THE VAMPYRE’S DANGER.—THE LAST REFUGE.—THE RUSE OF HENRY BANNERWORTH.
Yet knowing to what deeds of violence the passions of a lawless mob
will sometimes lead them, and having the experience of what had been
attempted by the alarmed and infuriated populace on a former occasion,
against the Hall, Henry Bannerworth was, reasonably enough, not without
his fears that something might occur of a nature yet highly dangerous
to the stability of his ancient house.
He did not actually surmount the fence, but he crept so close to it,
that he could get over in a moment, if he wished; and, if any one
should move or speak on the other side, he should be quite certain to
hear them.
For a few moments all was still, and then suddenly he heard some one
say, in a low voice,—
“Hist! hist! did you hear nothing?”
“I thought I did,” said another; “but I now am doubtful.”
“Listen again.”
“What,” thought Henry, “can be the motives of these men lying secreted
here? It is most extraordinary what they can possibly want, unless they
are brewing danger for the Hall.”
Most cautiously now he raised himself, so that his eyes could just look
over the fence, and then, indeed, he was astonished.
He had expected to see two or three persons, at the utmost; what was
his surprise to find a compact mass of men crouching down under the
garden wall, as far as his eye could reach.
For a few moments, he was so surprised, that he continued to gaze on,
heedless of the danger there might be from a discovery that he was
playing the part of a spy upon them.
When, however, his first sensations of surprise were over, he
cautiously removed to his former position, and, just as he did, so, he
heard those who had before spoken, again, in low tones, breaking the
stillness of the night.
“I am resolved upon it,” said one; “I am quite determined. I will,
please God, rid the country of that dreadful man.”
“Don’t call him a man,” said the other.
“Well, well; it is a wrong name to apply to a vampyre.”
“It is Varney, after all, then,” said Henry Bannerworth, to
himself;—“it is his life that they seek. What can be done to save
him?—for saved he shall be if I can compass such an object. I feel
that there is yet a something in his character which is entitled to
consideration, and he shall not be savagely murdered while I have an
arm to raise in his defence. But if anything is now to be done, it must
be done by stratagem, for the enemy are, by far, in too great force to
be personally combatted with.”
Henry resolved to take the advice of his friends, and with that view he
went silently and quietly back to where they were, and communicated to
them the news that he had so unexpectedly discovered.
They were all much surprised, and then the doctor said,
“You may depend, that since the disappointment of the mob in the
destruction of this place, they have had their eye upon Varney. He has
been dogged here by some one, and then by degrees that assemblage has
sought the spot.”
“He’s a doomed man, then,” remarked the admiral; “for what can save him
from a determined number of persons, who, by main force, will overcome
us, let us make what stand we may in his defence.”
“Is there no hiding-place in the house,” said Charles, “where you
might, after warning him of his danger, conceal him?”
“There are plenty, but of what avail would that be, if they burn down
the Hall, which in all probability they will!”
“None, certainly.”
“There is but one chance,” said Henry, “and that is to throw them off
the scent, and induce them to think that he whom they seek is not here;
I think that may possibly be done by boldness.”
“But how?”
“I will go among them and make the effort.”
He at once left the friends, for he felt that there might be no time
to lose, and hastening to the same part of the wall, over which he had
looked so short a time before, he clambered over it, and cried, in a
loud voice,
“Stop the vampyre! stop the vampyre!”
“Where, where?” shouted a number of persons at once, turning their eyes
eagerly towards the spot where Henry stood.
“There, across the fields,” cried Henry. “I have lain in wait for him
long; but he has eluded me, and is making his way again towards the old
ruins, where I am sure he has some hiding-place that he thinks will
elude all search. There, I see his dusky form speeding onwards.”
“Come on,” cried several; “to the ruins! to the ruins! We’ll smoke him
out if he will not come by fair means; we must have him, dead or alive.”
“Yes, to the ruins!” shouted the throng of persons, who up to this
time had preserved so cautious a silence, and, in a few moments more,
Henry Bannerworth had the satisfaction of finding that his ruse had
been perfectly successful, for Bannerworth Hall and its vicinity were
completely deserted, and the mob, in a straggling mass, went over hedge
and ditch towards those ruins in which there was nothing to reward the
exertions they might choose to make in the way of an exploration of
them, but the dead body of the villain Marchdale, who had come there to
so dreadful, but so deserved a death.