this network had its
headquarters in the Volunteer centres, with which communication was
actively kept up by means of a code peculiar to this organisation.
Against these forces of a people’s love the Government had brought to
bear the forces of the law. All that money and power could procure were
at this Government’s command. And yet the difficulty of working had
become pretty soon apparent, amidst a people whose lips refused to tell,
and whose eyes became blinded by a sudden cloud whenever information was
sought or demanded. In order to guard against the importation of
informers into the Volunteer ranks, Flora Desmond had issued an order to
the effect that no more aspirants were to be enrolled, an order which
greatly hampered and took by surprise the forces of Scotland Yard, which
had counted on informers’ assistance to a large degree in obtaining
information.
It was at the cottage, therefore, of staunch, true, old Joe Webster,
that Gloria had sought her first refuge amongst the people, after her
flight from the metropolis. It was from the same cottage that Speranza
had bidden her child farewell before setting out on her voyage to the
United States, as an accredited delegate to plead the D’Estrangeite
cause. It was at this cottage that Flora Desmond had secretly held
council with her chief, and had arranged the details of the first public
meeting at which Gloria was to appear. And it was at old Joe Webster’s
cottage, too, that Léonie, in pursuit of the _rôle_ which Mr. Trackem
had set her to play, had presented herself before Gloria, and
representing herself as one who had left home and interests to serve the
great cause, had implored Gloria de Lara not to refuse her services, but
to let her work for her even in the most menial capacity.
The bright, earnest face of the girl, her dark eyes glowing with genius,
her pleading voice and apparent enthusiasm, had struck home to Gloria de
Lara’s heart, the noble nature of which could not suspect treachery to
lurk beneath such evident devotion. Léonie’s prayer had been heard by
the woman who trusted her, and on whose betrayal and destruction she was
bent. The first great meeting had been one of unlimited success for the
D’Estrangeite cause, and therefore of proportionate discomfiture and
humiliation for the Government. In the crowded Hall of Liberty, the
D’Estrangeite members had assembled to protest against the assumption by
the Nationals of the conduct of affairs without first making an appeal
to the country, and also to call for a free pardon for Flora Desmond,
and a fresh trial for Gloria de Lara. Government reporters had attended
and taken voluminous notes of the speeches, policemen and detectives had
assembled in full force by command of Mr. Mayhew, and established a
strict watch. Proceedings, in fact, were in full swing, and it only
needed the presence of one being on whom the thoughts of all were
centred in that vast throng, to complete the assembly. Suddenly, upon
the lowest of the six circular galleries that surrounded the dome of the
hall, two forms were seen to appear. No need in pointing them out to
inquire who they were. The low cheer which greeted their first
appearance, soon swelled into a roar of wild, tumultuous applause and
welcome, which flooded the vast building with deafening strain, and told
of the enthusiasm and love that awoke it. What other being but Gloria de
Lara could have commanded such an ovation? Truth it was she and her
trusty companion Flora Desmond, who stood before them, habited in the
uniform of the White Guards’ Regiment, in which the people knew them
both so well.
In full view of the crowded House, in full view of the D’Estrangeite
members, in full view of Government reporters, and Mr. Mayhew’s police
and detective forces, Gloria had addressed the vast throng. Spellbound
the people had listened to her words of hope, of encouragement, and of
cheer. And when, in conclusion, she had bidden them fight on for the
right, and actively resist wrong, the cheers had rung out again and
again with deafening roar. Yet even as those cheers began to die away
and the people’s eyes turn lovingly once more to their great leader,
Gloria and her companion had vanished.
And what had Mr. Mayhew’s police been about? Why had they not arrested
these daring two? How possible? The only means by which the galleries
above could be reached, was through some twenty iron doors below. Yet
when the police sought an entry, they found these doors securely barred
by an invisible hand from within.
Of course a cordon of constables had been quickly drawn around the
building, and detectives had watched anxiously day and night. Futile! as
it soon became evident, when news reached the Government a few days
later that Gloria de Lara had addressed a meeting in the north of
England, that the police and troops hastily summoned had attempted to
arrest her, but that, securely guarded by the Women’s Border Light Horse
Volunteers, she had managed to effect an escape, and no trace of her
whereabouts had up till then been obtained. Energetic authorities,
however, took care to cap this unwelcome intelligence with the
information that the police were prosecuting an unremitting search! _Cui
bono?_
Meeting upon meeting had followed; concourse after concourse had
assembled. Simultaneously they would be heard of in the north, south,
east, and west of England, of Scotland, or of Ireland. No public
placards or advertisements announced these meetings, and yet they were
always well attended. It seemed as though some secret, mysteriously
silent fiery cross passed through the districts in which they were held.
But the authorities could not say for certain; they could only surmise.
Machinery was at work beneath the surface which they had no power to
fathom. The speakers at these meetings were manifold and various. The
D’Estrangeite members were particularly active, but after Gloria de Lara
and Flora Desmond, the people’s favourites were undoubtedly the Duke of
Ravensdale, Nigel Estcourt, Lady Manderton, Launcelot Trevor, Archie
Douglasdale, and Jack Delamere! Wonder of wonders! What! Colonel
Delamere? The swagger Guardsman, the spoilt child of Society, the man
whose life had hitherto been one long succession of amusement and
pleasure? Is it possible? Quite so. There is no impossibility when
Nature steps in to the rescue.
What influence has been at work thus to change the current of Jack
Delamere’s pleasant but useless existence? What has induced him to take
up the cudgels for Gloria de Lara’s cause? Ay, what?
Ever since that evening when, in obedience to orders, Jack Delamere had
charged the crowd which barred the way between his Blues and the White
Guards, ever since that day when he had marked the heroism of those men
and women that composed it, ever since he had seen them go down before
the horses of his troopers, sacrificing their lives so that their idol’s
might be spared, Jack Delamere had been a faithful and devoted adherent
of the D’Estrangeite cause. Perhaps, too, his love for Flora Desmond may
have influenced him. Who knows? The influence of a noble and high-souled
woman is surely the greatest incentive a man can have to do right.
Money, too, had poured in from all quarters of the globe, and from all
manners and classes of people. The women, who in the palmy days of
Hector D’Estrange had responded to his appeal on behalf of the Hall of
Liberty, had not been laggard when the author of its being had again
called upon them for sympathy and aid. The sinews of war had flowed in
rapidly, and none had commanded it more quickly than Speranza de Lara.
