heavy, lumpy-looking fort, the old gray granite parish church, and the
clustered ships of the harbor, now dashing about and tugging wildly at
their doubled moorings, soon to be left high and dry on the soft ooze
when the thirty-foot tide receded. “There’s where we find our best
customers,” laughed the French wanton, as Alan Hawke drew her to his
knee, and they laughed merrily over the golden harvest of the sea, the
price of the recovered dead. Through the narrow stone fanged streets
lumbered along the heavy French hooded carts, driven by squatty men in
oil skins and sou’westers, and laden down with the spoils of the whale,
cod, and oyster fisheries. Stout women in huge blue aprons, with baskets
on their rounded arms, gossiped at the protecting corners, while the
shouts of Landlord Etienne Garcin’s drunken band of sea wolves now began
to ring out in the smoky salle a boire.
It was two o’clock when the burly form of Etienne Garcin was propelled
unceremoniously into Alan Hawke’s room. A grin of satisfaction spread
over the bullet-headed old ruffian’s face, and his round gray pig eyes
twinkled, as he noted the already established entente cordiale between
Jack Blunt’s pal and the wanton spy who was the absent Jack’s own
especial pet. But, Alan Hawke was temporarily blind to the universally
offered charms of the soubrette as he read Joseph Smith’s careful
report.
“That’s the talk!” joyously cried Hawke. His heart bounded in a fierce
thrill. “By God! Simpson shall be ‘done up’ in short order. The drunken
old dog. He cut off the payment of my drafts with his blabbing tongue!
“Yes, over the cliffs he goes, and we will make sure of
him--forever--before he takes his last tumble! Jack! Jack! You are a
hero!” he mused, as the triumphant words of Jack Blunt’s great discovery
were read again and again. And then, he carefully burned the letter,
before the astonished eyes of the tempting companion of his waiting
hours. “These fools of employers!” cheerfully muttered Alan Hawke. “They
always think that ‘Servant’s Hall’ has no eyes. That the maid in her cap
and apron has not the same burning passions as idle Madame in her silks
and laces. That the man has not his own easy-going vices just as alive
and masterful as the base appetites of the swell master.”
While Alan Hawke thus exulted at Granville, there was gloom and jealousy
in the heart of Prof. Alaric Hobbs, of Waukesha University, Wisconsin,
U. S. A.
A tall, lank, bespectacled “Westerner,” nearly thirty-five years of age,
the blue-eyed country boy had dragged himself up from the obscurity of
a frontier American farm into the higher life. Uncouth, awkward, and
yet resolute and untiring, he had justified his first instructor’s
prediction:
“He has the head of a horse, and will make his mark!” Newspaper
trainboy, chainman, assistant on Government frontier surveys, and
frontier scout, he early saved his money so as to complete a sporadic
university curriculum. A trip to Liberia, a dash down into Mexico, and a
desert jaunt in Australia, had not satisfied his craving for adventure.
With the results of two years of professional lectures, he was now
imbibing continental experiences, and plotting a bicycle “scientific
tour of the world.” Hard-headed, fearless, devoted, and sincere, he was
a mad theorist in all his mental processes, and had tried, proved,
and rejected free love, anarchy, Christian science, and a dozen other
feverish fads, which for a time jangled his mental bells out of tune.
A cranky tracing of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel down to the genial
scalpers of the American plains had thrown him across the renowned
Professor Andrew Fraser, who had, on his part, located these same
long mourned Hebrews in Thibet, ignoring the fact that they are really
dispersed in the United States of America as “eaters of other men’s
hard-made ‘honey’” in the “drygoods,” clothing, and “shent per shent”
line. For, a glance at the signs on Broadway will prove to any one that
the “lost” have been found in Gotham.
