"BLUE BEARD'S CHAMBER."
"I doubt some danger does approach you nearly."
_Macbeth._
"HE must be in the saloon!" cried Mrs. Creery. "I've hunted the whole
ship, and I'm sure he has gone down. You," to Mr. Lisle, "will have to
go after him; I dare not, it looks so dark."
To explore the rat-haunted cabins of this old hulk in search of "Nip,"
was by no means an errand to Mr. Lisle's taste; he would infinitely
have preferred to remain sketching on the bulwarks, and conversing with
Helen Denis. However, of course he had no alternative. Go he must!
Somewhat to his surprise, the young lady said,—
"I shall go too; the ports are open, there will be plenty of light, and
I want to investigate the cabins downstairs."
"You had much better not, mind! you will only dirty your dress," urged
Mrs. Creery dissuasively, but Helen's slim white figure had already
vanished down the companion-ladder, in the wake of Mr. Lisle.
At first it was as dark as Erebus—after coming out of the glare
above—but as their eyes became accustomed to the gloom, there was
sufficient light from the open stern windows to show that they were
standing in a long narrow saloon, with numerous cabins at either side.
"It looks quite like the steamer I came out in!" exclaimed the young
lady. (Anything but a compliment to a first-class P. and O.) "That is
to say, the length and shape. There are tables, too!" (These had not
been worth removing, and were fastened to the floor.)
"It was used as a prison long ago, I believe," said Mr. Lisle.
"Yes, and——"
Helen was about to add that murder had been done there, but something
froze the sentence on her lips; it seemed scarcely the time and place
to speak of _that_.
"Nip, Nip, Nip!" cried his infatuated mistress, who had cautiously
descended to the foot of the stairs, holding her petticoats tightly
swathed round her. "Where are you, you naughty dog? Ah!" shrieking, and
skipping surprisingly high, "I'm _sure_ that was a rat!"
"Not at all unlikely," rejoined Mr. Lisle, rattling noisily along the
wainscot with a bit of stick, whilst Mrs. Creery hurriedly withdrew up
half-a-dozen steps, where she remained plaintively calling "Nip, Nip,
Nip!"
Miss Denis had meanwhile been looking out of the stern windows on the
now moonlit water, the tall bulrushes, and the wooded shores; and
here in a few moments she was joined by her fellow-explorer, who was
examining something in his hand.
"See what I have found!" he said. "When I was hammering the old
boarding just now, a plank fell away, and this thing rolled out. I
believe," wiping it in his handkerchief as he spoke, and tendering it
for her inspection, "that it is a woman's ring."
"A ring! so it is," returned Helen; "and it looks like gold."
"Oh, yes! it's gold right enough, I fancy, and must have belonged to
one of the passengers of this ship."
"I wonder who wore it last," turning it over. "I wish it could speak
and tell us its history, and how many years it is since it was lost."
"It was a woman's ring; you see it would only just fit my little
finger," observed Mr. Lisle, putting it on as he spoke; "now try it on
yours." Helen slipped it on—it fitted perfectly.
"It is an old posy or betrothal ring,—at any rate it resembles one
that my mother used to wear!"
"Helen and Mr. Lisle! what are you doing?" screamed Mrs. Creery.
"You are chattering away there, and not helping me one bit." She was
standing on the ladder exactly as they had left her. "You have never
searched in the cabins! He may be shut up in one of them; try those
opposite, Helen! Do you hear me?"
Thus recalled to their duty, Mr. Lisle now undertook to inspect one
side of the saloon, and his companion the other. All the compartments
that Helen had examined were empty so far,—but she came at last to
one—with a closed door!
"Take care! it may be Blue Beard's closet," suggested Mr. Lisle
facetiously, as he looked in and out of cabins in his own neighbourhood.
Helen laughed, turned the handle and entered; the moon shone clear
through the paneless port, and showed her a cabin exactly similar to
the others—just two wooden worm-eaten bunks, and that was all. Behind
the door—ah! a little song she was humming died away upon her lips,
and she uttered a stifled exclamation, as her startled eyes fell upon
a tall, powerful man in convict's dress, in short, no less a person
than Aboo Sait! In a twinkling his grasp was on her throat, crushing
her savagely against the wall. Vain indeed were her struggles, he was
strangling her with iron hands; his fierce turbaned face was within an
inch of hers, she felt his hot breath upon her cheek! She could not
scream or move, her hands fell nerveless at her sides, her sight was
failing, hearing seemed to be the only sense that had not deserted her!
she could distinctly catch the faint, irregular lapping of the water
against the old ship's sides, and Mrs. Creery's querulous voice calling
"Nip, Nip, Nip!" whilst _she_ was dying!