Such a state of things had of course become intolerable to the
Devonsmere Ministry, which in the early days of the movement had so
confidently predicted its speedy collapse, as well as the arrest of
Gloria de Lara and Flora Desmond. Every effort to capture these two had,
however, proved unavailing, protected as they had been by a people’s
love.
A people’s love! It was a noble gift to have won, a treasure of which
they might well be proud, one which they might surely pray ever to
deserve. None knew better than Gloria de Lara and Flora Desmond, that
without it their fates must long since have been a prison’s cell and a
felon’s doom.
In the eyes of this Government matters had become desperate. The efforts
of the police had been paralysed. Conflicts had taken place between the
military and the Women’s Volunteer Regiments, and strong measures
appeared necessary to check the disorders. Gloria de Lara’s enemies had
pointed to the Volunteer organisation as the root of the mischief, and
it had been resolved to destroy it. Parliament had been asked to grant
exceptional powers to meet this dangerous combination. Parliament had
acquiesced, and forthwith a proclamation had been issued declaring the
Women’s Volunteer organisation to be illegal, and decreeing the instant
disbandment of its regiments. The exceptional powers had furthermore
empowered the police to arrest and imprison without trial all women who
should be seen wearing the uniform of these regiments; and it had
likewise been decreed a felony to shelter or harbour the persons of
Gloria de Lara or Lady Flora Desmond, or to take part in any public
meeting in which they should participate.
This Coercion Act, the first which had ever been passed for Great
Britain and Ireland combined, had rendered the position of Gloria de
Lara and Flora Desmond one of extreme peril, while threatening the
liberties of thousands of their countrymen. A secret meeting had been
called, the situation discussed, and it had been agreed that for the
sake of the cause thus threatened these two must leave the country.
But how? That was the question. Every port and sea-going vessel was
strictly watched. In this dilemma Archie Douglasdale had submitted a
plan.
This plan was that his sister and Gloria de Lara, together with Nigel
Estcourt and himself, should retire to one of his properties on the
shores of Glenuig Bay, where amidst its shaggy woods nestled a little
fishing box, remote from the haunts of man. In this lonely retreat,
guarded by trusty Ruglen retainers, he had declared his belief that for
a time they could rest concealed, while Evie Ravensdale, repairing to
London, should from there direct the immediate fitting-out of his yacht,
in which, so soon as ready, he should put to sea, and work round to the
Sound of Arisaig, where the fugitives could be embarked. And this plan
had been approved of and acted upon. Gloria de Lara, Flora Desmond,
Nigel Estcourt, and Archie Douglasdale had taken up their quarters in
this safe retreat, and Evie Ravensdale had repaired to London. With him
had gone Léonie, who had been commissioned to bear back the duke’s
instructions when all was ready. It was a fatal arrangement this last;
but Léonie had played her part well, and had won the confidence of all.
Thus it is that we find Gloria de Lara on the last dying day of summer,
amidst the scenes described at the opening of this chapter.
Léonie has arrived from London. She has been instructed, she declares,
to inform Gloria de Lara that the duke’s yacht _Eilean_ will proceed to
sea and cruise about in the neighbourhood of Muck Island, so as to avoid
the steamer track. The duke himself will make Glenuig Bay in a fishing
smack, embarking every one thereon the day after his arrival. This
arrival is timed for to-day, and Evie Ravensdale has sent a private
message by Léonie asking Gloria to meet the smack at its entrance to the
bay. At least so says Léonie, and Gloria believes her. She has sent the
former to the top of a high crag to watch for the advent of the smack,
with instructions to light a warning fire on sighting it. We have seen
the pale blue line arise, and now Gloria, with quick, rapid strokes, is
pulling for the bay’s entrance. Her heart is happy, for is not Evie
Ravensdale at hand? She never dreams of treachery.
The boat flies through the water, which parts with hissing sound on
either side of the bow’s keel. Now the splash and upheaving of the craft
tells the rower that she has left the bay and entered the open sea. She
casts a glance ahead, and sees the smack bearing down towards her, and
then she sees the sail lowered and the vessel hove to. Once more she
plies her oars, for she has caught sight of a tall figure waving to her,
and making signs to bring the boat alongside the smack.
“Ship oars!” she hears a voice exclaiming as she nears it, and she obeys
with alacrity.
In another moment a sailor has seized the painter, and two others have
sprung into the boat. She looks up expecting to see the face of Evie
Ravensdale. One glance, and she knows that she is betrayed.
“Up with the sails! Starboard the helm! Put the boat about, and fetch
yon lad off the rocks,” is the quick command she hears given as the
sailors heave her aloft on to the deck, and two other men push her into
the cabin below. Then the hatch is battened down. There is a coarse
laugh. Once more has Léonie won.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
“There is the smoke, Estcourt; Ravensdale must be in sight,” exclaims
Flora Desmond, as she leans on her empty rifle and scans the peaceful
scene far away below.
“So soon?” inquires the young man looking up. “We must have strangely
miscalculated the time.”
“Well, there’s the smoke right enough, Estcourt; and Léonie is far too
smart to make a mistake. However, no need to hurry; it is such a
glorious evening, and the last for me on these dear old hills, perhaps
for ever.”
She says the last words sadly, and there is a yearning look in her fine
eyes as they rove the familiar glens and corries, rugged crags and
purple stretches which she and Archie Douglasdale learnt to know by
heart in childhood, in their happy hunting excursions together long ago.
Far away below, Loch Eilort and Glenuig Bay shimmer in the setting sun,
whose light is gleaming across the grey waters of the open sea.
These two have been away all day after deer, and Archie Douglasdale is
still absent on the same quest. They have not seen him since they parted
with him on the Black Crags some seven hours ago.