Smoking his corncob pipe the Professor paced his rooms at the Royal
Victoria, and mentally consigned Prince Djiddin and his indefatigable
Moonshee to Eblis, the Inferno, Sheol, or some other ardent corner of
Limbo. “How long will these two yellow fellows keep poor old Fraser
enchanted?” mused the disgruntled American, mindful of his hotel bill
running on. “The old man is crazy after the two Thibetans, and I can’t
see his game. He does not wish me to publish my own volume first. That
is why he has given me the ‘marble heart,’ and taken them into his
house. Their wing of the Banker’s Folly is now an Eastern idolaters’
temple. If I could only hook on to the ‘Moonshee,’ I might make a
‘scoop’--a clean scoop--on old Fraser. God! how my book would sell if I
could only get it out first. And yet I dare not offend this old scholar,
Andrew Fraser. He must be true to me. He has read to me all the original
manuscript of his own half-finished work. He must trust to me, and he
has promised to give me a resume of their disclosures also after they
leave. The Thibetan Prince will only be here two weeks longer.”
“Then old Fraser will take me to his heart again.” Alaric Hobbs
reflected on his vain attempt to try the Tunguse, Chinook, Zuni, Apache,
Sioux, and Esquimaux dialects on the handsome Prince Djiddin, whose
Oriental magnificence was even now the despairing admiration of the two
pretty housemaids.
“My august master cannot speak to any one but the great scholar whom he
came here to see. He soon returns to his retirement in his palace in the
Karakorum Mountains. And he never will emerge thence!” solemnly said
the Moonshee, adding in a whisper: “He may, by the grace of Buddha, be
re-incarnated as the Dalai-Lama. He springs from the loins of kings. I
dare not break in upon his awful silence.” The Moonshee’s significant
gesture of drawing a hand across his own brown throat had silenced the
pushing American professor.
“By hokey!” he groaned, “it is hard to have to play second fiddle to
this purblind old Scotchman.” Alaric Hobbs had been a reporter upon that
dainty sheet, The New York Whorl, in one of his “emergent” periods, and
so he writhed in agony at being left at the post. “I must be content
to tap old Fraser when he comes back from London with that embarrassing
lump of beauty, his millionaire niece. She would make a fitting spouse
for this Prince Djiddin, for she never speaks a word--at least to me.
And this swell Prince, who comes ‘only one in a box,’ gets the same
‘frozen hand.’ Funny girl, that. But I must yield to old Fraser’s
moods.” Alaric Hobbs then descended to the tap-room and instructed the
pretty barmaid in the manufacture of his own favorite “cocktail,” an
American drink of surpassing fierceness and “innate power,” which had
once caused “Bald-headed Wolf,” a Kiowa chieftain, to slay his favorite
squaw, scalp a peace commissioner, and chase a fat army paymaster till
he died of fright in his ambulance, after Alaric Hobbes had incautiously
left a bottle of this “red-eye” mixture with his aboriginal host on
one of the “exploring tours.” A powerful disturbing agent, the American
cocktail!
But for all Miss Nadine Johnstone’s seeming aversion to men, and in
spite of Prince Djiddin’s inability to utter a word of any jargon save
ninety-five degree Thibetan, “far above proof,” on this very morning
while the “Moonshee” was transcribing under the watchful eyes of the
excited Andrew Fraser the disclosures of the evening before, the young
millionairess was “getting on” very well in exhibiting the glories of
the tropical garden to the august tourist from the lacustrine Himalayas.
Jules Victor adroitly busied the maid whom Janet Fairbarn had dispatched
to “play propriety,” and the other London girl had quietly stolen away
to her own last rendezvous with her mysterious London lover, “Mr. Joseph
Smith,” otherwise “Jack Blunt, Esq., of the Swell Mob of the Thames.”
The whispers of the stately young Prince brought crimson blushes to the
face of the glowing girl, whose answering murmurs were as low as the
siren voice of Swinburne’s “small serpents, with soft, stretching
throats.” They had a double secret to keep now. A momentous, a dangerous
one; for in the depths of the Tropical Gardens of Rozel, the passionate
hearted Alixe Delavigne was hidden, waiting this very morning to clasp
again the beautiful orphan to a bosom throbbing in wildest love. Prince
Djiddin, always on his guard, artfully turned back and busied the maid,
when she was released from Jules Victor’s vociferous bar-gaining, with
a half-hour’s choosing her “fairing,” out of the lively peddler’s pretty
stock. The woman’s vanity made her an easy victim. The “descendant of
Thibetan Kings” could not, of course, speak intelligibly, but the yellow
sovereigns which he carried were the magic talisman which opened at once
the pretty maid servant’s softened heart.
