"And here is the steel buckle from her shoe that fell off the night we
danced together at the French ball. Poor dear Bella! that was not the
only dance we led where folly played the fiddle!"--with a thrill of
reminiscence.
"If you don't find those letters in just two minutes," interrupts the
dreadful Vandeleur, "I shall post for home."
"In one second, my boy--one second."
Now I examine the bureau carefully for a concealed drawer. I seem to
have ransacked every corner of that precious article in vain. Visions
of Bella's vengeance flash before my eyes. I can see the demoniac
smile on her face as she gloats over my downfall. The white wraith
conjured up by the thought of those fateful letters fills me with a
mad fury, and I long to dash that hateful bureau into a thousand
pieces and flee the house.
But the demolition could not be executed noiselessly, and the
situation is perilous enough already for a man of my delicately
organized constitution, with a heart that runs down with a rumble like
a Waterbury movement; so I think I won't break the bureau.
I renew my mad search for the missing drawer, that seems to be of a
most retiring disposition, as drawers go. I bethink me of stories of
missing treasure: how the hero counted off twenty paces across the
floor, and then dropped his dagger so that its blade would be imbedded
in the wood, and then dug through several tons of masonry, until he
found a casket, sometimes of steel, sometimes of iron, and sometimes
of both.
And then he did a lot more mathematical calculating, and pressed a
knob, and there you are! Ah! a thought--I had forgotten to apply
myself to the moulding of the bureau, as a hero of the middle ages
would have done under the circumstances.
I begin from side to side, up, down, and around. Ha! ha! at last! A
little drawer shoots out almost in my face, startling me like a
jack-in-the-box.
A faint perfume of crushed violets salutes my nostrils. The
letters--they are there in the bottom of the drawer! I know them too
well by the shape of the square large envelopes. They cost me many a
dollar to send through the stage-door by the gouty Cerberus at the
gate when Bella trod the boards.
I reach out my hand to seize them, when an awful scream causes me to
stagger back in dismay.
Bella Bracebridge, in a jaunty travelling dress, stands in the doorway
in the attitude of a tragic queen--her eyes flashing, her bosom
heaving, just as she looked the day she asked for a raise in salary
and didn't get it.
She steps towards me: I retreat, transfixed by her defiant attitude.
She fear a common burglar? Never!
I know she intends to seize me and scream for help, and I am afraid,
too, that she may recognize my face. So I step back--back, edging
towards the window.
She reaches out her hand to seize me, then totters and falls in a dead
faint.
I look around for Vandeleur. He has lost all presence of mind; is
staring at the figure on the floor, with wild, dilated eyes, and an
expression of hopeless idiocy on his face. I can hear people moving
below stairs. Her scream must have aroused the house. "Vandeleur,"
shaking him by the arm, "we must run for it. Do you understand? Ten
years! Hard labor!"--the last words hissed excitedly in his ear.
"What? where? who?" he mumbles, with a face as expressive as that of
codfish.
I rush to the balcony to see if we can make the jump below. It is
dark, but the leap must be made. Better a broken leg than a ball and
chain on a healthy limb for years and years.
I drag Vandeleur in a helpless condition out on the balcony, boost him
up on the railing, and push him off. Then I leap after him.
Fortunate fate! We fall into a clump of blackberry bushes, and not a
moment too soon. Lights flash out from above. I hear the hum of
excited voices, Bella's calm and distinct above the rest, as she gives
the ominous order, "Let those bloodhounds loose!"
Ugh! We scramble out of the bushes in the most undignified haste,
leaving most of our outward resemblance to human beings on the thorny
twigs. Then helter-skelter over the fields and hedges, stumbling,
staggering, and traversing what I suppose to be miles of country.
Vandeleur is snorting like a steam calliope in bad repair, and I am
breathing with the jerky movement of an overworked accordion. "I can
go no farther," he exclaims, dropping down in a huddled heap at the
foot of a scrubby pine-tree like a bag of old clothes.
I don't feel much in a hurry either, but I try to infuse some life
into him by hustling him and shaking him in a brutal and unsympathetic
manner.
"Do you hear that?" I howl in despair as the baying of the bloodhounds
rolls towards us over the meadow like muttered thunder. "There is
nothing to do but climb this tree, unless you want to furnish a free
lunch for those brutes."
"Free lunch? get me some," he mumbles, relapsing into his old idiotic
state again. Then I fall upon that unfortunate man in a fury of rage,
and pound him into a consciousness of his danger.
He consents at last to be pushed or rather dragged up in a tree, whose
lowest limb I straddle with a feeling of wild joy and ecstasy just as
the hounds rush past below, their flashing eyes looking to me just
then as large as the headlights of a host of engines.
"Let's go home now," again murmurs the helpless creature at my side,
shaking so on the limb that I am compelled to strap him there by his
suspenders.
"Ain't we going home?" he chatters. "I want a good supper, and then a
bed--_bed_," lingering on the last word with soothing emphasis.
"Oh, you'd like a nice supper, would you?" I growl. "Well, those
bloodhounds are after the same thing. Perhaps you had better slide
down the tree and interview them on the chances. Then one or the other
of you would be satisfied."
"But they've gone away."
"Well, you needn't think you have been forgotten, just the same. Don't
you see, wretched man, that the morning is breaking," pointing to the
east, where the sun had begun "paintin' 'er red." "Once in the high
road we should be discovered at once; here at least we are
safe--uncomfortably safe," as I moved across the limb and impaled
myself on a long two-inch splinter with spurs on it.
He fell into a doze after that, only rousing himself now and then to
utter strange croaking sounds that frightened me almost as much as the
baying of the bloodhounds. I think I fell asleep too for a few
moments, for when I was roused by an awful yell proceeding from my
companion I found that he had burst his bonds and fallen out of the
tree, while the bright sun was shining in my eyes.
Visions of Ethel's face over our charming breakfast-table rose before
me, and I seemed to scent afar off the steam of fragrant mocha in a
dainty Sèvres cup as she held it towards me. The thought of that
morning libation settled the business.
I would march stalwartly home--yea, though a thousand bloodhounds with
dangerous appetites barred my way!
I slid down the tree and found Vandeleur still asleep. I don't believe
that even the fall had waked the poor fellow up.
I had only to whisper the word "Breakfast" in his ears to have him
start as if he had received a galvanic shock.
"Where?" he asked, with tears in his eyes.
"Home."
We crawled along through the bushes in the wildest haste our poor
disjointed and almost dismembered bodies would carry us; like a pair
of mud-turtles who had seen better days did we take to all-fours.
Fortunately, my place was not far away, and we had just strength
enough to crawl up on the porch and fall against the door heavily.
"Breakfast," I gasped, as Ethel's lovely face appeared suddenly at my
side like a benignant angel's.
"What--what can I get you?" murmured the dear girl, in an agony of
mind, hurrying here and there, her eyes suffused with tears.
"Bloodhounds!" murmured Vandeleur, relapsing into idiocy.