THE ATTACK ON THE MANOR
After this brief hostile outbreak in the garden below the right wing,
Mauville prepared to make as effective defense as lay in his power and
looked around for his aid, the driver of the coach. But that quaking
individual had taken advantage of the excitement to disappear. Upon
hearing the threats, followed by the singing of bullets, and doubting
not the same treatment accorded the master would be meted out to the
servant, the coachman's fealty so oozed from him that he dropped his
blunderbuss, groping his way through the long halls to the cellar,
where he concealed himself in an out-of-the-way corner beneath a heap
of potato sacks. In that vast subterranean place he congratulated
himself he would escape with a whole skin, his only regret being
certain unpaid wages which he considered as good as lost, together
with the master who owed them.
Mauville, however, would have little regretted the disappearance of
this poor-spirited aid, on the theory a craven follower is worse than
none at all, had not this discovery been followed quickly by the
realization that the young girl, too, had availed herself of the
opportunity while he was at the window and vanished.
"Why, the slippery jade's gone!" he exclaimed, staring around the
room, confounded for the moment. Then recovering himself, he hurriedly
left the chamber, more apprehensive lest she should get out of the
manor than that the tenants should get in.
"She can't be far off," he thought, pausing doubtfully in the hall.
For the moment he almost forgot the anti-renters and determined to
find her at all hazard. He hastily traversed the upper hall, but was
rewarded with no sight of her. He gazed down the stairs eagerly, with
no better result; the front door was still closed, as he had left it.
Evidently she had fled toward the rear of the house and made good her
escape from one of the back or side entrances.
"Yes; she's gone," he repeated. "What a fool I was to have trusted her
to herself for a moment!"
A new misgiving arose, and he started. What if she had succeeded in
leaving the manor? He knew and distrusted Little Thunder and his
cohorts. What respect would they have for her? For all he had done, it
was, nevertheless, intolerable to think she might be in possible
danger--from others save himself! A wave of compunction swept over
him. After all, he loved her, and, loving her, could not bear to think
of any calamity befalling her. He hated her for tricking him; feared
for her, for the pass to which he had brought her; cared for her
beyond the point his liking had reached for any other woman. A
mirthless laugh escaped him as he stood at the stairway looking down
the empty hall.
"Surely I've gone daft over the stroller!" he thought, as his own
position recurred to him in all its seriousness. "Well, what's done is
done! Let them come!" His eyes gleamed.
With no definite purpose of searching further, he nevertheless walked
mechanically down the corridor toward the other side of the manor and
suddenly, to his surprise and satisfaction, discerned Constance in a
blind passage, where she had inadvertently fled.
At the end of this narrow hall a window looked almost directly out
upon the circular, brick dove-cote, now an indistinct outline, and on
both sides were doors, one of which she was vainly endeavoring to open
when he approached. Immediately she desisted in her efforts; flushed
and panting, she stood in the dim light of the passage. Quiet,
unbroken save for the cooing in the cote, had succeeded the first
noisy demonstration; the anti-renters were evidently arranging their
forces to prevent the land baron's escape or planning an assault on
the manor.
In his momentary satisfaction at finding her, Mauville overlooked the
near prospect of a more lengthy, if not final, separation, and
surveyed the young girl with a sudden, swift joyousness, but the fear
and distrust written on her features dissipated his concern for her;
his best impulses were smothered by harsher feelings.
"Unfortunately, the door is locked," he said, ironically. "Meanwhile,
as this spot has no strategic advantages, suppose we change our base
of defense?"
Realizing how futile would be resistance, she accompanied him once
more to the chamber in the wing, where he had determined to make his
last defense. After closing and locking the door, he lighted one of
many candles on the mantel. The uncertain glow from the great
candelabra, covered with dust, like the white marble itself, and
evidently placed there many years before, revealed faded decorations
and a ceiling, water-stained as from a defective roof. Between the
windows, with flowery gilt details, an ancient mirror extended from
floor to ceiling. A musty smell pervaded the apartment, for Mynheer,
the Patroon, had lived so closely to himself that he had shut out both
air and sunlight from his rooms.
The flickering glare fell upon the young actress standing, hand upon
her heart, listening with bated breath, and Mauville, with ominous
expression, brooding over that chance which sent the lease-holders to
the manor on that night of nights. It was intolerable that no sooner
had she crossed his threshold than they should appear, ripe for any
mischief, not only seeking his life, but wresting happiness from his
very lips. For, of the outcome he could have little doubt, although
determined to sell dearly that which they sought.
The violent crash of a heavy body at the front of the house and a
tumult of voices on the porch, succeeded by a din in the hall, announced
that the first barrier had been overcome and the anti-renters were in
possession of the lower floor of the manor. Mauville had started toward
the door, when the anticipation in the young girl's eyes held him to
the spot. Inaccessible, she was the more desired; her reserve was
fuel to his flame, and, at that moment, while his life hung in the
balance, he forgot the rebuff he had received and how she had nearly
played upon him.
Words fell from his lips, unpremeditated, eloquent, voicing those
desires which had grown in the solitude of the manor. Passionately he
addressed her, knowing the climax to his difficulties was at hand.
Once near her, he could not be at peace without her, he vowed, and
this outcome had been inevitable. All this he uttered impetuously, at
times incoherently, but as he concluded, she only clasped her hands
helplessly, solely conscious of the uproar below which spread from the
main hall to the adjoining rooms.
"They are coming--they are coming!" she said, and Mauville stopped
short.
But while anger and resentment were at strife within him, some one
tried the door of the chamber and finding it locked, set up a shout.
Immediately the prowlers in the wings, the searchers in the kitchen
and all the stragglers below congregated in the main hall; footsteps
were heard ascending rapidly, pausing in doubt at the head of the
stairway, not knowing whether to turn to the right or to the left.
"Here they are!" called out the man at the door.
"You meddlesome fool!" exclaimed Mauville, lifting a revolver and
discharging it in the direction of the voice. Evidently the bullet,
passing through the panel of the door, found its mark, for the report
was followed by a cry of pain.
This plaint was answered from the distance and soon a number of
anti-renters hastened to the spot. Mauville, in vicious humor, moved
toward the threshold. One of the panels was already broken and an arm
thrust into the opening. The land baron bent forward and coolly
clapped his weapon to the member, the loud discharge being succeeded
by a howl from the wounded lease-holder. Mauville again raised his
weapon when an exclamation from the actress caused him to turn
quickly, in time to see a figure spring unexpectedly into the room
from the balcony. The land baron stood in amazement, eying the
intruder who had appeared so suddenly from an unguarded quarter, but
before he could recover his self-possession, his hand was struck
heavily and the revolver fell with a clatter to the floor.
His assailant quickly grasped the weapon, presenting it to the breast
of the surprised land-owner, who looked, not into the face of an
unknown anti-renter, but into the stern, familiar countenance of
Saint-Prosper.