Lord Estcourt rises and comes to her side. He is a tall, well-made man,
with expressive features, and a pair of grey eyes which Society has
declared to be magnificent. Plenty of women therein have been willing to
fall in love with Nigel Estcourt; no end of scheming and would-be
mothers-in-law have instructed their daughters in the virtues, wealth,
and charming characteristics of that very nice young fellow, and charged
the poor things to exert their utmost to win him. But Nigel Estcourt has
never yet been seen to pay court to any woman, and Fashion marvels
thereat. But since he was a boy of seventeen he has held love’s secret
next his heart. It was at Ruglen Manor, long ago, when, as a mere lad,
he first saw Flora Ruglen, that Nigel Estcourt first opened the book of
love. It was to him that she, his first girl friend, had opened her
heart, and it was to her that his boyish soul had responded. Born with a
golden spoon in his mouth, with all that the world most covets, it was
but natural that Fashion should court him. But Nigel Estcourt was not
responsive to its adulation, and snubbed it most unmercifully.
When Flora Ruglen had married Sir Reginald Desmond, young Nigel had
sorely grieved; but his friendship for her had not abated, for he loved
her just the same. He was still only a boy, of course, and no one would
have seriously predicted that this, his first love, would be his last.
Other men had loved Flora Desmond, and love her still. She has had no
lack of offers since poor Reggie Desmond died. Over and over again has
smart Jack Delamere pressed his suit. He has never loved any woman like
he does her, but he presses his suit in vain; for gently, kindly but
firmly, Flora Desmond has told him that she will never marry again. She
had told Estcourt the same thing when for the first time, now three
years ago, he had confessed his love and asked her to marry him. She had
told him then that he must put that love from him for ever, for the
reply which she then gave him would remain unchanged. Yet, with tears in
her lovely eyes, Flora had told him also how deeply she valued his
friendship, how grateful and honoured she felt by his love, and how she
prayed that the strong, firm bond which had held them together so long,
since as boy and girl they had first made friends, would endure through
life. Perhaps if one thing had not happened, Flora Desmond might have
returned young Estcourt’s love. Perhaps if the wand of fate had not
decreed otherwise, her heart might have gone out to him. It seemed
almost natural that she should love him, he who had received her
earliest confidences and been her first friend. But one thing had
intervened to make this impossible. Flora Desmond loved another.
Some women can love much and often, some can almost adore, and then
forget. To Flora this was impossible. Hers was a heart which could not
lightly love, which, slow to appreciate, would nevertheless, when once
unlocked, love truly, faithfully, and well. And thus it had been with
this woman so seemingly love free. For years ago that feeling had
flooded her heart, had taken possession of her, never to pass away, when
as Lady Flora Desmond, but a year after her marriage, she had seen Evie
Ravensdale for the first time.
Who shall describe or fathom the depth of a true and pure love? None
have been able to do so yet, none ever will. Flora’s love was such as
asked for no return, content only to be allowed to love.
And yet, who knows that there may not have shot, now and again, through
Flora’s heart when, after the death of Reginald Desmond, she and Evie
Ravensdale were thrown often into each other’s company, a gleam of hope
that her love might in time come to be returned? It may have been so;
but if so, it vanished finally and for ever when the personality of
Hector D’Estrange was revealed in Gloria de Lara. Unmistakably on that
evening when she had rescued this latter from the prison-van and had
handed her into Evie Ravensdale’s safe keeping at Montragee House, Flora
Desmond had read in the dark and beautiful eyes of the young duke the
secret of his heart.
It never entered her mind to cavil at his choice or to resent it. No
pang of jealousy had shot through her heart against the woman to whom
his love had been clearly given. Only, when she had read his secret, had
the feeling rushed over her that the love which she had nursed and
cherished for so long, was imperishable and impossible of recall.
Not that she wished or sought to recall it. Flora would have sooner died
than part with the first true love of her life; it was to her a treasure
that she prized beyond expression, priceless to her in value. He lays
his right hand on her shoulder for a moment as he stands by her side,
and she feels it tremble.
“It is a day I shall never forget, Flora,” he says gently; “I have been
very happy. It will be something for your old friend to look back upon,
when you are far away.”
“What do you mean Estcourt?” she inquires hastily. “But you are coming
with us?”
“No,” he answers decisively. “I have other work to do. I shall never
rest till I have obtained for you the pardon that will extricate you
from this outlawed life. I can be of use to you by remaining, I have
some influence still in high quarters, and I could do you no good by
going to America. Of course I should like to go; you know, Flora, I am
never so happy as when I am with you, but I don’t mean to think of _Ego_
on this occasion.”
The tears rise to her eyes.
“I shall miss you, Estcourt, dear old Estcourt,” she says softly; and
then her hand steals into his, and he feels the grateful pressure in its
firm touch.
The blood rushes to the young man’s face, for that touch thrills him
through and through, though the ring in her voice tells him that
affection, and affection only, not love, is there.
“You’ll never miss me as I shall you,” he answers passionately. “Ah,
Flora! you don’t know the dull, blank void that comes over me when you
are not by; you don’t understand the lonely feeling that masters me, the
yearning to see your dear face again. Of course, Flora, you cannot
understand what I suffer, for I don’t believe you know what love means.
I have often heard you called ‘the cold Lady Flora.’ I begin to believe
you are rightly named.”
It is her turn to flush now, but she turns her head away that he may not
see the hot blood in her cheeks. Evie Ravensdale’s face is before her in
imagination. She sees the dear, dark, dreamy eyes, the clear-cut
features, the beautiful forehead around which the raven curls are
clustering; she sees him as plainly as though he stood before her, for
is not his presence burnt into her mind with the exactitude of reality?
She loves him with all her heart, and power, and soul, and mind. No
sacrifice for his sake would seem hard. To die that he might live would
be a joy. If Flora Desmond does not know what love means, then who does?
But Estcourt can only judge by what he sees. He knows she has rejected
the love of many men. There is no one, save himself, to whom she appears
to give a preference, and has she not told him that she can never marry
him? Is he not justified in his conclusions, therefore? Perhaps so. Few
men have ever been able to read a woman right.
She pulls herself together, however, and turns his remark off with a
jest.
“Cold am I, Estcourt? An iceberg, probably! I almost think so, too, for
it’s actually beginning to feel chilly up here. How blood-red the sun
has turned. Mark my words; we are in for a storm this evening, and I
doubt any embarkation being possible to-morrow. I know these old shores
well.”
“If you are chilly, Flora,” he says almost bitterly, “we had better make
haste down the Crag Vale. It would not do for you to catch cold.” Her
evident desire to turn the conversation has not escaped him. It hurts
him, and he shows it.
