MARCHDALE’S ATTEMPTED VILLANY, AND ITS RESULT.
Varney the vampyre left the dungeon of Charles Holland amid the grey
ruins, with a perfect confidence the young man would keep his word, and
not attempt to escape from that place until the time had elapsed which
he had dictated to him.
And well might he have that confidence, for having once given his
word that he would remain until he heard the clock strike two from
a neighbouring church, Charles Holland never dreamt for a moment of
breaking it.
To be sure it was a weary time to wait when liberty appeared before
him; but he was the soul of honour, and the least likely man in all the
world to infringe in the slightest upon the condition which he had, of
his own free will, acceded to.
Sir Francis Varney walked rapidly until he came nearly to the
outskirts of the town, and then he slackened his pace, proceeding more
cautiously, and looking carefully about him, as if he feared to meet
any one who might recognise him.
He had not proceeded far in this manner, when he became conscious of
the cautious figure of a man gliding along in the opposite direction to
that which he was taking.
A suspicion struck him, from the general appearance, that it was
Marchdale, and if so, he wondered to see him abroad at such a time.
Still he would not be quite certain; but he hurried forward, so as to
meet the advancing figure, and then his suspicions were confirmed; and
Marchdale, with some confusion in his looks and manners, accosted him.
“Ah, Sir Francis Varney,” he said, “you are out late.”—“Why, you know
I should be out late,” said Varney, “and you likewise know the errand
upon which I was to be out.”
“Oh, I recollect; you were to release your prisoner.”—“Yes, I was.”
“And have you done so?”—“Oh, no.”
“Oh, indeed. I—I am glad you have taken better thoughts of it. Good
night—good night; we shall meet to-morrow.”—“Adieu,” said Sir Francis
Varney; and he watched the retreating figure of Marchdale, and then he
added, in a low tone to himself,—
“I know his object well. His craven spirit shrinks at the notion, a
probable enough one, I will admit, that Charles Holland has recognised
him, and that, if once free, he would denounce him to the Bannerworths,
holding him up to scorn in his true colours, and bringing down upon
his head, perhaps, something more than detestation and contempt. The
villain! he is going now to take the life of the man whom he considers
chained to the ground. Well, well, they must fight it out together.
Charles Holland is sufficiently free to take his own part, although
Marchdale little thinks that such is the case.”
Marchdale walked on for some little distance, and then he turned and
looked after Sir Francis Varney.
“Indeed!” he said; “so you have not released him to-night, but I know
well will do so soon. I do not, for my part, admire this romantic
generosity which sets a fox free at the moment that he’s the most
dangerous. It’s all very well to be generous, but it is better to be
just first, and that I consider means looking after one’s self first. I
have a poniard here which will soon put an end to the troubles of the
prisoner in his dungeon—its edge is keen and sharp, and will readily
find a way to his heart.”
He walked on quite exultingly and carelessly now, for he had got into
the open country, and it was extremely unlikely that he would meet
anybody on his road to the ruins.
It did not take many minutes, sharp walking now to bring him close to
the spot which he intended should become such a scene of treacherous
slaughter, and just then he heard from afar off something like the
muttering of thunder, as if Heaven itself was proclaiming its vengeance
against the man who had come out to slay one of its best and noblest
creatures.
“What is that?” said Marchdale, shrinking back a moment; “what is
that—an approaching storm? It must be so, for, now I recollect me, the
sun set behind a bank of clouds of a fiery redness, and as the evening
drew in there was every appearance in the heavens of some ensuing
strife of the elements.”
He listened for a few moments, and fixed his eyes intently in the
direction of the horizon from where the muttering sounds had proceeded.
He had not long to wait before he saw a bright flash of blue lightning,
which for one instant illumined the sky; then by the time he could have
counted twelve there came the thunder which the flash preceded, and
he felt terribly anxious to complete his enterprize, so that he might
get back to the town and be safely housed before the storm, which was
evidently approaching, should burst upon him.
“It is sweeping on apace,” he said; “why did I not come earlier?”
Even as he spoke he plunged among the recesses of the ruins, and
searching about for the old stone which covered the entrance to the
dungeon, he was surprised to find it rolled from its place, and the
aperture open.
“What is the meaning of this?” he said; “how negligent of Sir Francis
Varney; or perhaps, after all, he was only jesting with me, and let the
prisoner go. If that should be the case, I am foiled indeed; but surely
he could not be so full of indiscretion.”
Again came a dazzling flash of lightning, which now, surrounded by the
ruins as he was, made him shrink back and cover his eyes for a moment;
and then followed a peal of thunder with not half the duration of time
between it and the flash which had characterized the previous electric
phenomenon.