It was a long half hour before the happy Nadine Johnstone returned to
join the kinsman of the Maharajah of Cashmere. Her eyes were gleaming
in a tender, dawning lovelight, her lips still thrilling with Alixe
Delavigne’s warm kisses. In her heart, there still rang out her
mysterious visitor’s last words: “Wait, darling! My own darling! Before
another month the secret Government agent will have officially visited
Andrew Fraser. We are all ready to act with crushing power when the
happy moment safely arrives. And you shall then hear all the story
of the past on my breast. You shall know how near you have been to
my loving heart in all these weary years. The story of your own dear
mother’s life shall be my wedding present to you. Yet, a few days more
of watchful patience,” softly sighed Alixe.
“For we must not let Andrew Fraser wake for a moment from his frenzy of
Thibetan study until we can force from him the permission which we will
demand to visit you, and to free you from his control.”
Prince Djiddin paced solemnly back toward the Banker’s Folly, leaving
the overjoyed maid to bundle up all her many gifts. A grateful wink to
Jules Victor from the Prince rewarded the disguised valet, as he gayly
sped away to meet his mistress, and to obtain her orders for the next
day. This artful game of mingled Literature and Love had so far been
safely played, but Jules Victor had secretly warned Nadine Johnstone
against any confidences with her pretty London sewing woman. “She has
found a sweetheart here. He is a curious looking fellow, he has money
and is liberal, and, so, what you tell her she will surely tell her
sweetheart. Trust to no one but the other maid, who is devoted to me,”
proudly said the dapper little Frenchman. Nearing the mansion, on this
eventful morning, Prince Djiddin, at a hidden bend of a leafy path,
whispered to his fair conductress, “For God’s sake, darling Nadine, do
not betray yourself! Those sweetly shining eyes are tell-tale stars!
Your heart happiness will struggle for expression. Go to your rooms at
once. Pour out your happy heart in song, lift up your voice. But, watch
over your very heart-throbs! Only a single fortnight more, darling,
and we will clip the claws of this old Scottish lion who has you in his
clutches!
“Anstruther will soon make his coup de main, for Hawke has at last gone
back to India, and we will have a deadly grasp soon on the frightened
Andrew Fraser. He must either give up his legal tyranny and yield you to
us, or else face a future which would appall even a braver man. I dare
not to tell you our secret yet. Only the Viceroy and Anstruther know it.
And, now, darling, above all, be sure not to betray yourself, in London.
Remember that Anstruther will have you secretly watched, from this gate
to the very moment when you return to it! Any false play of old Fraser
would lead to his detention by the authorities, and you would be freed
at once by the law!”
In the three weeks of their long masquerade, neither Prince Djiddin,
his scribe and interpreter, or else the two, as studious visitors, never
left Andrew Fraser alone a single moment! The old scholar was thrilled
at heart with Eric Murray’s solemn rehearsing of Frank Halton’s valuable
notebooks and ingenious theories. He eagerly enforced Prince Djiddin’s
request that no curious strangers should be allowed to force themselves
on him, no matter of what lofty rank. Prince Djiddin was wrapped in the
veil of a solemn personal seclusion.
And to this end Simpson, now the butler of the “Banker’s Folly,” was
especially assigned to wait upon the austere “Prince Djiddin” as his
“body servant.” Only one visit of state was exchanged between “Prince
Djiddin” and General Wragge, Her Majesty’s Commander of the Channel
Islands. The “Moonshee,” with a sober dignity, had interpreted for the
British Commander of the Manche, and in due state, a return visite de
ceremonie to General Wagge’s mansion and headquarters strangely found
Captain Anson Anstruther, A.D.C. of the Viceroy of India, a pilgrim to
St. Heliers, to arrange secretly for “Prince Djiddin’s” safe conduct and
return to Thibet. The curious society crowd and St. Heliers’s beautiful
women envied Captain Anstruther his three hours conference with the
“Asiatic lion.”