She marks the bitter tone of his voice. Flora knows Estcourt so well. A
woman can generally read a man pretty correctly if she chooses to; of a
certainty if the man loves her.
She faces him suddenly with the glow of the blood-red sun lighting up
her handsome face. She is earnest in what she is going to say, and she
looks it.
“Estcourt, dear old Estcourt, let there be no misunderstanding between
us two, and on the eve of parting. This may be the last opportunity of
telling you what I wish to. Don’t gibe me as cold and heartless, for it
is not true, not true. Do I not know how chivalrously and devotedly you
have loved me, and am I not grateful to you for your noble and generous
love? Why should I ask the question, because you know it? You know I
would not speak untruly, and I tell you that your love is very precious
to me, and I value your great friendship more than anybody else’s in
this world. Were you not my first friend? Am I likely to forget that?
But, Estcourt, dear old man, you must not throw your love away on me,
for I shall never marry again. I shall always look on you as my first,
best, and truest friend, and love you dearly, very dearly as such, but I
can never marry again—no, Estcourt, never!”
“Nor I,” he answers quietly, with a sad smile. “You are hardly the woman
to bid a man marry where he does not love. Flora, I have loved you ever
since I first saw you; I shall never love any one else but you. At least
you will do me the justice to believe that I am as unalterable as you
are. Let us never bring this subject up again. Let it bide by the Crag
Vale Cairn.”
He kisses her hand tenderly and respectfully, and then he lets it fall.
“Let’s go down now, Flora dear,” he says gently. “I wonder why
Ravensdale’s smack has not turned the point yet. It ought to be round by
now if Léonie were right.”
“I’ll back her to be right,” answers Flora, with a slight laugh. “She’s
not likely to mislead Gloria, who, by-the-bye, I saw turning the point
in her coracle quite ten minutes ago. They’ll be round in a second, I
daresay.”
The two scramble down the rough face of the mountain side in silence.
The thoughts of both are busy. Suddenly, however, Estcourt brings
himself to a halt and calls out to Flora, who is a little ahead of him,
“Flora! who can that be?”
Her eyes follow the direction in which his hand points, and she sees a
four-oared boat coming out of Loch Eilort into the Sound of Arisaig at a
rapid pace, and heading for Glenuig Bay.
“It must be Archie,” she calls back. “I suppose he got to the far end of
the lake, and has come back by water. The boat is Bruce Ruglen’s, and
the oarsmen are his four sons. I know it and them well.”
He comes running down to where she is standing.
“Flora dear,” he says quickly, “use your eyes. The man in the stern is
not Douglasdale. It’s Evie, as I live! What can Léonie have meant, and
why does not Gloria come back? Surely there cannot have been treachery?
My God! surely not?”
But Flora never stops to surmise. Her face is deadly pale, and she has
turned at his words, and is hurrying with fleet steps down the mountain
side, with Estcourt following quickly in the rear. Fast, faster she
goes. Flora Desmond is as nimble as a deer. No monstrous, tied-back
petticoats encumber her. She is habited in the neat, graceful kilt in
the tartan of her brother’s clan and her own, which suits to perfection
her supple, well-made form. In it she is free to use the physical powers
which Nature has given her, and which she has never sought to stunt or
to curtail.
She makes straight for the shore, and as she moves along she loads her
rifle. Then as she reaches the water’s edge she fires it off.
This attracts the inmates of the boat. They look her way, and perceive
that she is signalling to them to come in shore. In a moment Evie
Ravensdale has turned the boat’s nose in her direction, and she sees
that he is urging the oarsmen to exert their utmost.
The men endeavour to obey; they bend their backs, and send the boat
hissing through the still waters. Foam flakelets fly before the racing
keel propelled by irresistible force, and yet to Flora Desmond it
appears to come but slowly.
“Back water, men!” she shouts, as the boat nears the shore. “Don’t beach
her. I want to push her off and jump in.”
Estcourt is beside her now, and they are both up to their knees in the
water. The men are resting on their oars as the boat glides slowly
forward.
But Flora and Estcourt have it by the prow.
“Now, Estcourt, push off!” exclaims the former, as bending chest
downwards she arrests its course. The edge of her kilt in front sinks
into the water, in another moment her knee is on the boat’s edge, and
she is standing in the bow with her companion by her side.
“Evie!” she exclaims, in a low excited voice, “how is it you have come
this way? Is anything wrong? We expected you in a smack, and Gloria has
gone to meet you.”
“A smack!” gasps the young duke. “What do you mean?”
But she does not answer him. She has turned, and is addressing the four
clansmen.
“Ruglens,” she says quickly, “pull to the point for your lives! Pull
men, pull; pull with the strength God gave you. God in heaven, pull!”
They answer to her appeal, do these young giants. Do they not know her
well? Is she not a Ruglen? Are they not Ruglens too? Have they not as
children played with their young chief and his sister, joined in their
rambles, mingled with their sports? Well do these Highland laddies
understand her quick command, understand it and obey. She has crossed to
the stern, where the duke sits staring mutely at her.
“Give me the helm, Evie,” she says quietly. “I can steer the shortest
cut. Don’t look like that, Evie; it may be all a mistake.”
But her voice tells him she does not think so.
The boat tears through the water; the clansmen are doing their best.
There is not a word spoken. Only the splash of the oars, the dull thud
of the twisting rowlocks, the hiss of the boat’s keel, break the
stillness of Glenuig’s Bay.
They have reached the point now. Four more gallant strokes from the men
whose brows are thickly studded with the bead drops of extraordinary
toil, and the boat rises on the first rolling swell of the open sea.
The smack is there; it catches the straining eyes of Evie Ravensdale, as
he springs up and gazes across the great grey ocean waste. To her dying
day Flora will never forget the terrible groan of agony which bursts
from him.
Ay, the smack is there, but they come too late. The brown sail is
spread, it is already far away, vanishing into the creeping, dull, dark
veil of the advancing night and rising storm.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
“All shall come right, everything shall be explained; you shall have
immediate liberty, if, on behalf of your mother, you will promise me
what I ask. I know perfectly well she will do it if _you_ ask her. Now
will you?”
The speaker is a middle-aged man, with deep, dark eyes, handsome
features, and bold, resolute carriage. Grey hairs peep here and there
from out his thick beard, moustache, and whiskers, and there are grey
hairs in his once raven hair. He is dressed in a navy-blue serge suit,
and wears the buttons of the royal yacht squadron.
