"You shall not tell. It is not my father's doing. He could not help
it. He hates the smugglers. You shall not tell. Pray, pray, say you
will not!"
Archy was silent.
"Do you not hear me?" came in imperious tones.
"Yes, I hear you," he replied; "but it is my duty, and--"
"Yes--yes--speak!"
"I must."
"Oh!"
The interjection came as if it were the outcome of sudden passion.
There was a quick, rustling sound, and before the boy could realise what
was to come, the door was closed, the lock shot into its socket, and he
heard the grinding sound of bolts, top and bottom.
Then, as Archy stood in the dark, literally aghast with astonishment, he
heard the faint rustling once more, and again all was silent.
"Well!" he exclaimed; "and I felt sorry for her as one might for one's
sister at home, and hung back from getting her people into trouble. Of
all the fierce little tartars! Oh, it's beyond anything! Why, she has
locked me up!"
He laughed, but it was a curious kind of laugh, full of vexation,
injured _amour propre_, as the French call our love of our own dignity,
of which Archibald Raystoke, in the full flush of his young belief in
his importance as a British officer, had a pretty good stock.
"I never did!" he exclaimed, after standing listening for a few minutes
to see if the girl would repent and return. "It all comes of dressing
up in this stupid way, like a rough fisher-lad. If I had been in
uniform, she would not have dared."
Cold water came on this idea directly, as he recalled the fact that the
darkness was intense, and Celia could not have seen him.
"And I meant to save them from trouble if I could, out of respect for
them all, and did not believe that such people could stoop to be mixed
up with rogues and smugglers. But, all right! I've got my duty to do,
and I'll do it. I'll soon show them that I am not going to be played
with. Looked such a nice, lady-like girl, and all the time she's a
female smuggler, and must have been sitting up to let them in, and lock
up after the rascals had done."
Rather hard measure, by the way, to deal out to the anxious girl, who
could not rest while Shackle's gang were busy about the place, and had
come stealthily down to open the little corner room window, and watch
from time to time until they had gone.
"Well," said Archy, as there was no further sound heard, "I'm not going
to put up with this. I'll soon rattle some one up;" and he went sharply
to the door, felt for the handle, tried it, and was about to shake it
and bang at the panels, when discretion got the better of valour.
For it suddenly occurred to him that he was not only a prisoner, but a
prisoner in the power of a very reckless set of people, who would stop
at nothing. They had a valuable cargo hidden in the cellar beneath
where he stood, and themselves to save, and naturally they would not
hesitate to deal hardly with him, when quite a young, apparently gentle
girl treated him as she had done.
"No," he thought to himself, "I don't believe they would kill me, but
they would knock me about."
On the whole, he decided that it would not be pleasant to be knocked
about. The kick he had received was a foretaste of what he might
expect, and after a little consideration he came to the conclusion that
his duty was to escape, and get back to the cutter as quickly as he
could.
To do this he must scheme, lie hid till morning, then make for the
nearest point, and signal for help, unless a boat's crew were already
searching for him.
How to escape?
The door was, he well knew, fast. The window was barred, but he went to
it, and tried the bars one by one, to find them all solidly fitted into
the stone sill.
Perhaps there was another way out, and to prove that he went softly
round to feel the oak panelling which covered the walls, to come upon a
door directly. His hopes began to rise, but they fell directly, for he
found it was a closet.
Next moment, as he felt his way about, his hand touched an old-fashioned
marble mantelpiece.
Fireplace--chimney! Yes, if other ways failed, he could escape up the
chimney.
No, that was too bad. He could not do that. And if he did, it would
only be to reach the roof of the house, and perhaps find no way down.
He went on, and found a closet to match the first on the other side of
the fireplace. Then all round the room. Panels everywhere, but no
means of escape, and he went again to stand at the window, to bemoan his
stupidity for allowing a weak girl to make a prisoner of him in so
absurd a way.
Sympathy and pity for the dwellers in the Hoze were completely gone now,
and he set his teeth fast, and mentally called himself a weak idiot for
ever thinking about such people. For the first few minutes he had felt
something uncommonly like alarm, and had dwelt upon the consequences to
himself if the smugglers found the spy upon their proceedings; but that
dread had passed away in the idea that he had to do his duty, and before
he could do that he must escape.
A chair or two. Then an easy-chair. A narrow table against the wall in
two places. An awkwardly-shaped high-backed chair with elbows and
cushions. A thick carpet in the centre. Nothing else in the room, as
far as he could make out in the darkness, and if those wretched bars had
only been away, how soon he could have escaped!
He went and tried to force his head through, recalling as he did that
where a person's head would go the rest of the body would pass. But
there was no chance for his body there, the head would not go first.
He returned, after listening intently, unable to hear a sound, and put
his ear to the key-hole of the door to listen there; but all was still,
and the faint hope that the girl might be near and open to an appeal for
his liberty died away.
Again he felt all about the room, to satisfy himself afresh that there
was no way out, and he paused by the chimney, half disposed to essay
that means of escape, but he shook his head.
"A fellow who was shut up in prison for life might do it," he said, "but
not in a case like this."
Then, utterly wearied out, with his long and arduous twenty-four hours'
task, beginning with his watch on the cutter's deck, he felt his way to
the big chair opposite to the window to rest his legs, and try and think
out some plan.
"Nobody can think well when he's tired," he said; and he began to run
over in his mind the whole of the incidents since he landed a few hours
earlier.