“The storm approaches fast,” said Marchdale; “I must get my work done
quickly, if indeed my victim be here, which I begin seriously to doubt.”
He descended the intricate winding passage to the vault below, which
served the purpose of a dungeon, and when he got very nearly into the
depth of its recesses, he called aloud, saying,—
“Ho! what ho! is there any one here?”—“Yes,” said Charles Holland, who
fancied it might be his former visitor returned. “Have you come to
repent of your purpose?”
“Ah!” said Marchdale to himself, “Sir Francis, after all, has told me
the truth—the prisoner is still here.”
The light from without was not near sufficient to send the least ray
into the depths of that dungeon; so that Marchdale, when he entered the
place, could see nothing but an absolute blackness.
It was not so, however, with Charles Holland, whose eyes had been now
so long accustomed to the place that he could see in it as if a dim
twilight irradiated it, and he at once, in his visitor, saw his worst
foe, and not the man who had comparatively set him free.
He saw, too, that the hand of his visitor grasped a weapon, which
Marchdale thought that, favoured by the darkness, he might carry openly
in perfect security.
“Where are you?” said Marchdale; “I cannot see you.”—“Here!” said
Charles, “you may feel my grip;” and he sprung upon him in an instant.
The attack was so sudden and so utterly unexpected, that Marchdale was
thrown backwards, and the dagger wrested from his grasp, during the
first impulse which Charles Holland had thrown into his attack.
Moreover, his head struck with such violence against the earthern
floor, that it produced a temporary confusion of his faculties, so
that, had Charles Holland been so inclined, he might, with Marchdale’s
own weapon, have easily taken his life.
The young man did, on the impulse of the moment, raise it in his hand,
but, on the impulse of another thought, he cast it from him, exclaiming—
“No, no! not that; I should be as bad as he, or nearly so. This villain
has come to murder me, but yet I will not take his life for the deed.
What shall I do with him? Ha! a lucky thought—chains!”
He dragged Marchdale to the identical spot of earth on which he had
lain so long; and, as Sir Francis Varney had left the key of the
padlock which bound the chains together in it, he, in a few moments,
had succeeded in placing the villain Marchdale in the same durance from
which he had himself shortly since escaped.
“Remain there,” he said, “until some one comes to rescue you. I will
not let you starve to death, but I will give you a long fast; and, when
I come again, it shall be along with some of the Bannerworth family, to
show them what a viper they have fostered in their hearts.”
Marchdale was just sufficiently conscious now to feel all the realities
of his situation. In vain he attempted to rise from his prostrate
position. The chains did their duty, keeping down a villain with the
same means that they had held in ignominious confinement a true man.
He was in a perfect agony, inasmuch as he considered that he would be
allowed to remain there to starve to death, thus achieving for himself
a more horrible death than any he had ever thought of inflicting.
“Villain!” exclaimed Charles Holland, “you shall there remain; and, let
you have what mental sufferings you may, you richly deserve them.”
He heeded not the cries of Marchdale—he heeded not his imprecations
any more than he did his prayers; and the arch hypocrite used both in
abundance. Charles was but too happy once more to look upon the open
sky, although it was then in darkness, to heed anything that Marchdale,
in the agony to which he was now reduced, might feel inclined to say;
and, after glancing around him for some few moments, when he was free
of the ruins, and inhaling with exquisite delight the free air of the
surrounding meadows, he saw, by the twinkling of the lights, in which
direction the town lay, and knowing that by taking a line in that path,
and then after a time diverging a little to the right, he should come
to Bannerworth Hall, he walked on, never in his whole life probably
feeling such an enjoyment of the mere fact of existence as at such a
moment as that of exquisite liberty.
Our readers may with us imagine what it is to taste the free, fresh
air of heaven, after being long pent up, as he, Charles Holland, had
been, in a damp, noisome dungeon, teeming with unwholesome exhalations.
They may well suppose with what an amount of rapture he now found
himself unrestrained in his movements by those galling fetters which
had hung for so long a period upon his youthful limbs, and which, not
unfrequently in the despair of his heart, he had thought he should
surely die in.
And last, although not least in his dear esteem, did the rapturous
thought of once more looking in the sweet face of her he loved come
cross him with a gush of delight.
“Yes!” he exclaimed, as he quickened his pace; “yes! I shall be able
to tell Flora Bannerworth how well and how truly I love her. I shall
be able to tell her that, in my weary and hideous imprisonment, the
thought alone of her has supported me.”
As he neared the Hall, he quickened his pace to such an extent,
that soon he was forced to pause altogether, as the exertion he had
undertaken pretty plainly told him that the imprisonment, scanty diet,
and want of exercise, which had been his portion for some time past,
had most materially decreased his strength.
His limbs trembled, and a profuse perspiration bedewed his brow,
although the night was rather cold than otherwise.