To all appearance the person he is addressing is a young man of some
twenty-three or twenty-four summers. He is tall, and slight, with a face
of extreme beauty. He has rich gold-auburn hair, and his eyes are deep
blue in colour. Nothing will compare with them but the sapphire.
He wears a well-fitting shepherd’s plaid kilt, stockings to match, and
silver mounted brogues. A loose white flannel shirt and waistcoat and
jacket complete his attire.
“I will not,” is the stern, cold reply which he gives to the speaker’s
query.
This latter grinds his teeth, but checks the rising anger within him,
and speaks once more in a persuasive, almost pleading voice.
“Think again. Consider all that depends on your decision. After all, my
request is perfectly honourable. I simply ask that she shall consent to
re-marry me.”
“Great God! and you call that an honourable request, Lord Westray? You
think it a simple matter, that my mother should wed again my father’s
murderer? I tell you a death of hideous torture would be more preferable
to me, than that a fate so awful should befall her. Cease, I pray you,
this subject. I have but one answer to your hateful proposal, and that
is, no!”
“Have you weighed well in your mind the fate that awaits you, Hector
D’Estrange, if you persist in this refusal?” asks Lord Westray
threateningly.
“My name is Gloria de Lara, my lord, not Hector D’Estrange, as I think
you know full well. The fate that awaits me I fully realise. I am
condemned to death for a murder never committed; I am to die that your
vile vengeance on my beloved mother may be fully wreaked. Do your worst.
I do not fear death; and my mother will bear the blow as bravely and as
nobly as she has borne others.”
She folds her arms proudly, and there is a world of scorn in her
beautiful eyes as she fixes them on the cowardly brute before her. A
wild gust of wind shrieks angrily above board as the smack rises and
plunges in the trough of a choppy sea. The blood-red sun has vanished,
an inky darkness has set in, and the wind is rapidly increasing from a
fresh breeze into a regular fierce and nasty gale.
Lord Westray staggers, and almost reels up against her as the smack
lurches forward on the crest of a more than usually excitable wave.
There is a rush of feet on deck, and men’s voices are heard shouting
above the noisy wind. She starts back from him in horror; she would not
touch him for the world. His very presence in the close, stuffy little
cabin seems to stifle her. Gladly would she seek an asylum in the
ocean’s angry waves, and trust to Fate to enable her to reach the shore,
or die.
The cabin door opens, and the skipper peers in.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he says, touching his oil-skin cap, “but I must put
to sea, sir, I must. We’re in for a regular duster. I daren’t coast no
longer, sir. It’s pitch black, and the shore for miles along is almighty
dangerous.”
“I’ll come on deck, Hutchins,” answers Lord Westray quickly. He is a
good sailor, but the intelligence does not please him. As he turns to
leave the cabin Léonie steals in. She is drenched with sea water, and
her hair is wringing wet. As she seats herself in a corner of the cabin
she glances shyly at Gloria. This latter returns the look with one of
mingled pity and contempt. Léonie’s eyes drop before that look. For the
first time in her life a feeling of shame rushes over her.
“This is a terrible storm,” she says in a low voice, as a wave crashes
along the deck, part of it finding its way into the cabin. “I heard one
of the men say he did not think the boat would weather it.”
“God grant it may not!” answers Gloria sternly, and then, as if
influenced by a sudden impulse, she continues gently, “Ah! Léonie,
child, what could have tempted you to act so basely? What have I ever
done to you that you should treat me thus?”
“I did my duty,” answers the girl sullenly. “I did what I was ordered to
do. It is my trade.”
“Your trade, child? Good heavens! what are you, and who ordered you to
betray me?”
“My master, Mr. Trackem,” answers Léonie, simply. “I belong to his
detective gang. I’ve served him ever since I can remember. I’ve never
failed him yet, and he told me not to fail him this time. I promised I
would not, and I have obeyed him.”
There is an evident sincerity in her tone, and Gloria, with her power of
deep insight into character, reads Léonie’s at a glance.
“Have you no mother, no father, my poor Léonie?” she inquires softly, as
she comes over to the girl’s side, and lays her hand on her curly head.
“Mother, father? No, of course not,” answers Léonie, with a slight
laugh. “They are both dead. Mr. Trackem always says he’s acted father,
mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and cousin by me. I don’t quite
know what he means by that, but that is what he says.”
“Poor Léonie, poor wee Léonie. God! what a fate! You are not to blame
them, my poor child. Ah! how fully I forgive you,” says Gloria, as with
a sudden impulse she stoops and kisses the girl who has betrayed her, on
the cheek. Only another revelation has come to her from that cesspool of
Modern Babylon; only another fearful wrong unknown, unstudied, and
unforbidden, brought to light.
Léonie looks up quickly. There is a queer expression in her intelligent
eyes.
“Why do you kiss me? Why do you speak so kindly? Why do you forgive me
for betraying you?” she inquires rather eagerly.
“Because I believe in God,” answers Gloria gently.
“God! Why, Mr. Trackem always laughs at God,” interposes Léonie, with a
shrug of her shoulders. “He always tells me that God is an invention of
the devil, and all clergymen and priests are fallen angels.”
“Oh, hush, Léonie; hush, my poor, poor child! This is terrible. Do not
talk in that awful way,” and the tears start trembling to Gloria’s
lovely eyes. “Léonie, God is good; He is our friend, He helps those who
pray to Him. If we die to-night we shall be brought face to face with
Him.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” answers the girl quietly, “but I do
know this. I expected abuse and reproaches from you, but I have received
only kindness, forgiveness, and gentle words. You have kissed me, and no
one has ever done that before. I am sorry now I betrayed you. Yes, I am;
and I will try and save you if I can—unless, unless we are drowned
to-night. Do you think we shall be drowned? You can swim, I know, but I
can’t. Mr. Trackem never taught me how to do that.”
“If it comes to swimming I will do my best to help you, Léonie, at least
so long as God gives me strength to do so,” answers Gloria quietly.
Again Léonie looks up. In her untrained, untutored mind Nature is
beginning to assert its sway, and gratitude knocks gently at her heart.