"Well, have you found Blue Beard or Nip?" demanded Mr. Lisle, pushing
back the door as he spoke. "Good God!"
In another instant she was released—she breathed again. That awful
grip was off her throat, for with one well-delivered blow Aboo's prey
was wrenched from his grasp, and he himself sent staggering across the
cabin; but his repulse was merely momentary; the convict was armed with
a knife,—_the_ knife; in a second it shone in his hand, and with a
tigerish bound he flung himself on the new-comer.
And now within the narrow space of that cabin commenced such a struggle
for life and death as has seldom been witnessed. Mr. Lisle was a
middle-sized, well-made, athletic Englishman, endowed with iron muscles
and indomitable pluck—but he was over-matched by the convict in bone
and weight. Aboo was six foot two, as wiry as a panther, as lithe as a
serpent, and all his efforts were edged by the fatal fact that _he_ had
everything to gain and everything to lose!
The issue of this conflict meant to him, liberty and his very existence
on one hand, and Viper Island and the gibbet, on the other.—Win he
must, since the stake was his LIFE!
They wrestle silently to and fro, finally out of the cabin, locked
in a deadly embrace. The Englishman, though stabbed in the arm, had
succeeded in clutching the convict's right wrist, so that for the
moment that sharp gleaming weapon is powerless! Aboo, on his side,
holds his antagonist in a wolfish grip by the throat—they sway, they
struggle, they slide and stagger on the oozy floor of the saloon. At
the moment, the advantage is with Aboo Sait—if he gets the chance
he will strangle this Feringhee devil, and cut the throat of that
white-faced girl, who is still leaning against the cabin wall, faint
and breathless.
But he has not reckoned on another female—a female who has ceased
to call "Nip, Nip, Nip, Nip," and has now rushed up on deck with
outstretched arms, shrieking, "Murder! murder! murder!"
"Fly, save yourself!" gasped Mr. Lisle to Helen, at the expense of an
ugly wound in the neck. She cannot fly; a kind of hideous spell holds
her to the spot, gazing on the scene before her with eyes glazed with
horror. Her very hair seems rising from her head, for she is perfectly
certain that murder will be done; the convict will kill Mr. Lisle,
and _she_ will be an involuntary witness of the awful deed! And yet
she cannot move, nor shake off this frightful nightmare; she is, as it
were, chained to her place. But hark! her ears catch distant singing,
and the rise and fall of oars. This familiar noise is the signal of her
release—the spell is broken.
"They are coming! they are coming!" she screamed, and rushed upstairs,
calling "Help! help! help!" She sees the boats approaching steadily in
the moonlight, but, alas! their occupants are so entirely engrossed
in chaunting "Three Blind Mice," that her agonized signals, and Mrs.
Creery's piercing cries, are apparently unnoticed. And whilst they
are singing, _what_ is being done in that dark cabin down below? She
thought with sickening horror of those two struggling figures, of that
gleaming, merciless knife, and hurried once more to the head of the
stairs. As she did so, she heard the sound of a heavy fall, and in
another moment, fear thrown to the wind, she was in the saloon.
Mr. Lisle had slipped upon the slimy boards, made a valiant effort to
recover himself, but, overborne by the convict's superior weight, he
fell, still locked in that iron embrace. In the fall, the weapon had
flown out of Aboo's hand,—but only a short way, it was within easy
reach; and now, Gilbert Lisle, your hour has come! He sees it in the
criminal's face, he knows that his life is to be reckoned by seconds,
and yet his eye, as it meets that malignant gaze, never quails, though
it seems a hard fate to perish thus, in this old hulk, and at the hands
of such a ruffian! With his knee pressed down upon his victim's chest,
a murderous smile upon his face, Aboo stretched out a long, hairy,
cruel arm, to seize the knife, just as Helen reached the foot of the
ladder. Like lightning she sprang forward, pounced on it, snatched at
it, secured it—and running down the cabin, flung it far into the sea,
which it clave with one silvered flash, and then sank.
* * * * *
Miss Denis was not nearly so much frightened now,—nay, she felt
comparatively brave since _that_ was gone. She heard the near sound
of voices, and a noise of many steps hurrying downstairs. There was a
desperate struggle. In three minutes Aboo, once more a prisoner, with
his arms bound in his turban, was led up on deck, cursing and howling
and spitting like a wild cat. Here we behold Mrs. Creery, the centre
of an anxious circle, volubly narrating a story in which the personal
pronoun "I" is frequently repeated; and Helen, quite broken-down,
and trembling from head to foot, clinging to her father, looking the
picture of cowardice, as at the same moment Mrs. Creery might have sat
for the portrait of "Bellona" herself.