“I am very weak,” he said; “and much I wonder now that I succeeded in
overcoming that villain Marchdale; who, if I had not done so, would
most assuredly have murdered me.”
And it was a wonder; for Marchdale was not an old man, although he
might be considered certainly as past the prime of life, and he was of
a strong and athletic build. But it was the suddenness of his attack
upon him which had given Charles Holland the great advantage, and had
caused the defeat of the ruffian who came bent on one of the most
cowardly and dastardly murders that could be committed—namely, upon
an unoffending man, whom he supposed to be loaded with chains, and
incapable of making the least efficient resistance.
Charles soon again recovered sufficient breath and strength to proceed
towards the Hall, and now warned, by the exhaustion which had come over
him that he had not really anything like strength enough to allow him
to proceed rapidly, he walked with slow and deliberate steps.
This mode of proceeding was more favourable to reflection than the
wild, rapid one which he had at first adopted, and in all the glowing
colours of youthful and ingenious fancy did he depict to himself the
surprise and the pleasure that would beam in the countenance of his
beloved Flora when she should find him once again by her side.
Of course, he, Charles, could know nothing of the contrivances which
had been resorted to, and which the reader may lay wholly to the
charge of Marchdale, to blacken his character, and to make him appear
faithless to the love he had professed.
Had he known this, it is probable that indignation would have added
wings to his progress, and he would not have been able to proceed at
the leisurely pace he felt that his state of physical weakness dictated
to him.
And now he saw the topmost portion at Bannerworth Hall pushing out from
amongst the trees with which the ancient pile was so much surrounded,
and the sight of the home of his beloved revived him, and quickened the
circulation of the warm blood in his veins.
“I shall behold her now,” he said—“I shall behold her now! A few
minutes more, and I shall hold her to my heart—that heart which has
been ever hers, and which carried her image enshrined in its deepest
recesses, even into the gloom of a dungeon!”
But let us, while Charles Holland is indulging in these delightful
anticipations—anticipations which, we regret, in consequence of the
departure of the Bannerworths from the Hall, will not be realized
so soon as he supposes—look back upon the discomfited hypocrite and
villain, Marchdale, who occupies his place in the dungeon of the old
ruins.
Until Charles Holland actually had left the strange, horrible, and
cell-like place, he could scarcely make up his mind that the young man
entertained a serious intention of leaving him there.
Perhaps he did not think any one could be so cruel and so wicked as he
himself; for the reader will no doubt recollect that his, Marchdale’s,
counsel to Varney, was to leave Charles Holland to his fate, chained
down as he was in the dungeon, and that fate would have been the
horrible one of being starved to death in the course of a few days.
When now, however, he felt confident that he was deserted—when he
heard the sound of Charles Holland’s retreating footsteps slowly dying
away in the distance, until not the faintest echo of them reached his
ears, he despaired indeed; and the horror he experienced during the
succeeding ten minutes, might be considered an ample atonement for some
of his crimes. His brain was in a complete whirl; nothing of a tangible
nature, but that he was there, chained down, and left to starve to
death, came across his intellect. Then a kind of madness, for a moment
or two, took possession of him; he made a tremendous effort to burst
asunder the bands that held him.
But it was in vain. The chains—which had been placed upon Charles
Holland during the first few days of his confinement, when he had
a little recovered from the effects of the violence which had been
committed upon him at the time when he was captured—effectually
resisted Marchdale.
They even cut into his flesh, inflicting upon him some grievous wounds;
but that was all he achieved by his great efforts to free himself,
so that, after a few moments, bleeding and in great pain, he, with a
deep groan, desisted from the fruitless efforts he had better not have
commenced.
Then he remained silent for a time, but it was not the silence of
reflection; it was that of exhaustion, and, as such, was not likely to
last long; nor did it, for, in the course of another five minutes, he
called out loudly.
Perhaps he thought there might be a remote chance that some one
traversing the meadows would hear him; and yet, if he had duly
considered the matter, which he was not in a fitting frame of mind to
do, he would have recollected that, in choosing a dungeon among the
underground vaults of these ruins, he had, by experiment, made certain
that no cry, however loud, from where he lay, could reach the upper
air. And thus had this villain, by the very precautions which he had
himself taken to ensure the safe custody of another, been his own
greatest enemy.
“Help! help! help!” he cried frantically. “Varney! Charles Holland!
have mercy upon me, and do not leave me here to starve! Help, oh,
Heaven! Curses on all your heads—curses! Oh, mercy—mercy—mercy!”
In suchlike incoherent expressions did he pass some hours, until, what
with exhaustion and a raging thirst that came over him, he could not
utter another word, but lay the very picture of despair and discomfited
malice and wickedness.