“You would do that for me, would you? You would try to save my life,
after what I have done to you? Did God teach you that?” she asks with a
quivering voice.
“Yes, Léonie.”
“Then I love God, and I love you. May I give you a kiss, just as you
kissed me? I want to show you how I love you,” cries Léonie, with a half
sob. “No one has ever been kind to me like this before.”
She rises as she speaks, and takes one of Gloria’s hands. This latter is
almost startled by the extraordinary likeness which for a brief moment
sweeps across the girl’s features, a likeness to Bernie Fontenoy.
There is a terrible crash overhead. It sounds like falling timber.
Again, a rush of feet, and Gloria and Léonie hear the skipper’s voice
raised in loud command.
“He is ordering out the boat, Léonie. That must have been the mast that
went with that crash. I can feel by the movement of the ship that she’s
helpless. We shall drift on the rocks, and then she’ll soon break up,”
exclaims Gloria, almost eagerly.
“Then we shall be drowned,” answers her companion in a quiet, composed
voice. “I’m not afraid. I think I should have been if this had happened
yesterday, but I am not now.”
She stops suddenly as the cabin door creaks open to admit Lord Westray.
He looks flurried and anxious, but his glance at once seeks Gloria.
“The smack is practically a wreck,” he says quickly, “and we are going
to take to the boat. I will save you if you will promise me what I asked
you.”
“Go!” cries Gloria sternly. “Now you know that I will die rather than do
so. Go, bad man! and may God have mercy on you.”
He looks at her furiously. But there is no time for arguing; the skipper
is calling to him to hurry.
“So be it,” he bursts out, with a coarse laugh. “Your blood be on your
own head. I’ll leave you, and save the gallows the trouble of hanging
you. Come on, girl.”
These last words are addressed to Léonie.
“What! go with you, and leave her? I’ll drown rather!” exclaims Léonie,
with a contemptuous laugh.
“Drown like a rat, then,” he says with an oath, as he bangs the door and
leaves them. They hear him scrambling up the little companion ladder,
they hear his voice shouting to the skipper, but the wind shrieks
louder, and the howl of the tempest drowns all other sounds.
Again there is a rush of water along the deck, a hissing and washing
sound, as the huge wave which has occasioned it tears madly on its
course, part of it bursting open the cabin door, and flooding the floor
on which Gloria and Léonie are standing.
“We must get on deck, Léonie; we can’t stay here, child. Here, take hold
of my hand; we must keep together,” exclaims Gloria in a quick,
peremptory voice.
They are half-blinded by the thick spray which sweeps in their faces as
they stagger up the ladder, clinging like grim death to the rails. It is
pitch dark, not the faintest gleam of light gives them the smallest
indication of their whereabouts, only the white foam of the towering
billows now and again flashes across their aching eyes, blinded by the
salt sea water.
Plenty of wreckage is floating about on the deck, and amongst it a
life-belt knocks up against one of Gloria’s ankles. With a pleased
exclamation she at once secures it, and proceeds to slip it over
Léonie’s shoulders.
“If this poor wreck founders,” she explains as she does so, “this will
keep you afloat, child. I am glad I saw it.”
“But you,” says Léonie quickly; “you have not one.”
“Never mind me, child. You forget that I can swim. If we manage to stick
together, this belt will be a great help to me, as you will see. And
now, Léonie, we can do nothing but cling to these rails and trust in
God. Keep a good look out for the waves. When you see one rushing this
way don’t try and stand up against it, it will only knock you backwards,
but bend yourself, hold your breath, and put your head through it.
Quick, have a care, child!” She utters these last words in a sharp
warning tone as she tightens her grasp on Léonie’s hand. A dense dark
wall seems to tower above them, a swirl and a rush is all she hears as a
monster wave envelops her and Léonie in its folds. It tears the rail, to
which her left hand clings, from her grasp. She feels herself lifted up
like a straw, and borne forward by the resistless rush and volume of
water. With the desperation of death in her clutch, her right hand still
grips the still, cold fingers of her young companion, whose grasp has
slackened altogether. A floating spar strikes her with some force. She
clutches at it, but it sweeps past her, and is gone as the wave carries
her ever onwards.
A sudden ebb in the resistless current as if by magic arrests her
course. She feels herself dragged back along the line she has come. Then
the volume of water abruptly leaves her, and her feet touch the deck
again.
Gloria is up in a moment; she knows there is not a minute to spare. In
her present position another such a billow would sweep her clear of the
smack altogether into the raging sea.
“Jump up, Léonie!” she shouts, but Léonie never stirs. As Gloria tugs at
her arm to try and arouse her, she knows by the dead weight of the
girl’s body that Léonie is either dead or insensible.
With a supreme effort she raises the now helpless girl in her arms, and
staggers forward to the cabin with her burden. A wave strikes her as she
reaches it, and dashes her once more to the ground. For a second time
she is swept like a straw along the deck, and for the second time the
ebb arrests her progress, and leaves her in the same position as before.
“Oh God!” she gasps, “how long? This is indeed a living death.”
She still grasps the stiff, clammy fingers of the helpless girl, but
hope has left her. She only now wishes that death may come, and come
quickly.
There is a wild shriek ahead. It rises high above the wind’s roar. Then
a ghastly, unearthly sound comes out of the blackness of night. Even on
death’s threshold it awakes to attention the senses of Gloria de Lara.
Through the blinding spray she strains the last glance on life which she
feels is left to her. High above, like a huge black mountain rising
suddenly out of the sea, looms a gigantic apparition. It towers above
her like some fearful, unknown spectre. There is a flash of light in the
air, a loud shout, a grating sound. Loud o’er all shrieks the tempest
whistle, she feels the smack part from her, a mighty current sucks her
beneath the waves; down, down it drags her into the bottomless abyss of
the ocean’s awful crater, as the great ship sweeps forward on its
course. Even in this moment of death’s agony Gloria’s brain is clear.
She relaxes her grasp of Léonie, who, with the life-belt around her, has
that one straw of hope to cling to. As the waters of the surging
Atlantic sweep over her her last cry is to God; her last vision of the
life which she is quitting, is the face of Evie Ravensdale.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
Peace after the storm! Ay, in so far that the tempest fiend has
vanished, leaving behind him only the low moan of the dying gale. High
above the heights which look down on Eilean Fianan, Tiorin’s ruins, and
the lovely woods of Shona’s Isle, hover the cloud mists of rising morn,
through whose seemingly tissue veil glint and gleam the joyous sparks,
fantastic offspring of the new-born sun.