Miss Caggett (who had had a most satisfactory afternoon) approached the
former and examined her curiously.—She was scarcely able to speak, and
was shaking like a leaf, and at this instant the General and Dr. Malone
came up from the saloon, followed by Mr. Lisle, minus his hat, his coat
in rags, and his arm in a sling. Every one looked at him for a moment
in silence, and then a torrent of words broke forth—words conveying
wonder, sympathy, and praise.
But he, scarcely noticing the crowd, went straight up to Colonel Denis
and said, "Sir, I suppose you know that your daughter has just saved my
life?"
"I—I—did not," he replied, astounded at this rather abrupt address;
"I thought it was the other way—that you saved hers!"
"That fellow nearly strangled her; I'm afraid she got a fearful shock."
"Miss Denis," addressing her in a lower voice, "words seem but feeble
things after such a deed as yours; but believe me, that I shall never
forget what your courage and presence of mind have done for me to-day."
"No, no," she answered in a choked voice, shaking her head, "it was
you—_you_." More she could not utter, as the recollection of her
recent ordeal flashed before her, when Aboo had his deadly clutch upon
her throat. She turned away, and hiding her face against her father's
arm, burst into tears.
"What a queer, hysterical creature!" remarked Miss Caggett _sotto
voce_ to Dr. Malone. "All this fuss, just because Mr. Lisle caught a
convict, and the convict tore his coat!"
"I think there was more in it than that," objected her listener. "The
man nearly strangled her, and he was armed; somehow she got hold of the
knife and threw it away. The story is all rather confused as yet—but
she is an uncommonly plucky girl!"
"She _looks_ it," returned Lizzie, with a malicious giggle.
"And," continued Dr. Malone, not noticing her interruption, "as for
Lisle, I always knew that he was a splendid chap."
This speech was not palatable to Miss Caggett; she tossed her head and
replied,—
"_I_ see nothing splendid about him; and for that matter, Mrs. Creery
says that she saved everybody——"
"Oh, of course," ironically. "I can tell you this much, that it's
well for Mrs. Creery that it was not an elegant, indolent fop that
happened to be aboard, like her friend, Mr. James Quentin; if _he_ had
fallen foul of Aboo, Aboo would have made short work of him with his
flaccid muscles and portly figure; it was ten to one on the convict,
an exceptionally powerful man—he was desperate, like a wolf in a
cage, and he was armed. However, Lisle is as hard as nails, and a very
determined fellow, and whatever Mrs. Creery may choose to say, we owe
her valuable life to _him_."
"He managed to save his own too," snapped Lizzie, as if she rather
regretted the circumstance.
"Yes, but he has got a couple of very ugly deep cuts—one of them
dangerously near the jugular!"
"It strikes me as a very curious fact, that within the last two months
Mr. Lisle and Miss Denis have been concerned in two most thrilling
adventures: they were nearly drowned coming from North Bay—at least,
so _she_ says—and now they have been all but murdered; a remarkable
coincidence, and really very funny."
"Funny! Miss Caggett. I think it would scarcely strike any one else in
a humorous light. It was a mere chance, and a lucky one for Miss Denis,
that she had Lisle to stand by her on both occasions."
"She is welcome to him, as far as I'm concerned," retorted the young
lady waspishly.
Dr. Malone grinned and thought of "sour grapes," and wondered if Miss
Denis was equally welcome to Apollo Quentin.
All the shelling party were now assembled about the deck awaiting
a boat, which had been signalled for from Viper, to take charge of
the criminal. Mrs. Creery was still volubly expounding to one or two
listeners; Helen was sitting down with her face well averted from the
direction of Aboo, who, guarded by brother-prisoners (boatmen), stood
near the bulwarks, looking the very incarnation of impotent fury and
sullen despair. His late opponent remained somewhat aloof from the
crowd, talking to Mr. Latimer; he bore evident traces of the recent
deadly struggle, and leant against the weather-beaten wheel-house, as
if he was glad of its support. It was many a year since the deck of the
old wreck had carried such a crowd of passengers. After a considerable
delay the expected boat and warders arrived, and the writhing,
gibbering criminal was despatched in chains to Viper, having previously
made several frantic efforts to throw himself into the sea. Mr. Lisle
departed in his own little skiff, accompanied by Dr. Malone and the
brown dog, and the remainder of the company re-embarked and rowed back
to Ross in unwonted silence; there was no more singing, and even Mrs.
Creery was unusually piano. Nip, the immediate cause of the search
and the strife, and who had appeared in quite a casual manner at the
last moment, now sat in his mistress's lap, the picture of dignified
satisfaction—undoubtedly _he_ considered himself the hero of the hour.