Its light, too, is warming those heights with a rosy glow, and the thick
dark woods are pierced with its golden shafts. Like myriad diamonds
sparkle the raindrops on the pines, and the dew on the glades and fairy
rings, where elfin goblins have held their midnight orgies.
Yet the gale has left its after-birth in the rolling swell, which beats
in relentless fury on the rock-girt coast of Shona’s Isle, and lashes
the sandy stretch of beach between Ardtoe and Ru Druimnich. High tide is
rising on those shores, an inland current has set in, and in its grasp
are the trophies of the storm-fiend’s victory over the handiwork of man.
What are these trophies? Why, here and there a spar, a tossing barrel, a
broken oar. There is something floating, too, on the heaving swell with
which the waves are making merry, for they carry it to the sandy beach
and drag it back again, toss it still further inland, and smother it in
their spray.
It is a choice plaything; the salt sea waves are battling for it hard,
but the tide and the inland current say them nay, and the sandy beach
gives it a rugged welcome. There for a time it may rest.
It! But what may it be? A human body, surely?
Out in the bay the yacht _Eilean_ is coasting up and down. Eager eyes
are scanning the waste of water, and every sign of wreckage is minutely
observed. Ever and anon the voices of the men aloft shout down some new
discovery to the anxious watchers on the deck below. There is a look of
intense agony in the eyes of the young Duke of Ravensdale as he paces
that snow-white deck. His features are drawn and haggard, his cheeks are
deathly pale, and the lines of care have seared their mark indelibly
across his high and noble brow.
“Wreckage ahoy!” The men on the look out have spied another victim of
the gale which the inland current is drawing to Ardnamurchan’s shores.
What can it be? It looks like the back of a whale, or a huge porpoise
turning over in its course. What can it be?
The _Eilean_ steams towards it, and comes close up alongside it. No, it
is no whale. Only the remnant of a fishing smack, part of which appears
to have been bodily severed from the whole.
The sharp order to man the lifeboat cutter is given. In a few minutes it
is riding the heaving swell. All eyes are occupied with this new
discovery; even the look-out men have forgotten their duty aloft.
Suddenly, however, Flora Desmond’s voice rings out. She has been keeping
silent, faithful watch by Evie Ravensdale.
“What’s that?” she cries.
In a moment he is straining with an eager, hungry look those wild,
despairing eyes. She is pointing away to starboard, and he sees,
unmistakably sees, a human head and shoulders rising up and down on the
grey ocean’s surface. With a low cry he springs forward. Were it not for
Flora’s restraining clutch he would be overboard and swimming to meet
it.
“Wait, Evie!” she says imploringly. “The boat will fetch it in a moment.
Don’t go, Evie. Alas, it is not she!”
She has a clear sight has Flora Desmond. She has caught a glimpse of the
dead white face thrown back as it rises on the crest of the heaving
swell, and she knows that it is not the face of Gloria de Lara. But when
the lifeboat cutter retrieves the body, and it is hoisted on to the
deck, then indeed Flora cannot restrain a cry of horror as she
recognises in the set, rigid face, wide open, staring eyes, and close
clenched teeth the unmistakable features of the girl traitoress, the
female Judas, Léonie.
“Take her from my sight! Oh God! take her away!” bursts from the pale
lips of Evie Ravensdale, as in a moment the sight of the body before him
drives from his heart the clinging hope that Gloria is not dead. He
knows now that the storm-fiend has claimed her for his victim, that on
this earth the dark blue eyes will never look their love again.
As they bear Léonie from his sight an unnatural calmness seizes him. He
turns to Flora.
“We must do our duty, Flora. Mine is to see you safe. We will put the
helm about, and steer for the great free land. And when we get there
Flora, you will see her mother and break it to her, won’t you?”
His words are so cold and measured, his face so unmoved, that Flora is
half fearful for his reason. She lays her hand gently on his arm.
“Not yet, Evie. We must put back to Shona first. We must not give up the
search yet. I mean to examine the whole coast line between this and Ru
Druimnich.”
“But she is dead, Flora. Don’t you know she is dead?” he says coldly.
“Still, Evie, we may find her dear body. Oh no, Evie, we must not give
up the search; we must seek on,” answers Flora. She dare not buoy him up
with the fresh hope that Gloria may be alive. The sight of Léonie has
told her this cannot be; yet still she is resolved more than ever to
search on for the body of her friend. The boatswain is standing near.
She sends him with instructions to the captain, to put the yacht’s head
about and run for Moidart’s Loch, and then she resumes her watch by Evie
Ravensdale. Time flies, but he does not notice her; his eyes are staring
out over the ocean wave. As they near the Loch, Nigel Estcourt comes up.
“A moment, Flora,” he says, motioning her to come apart. “The doctor is
trying to bring Léonie round. He says life is not extinct. If he can
only succeed, we may be able to extract from her what has happened. Will
you go and see her? I will keep Ravensdale company while you go down?”
“You must be very gentle, Estcourt. You must watch him closely, too; I
am terribly afraid for his reason. He seems turned to stone since he set
eyes on Léonie. It is a bad sign. If tears would come they would relieve
him. Ah! God help him. It is terrible.”
She sighs deeply as she turns from him. Heavy at heart, yet is Flora’s
heart heavier still when it thinks of the agony which Evie Ravensdale is
suffering. What would she not endure to bring comfort and peace to his
tortured soul!
She makes her way down to the cabin where Léonie is lying; the doctor,
with the stewardess and her assistant, are busy treating her. He looks
up hopefully as Flora enters.
“She has moved; she has struggled for breath,” he observes quickly.
“Lady Flora, she will live. She seems to me a mere child. I wonder who
she is.”
But Flora does not answer, only she moves over to the couch, and looks
down on the motionless girl.
It is strange, but as she looks she sees the same remarkable resemblance
in this girl to Bernie Fontenoy, which Gloria had remarked the previous
night. Certainly it is strange, very strange.
There is a long-drawn sigh, and then a struggle for breath. Léonie
clutches the air with her hands, and her lips move.
“I am stifling,” she gasps; “don’t choke me, don’t, please don’t! Let me
breathe, please let me breathe!” The doctor raises her up slightly, and
again Léonie sighs. Then she draws a long breath. “I love you,” she says
softly; “I love you, Gloria. I love God, too. I wish I hadn’t betrayed
you now. But you have forgiven me, you have been kind to me, you have
kissed me. Oh! those waves, those dreadful waves! They will kill you;
you have given me the life-belt, and you have not got one. Take it off,
Gloria. Put it on yourself and leave me. I don’t mind drowning. I would
like to drown for you. Let me kiss you first. Let me sleep now; let me
die.”
Her hitherto fixed and staring eyes shoot with a gleam of returning
intelligence. She closes them, and her head falls forward.
“She will sleep now,” observes the doctor, as he lays her down and turns
her on her side, “and when she awakes she will be all right. A
marvellous recovery. She must have wonderful vitality in her. We will
leave her now quiet, Lady Flora. The yacht is in motion again. Do we
continue the search?”
“Yes, but along the coast. I must go now, doctor. You will let me know
later how the patient is, won’t you?”
“Certainly,” he answers cheerfully.
Flora returns on deck. Léonie’s words have puzzled her. They were
clearly addressed to Gloria, and yet these disjointed utterances can
convey but one interpretation of her fate. Gladly would Flora swallow a
grain of hope, but she knows that it would only make the reality harder
to bear, a reality which she has faced and accepted already.
“Gloria,” she whispers, “if you can hear me now, you will know how true
was Flora’s friendship. God help me, and I will clear your name of that
foul charge laid to your door. Léonie may know something of it, and she
will tell me, for on the threshold of death has she not said that she
loves you?”
Brave, noble Flora! Self is buried in those generous words. She never
pauses to think of the danger in which she stands, or the trouble which
she must suffer. But Flora is heroic.
The yacht is gliding into Moidart’s Loch, and again the lifeboat cutter
is manned and lowered. Flora has determined to search the whole shore
within the radius of the drifting inland current, which long experience
of these coasts has taught her, draws wrecks thereto.
She will conduct the search in this direction herself, while, as is now
arranged, Estcourt and Archie Douglasdale will prosecute it along
Shona’s rocky coast in the large gig. Archie had returned to Glenuig
Bay, on the evening before, only to find the fishing box deserted, his
sister, Ravensdale, and Estcourt gone. One of his trusty Ruglen
retainers awaited him, however, with the information that they had
crossed the hills by Kinlockmoidart for Eilean Shona, where the duke’s
yacht lay anchored. The message which Léonie had been entrusted to
convey was to this very effect, the duke having further commissioned her
to apprise Gloria of his intended arrival alone, from the Loch Eilort
side.
“Evie,” says Flora gently, “you will come with me, will you not? I am
going to search the sand beaches in the cutter up to Ru Druimnich. Come,
Evie.”
He turns almost sullenly. God help him! The torture he is suffering is
writ in his eyes. “She is dead,” is all he says. But he follows Flora,
nevertheless, and they enter the cutter together. Then he bows his face
in his hands and remains silent.
The search they make is thorough. How could it be else with Flora in
command? And gradually the cutter creeps slowly on in the direction of
the body on the shore.
It is sighted at length; the look-out man utters his warning cry, and
Flora stands suddenly up and stares eagerly ahead.
Yes, there it lies, high and dry on the sandy beach. Undoubtedly a human
form.
“Bend to your oars, lads!” she cries. “I’m going to beach her;” and with
that she brings the boat’s nose sharply for the shore. “Evie,” she says
again, “rouse yourself, Evie. We shall be in the breakers in a minute.
There is a body on the beach.”
He looks up quickly. Just a gleam of hope is in his wild eyes, and he is
thoroughly on the alert. The boat rushes forward; it rises high on the
first breaker, and is hurled towards the shore. True is the hand that
holds the tiller and the nerve that guides it. Straight as a dart does
Flora keep the cutter’s nose, and her voice encourages the oarsmen to
their duty, the seething foam half fills the boat, but it gallantly
rides the water still, as another breaker bears it onward. Now the keel
grates the sandy bottom.
“Ship oars, lads, and out of her!” Flora commands, but she sets the
example, too.
She is in the water waist high. In a moment the stalwart sailors have
obeyed her. Rough, willing hands grasp the cutter’s sides, and with
combined force to the seaman’s cheery “Pull, boys, together,” run her
high and dry on to the beach.
But Evie Ravensdale has rushed forward. Hope still surges in his heart.
The body is stretched out upon the sand, the figure is lying on its
face, the hands are clenched. It is easy, however, to see that the body
is not that of a woman; it is plain as plain can be that it is a man.
He sees this at once, and turns away with a bitter, despairing cry. It
was a mad, vain hope to have indulged in, and yet in his breaking heart,
Evie Ravensdale had prayed to be allowed to look upon her face once
more, ay, even though it were in death.
An exclamation from Flora for a moment attracts him. She has followed
him and has turned the body over.
“Evie!” she cries, and there is a passionate ring of triumph in her
voice, “though Gloria be dead, her pure, fair fame is saved. Though God
has taken her, He has dashed to the ground the foul lie with which they
sought to doom her. Look, Evie, look! Her noble name is cleared.”
With a startled, eager look he comes to her side. He sees at his feet
the pallid upturned face of a dead man. This man has dark hair, and a
dark thick beard, moustache and whiskers in which grey hairs are
stealing fast. This man has dark eyes, but the lustre of life has left
them, and his white teeth are clenched together with a horrid grin.
He stares down at the corpse below him. The wild, hungry look in his
beautiful eyes is dying now. Triumph and exultation are there.
“Gloria!” he cries, “my darling, you have triumphed. They thought they
could kill you with a false and awful lie. There is your answer. Nor
shall your great cause die. I swear to win it for you! I swear—I swear
it now!”
He turns away with a gasping sob. But Flora has no longer any fear for
him. Evie Ravensdale’s vow will bid him live, live on for Gloria’s sake.
Calmly and quietly she turns to the sailors. “We will carry that body to
Dorlin, my lads. Guard it well. There lies the man whom a too confident
jury declared to be dead, for whose murder the noblest of women was
unjustly condemned. That corpse is Lord Westray!”
[Illustration]