By day, in the vaulted library, Andrew Fraser pored over the weird
stories of Runjeet Singh, of Aurung zebe, of King Dharma, and the
Cashmerian priest who came with Buddha’s first message to Thibet! The
story of the marvelous royal babe found floating in the Ganges, in a
copper box, a century before Christ, the tales of the “Konchogsum,” the
“Buddha jewel,” the “doctrine jewel,” and the “priesthood jewel” fed the
burning fever of old Fraser’s senile mind. He now felt that he lived but
only in the past. At night, he labored alone till the wee sma’ hours,
depositing his precious manuscript in a secret hiding-place, where he
now scarcely glanced at the “insured packet,” which had been such a
dangerous legacy of his dead brother. He had forgotten all his daily
life and even his fears for the future in the fierce exultation of
concealing his strangely gotten Thibetan lore from his rival, Alaric
Hobbs.
“A remarkable mind,” growled old Fraser, “but a Yankee--and so
untrustworthy.” At last, unwillingly, with a quaking heart, lest Prince
Djiddin should decamp in his absence, he obeyed an imperative legal
summons and proceeded to London with Nadine Johnstone, leaving his house
under the charge of that sphinx-eyed Scottish spinster, Janet Fairbarn.
To the “Moonshee,” and to the rubicund veteran Simpson, the departing
Andrew Fraser said solemnly, “The Prince is to be the master here until
my return.” With a joyous heart the London sewing girl embarked as Miss
Johnstone’s one personal attendant, forgetful of her devoted lover,
Joseph Smith, who had temporarily disappeared, gone over to France “on
business.” For she was herself going back to the dear delights of her
beloved London, and her liberal lover had already given her his address
at the Cor d’Abondance.
“You must telegraph to me, Mattie, where you are staying, and when you
leave London to return. I may run over to Southampton and come back on
the same boat with you. Write to me, my own girl, every day, and here’s
a five-pound note to buy your stamps with.” On his sacred promise of
honor to write to her himself every day, and to let no black Gallic eyes
eclipse her “orbs of English blue,” Mattie Jones allowed her lover an
extra liberal allowance of good-bye kisses.
While Professor Andrew Fraser, Miss Nadine Johnstone, and the lovelorn
Mattie Jones, were escorted to London by a head clerk of the estate’s
solicitors, Prince Djiddin and the “Moonshee” unbent their brows
and rested from the nervous strain of the three weeks of continued
deception.
While the happy “Moonshee” escaped to his own fair bride, Prince
Djiddin, under Simpson’s guidance, examined minutely the superb modern
castle, and even microscopically examined all the beautiful surroundings
of Rozel Head. “It may come in handy some day,” mused Major Hardwicke,
“especially if we have to aid Nadine Johnstone to escape.” The
pseudo-Prince was glad to often steal out alone to the headland
overlooking Rozel Pier, and there watch the French luggers beating to
seaward sailing like fierce cormorants along the wild coast of St. Malo.
He was glad to fill his lungs with the fresh, crisp, salt air, and to
commune in safety at length with the faithful Simpson.
Securely hid in an angle of the cliff, they talked over all the mystery
of Hugh Fraser’s bloody “taking off,” and of the dreary three years of
Death in Life left before Nadine.
“As for the old master, he was an out and out hard ‘un,” stolidly said
Simpson. “Who killed him, nobody knows and nobody cares. I’ve always
suspicioned that there Ram Lal and yer fancy friend, this Major Alan
Hawke.”
Hardwicke started in a sudden alarm. “Why so?” he demanded.
“I believe that they tried to blackmail him about some of his old
Eurasian love affairs, or else some official secret they had spied out.
You see the niggers in the marble house were all Ram Lal’s friends, and
any one of them could have left the murderers alone to do their work and
then let ‘em out of the house. I believe that Hawke did the job, and Ram
Lal got away with some of the missing crown jewels. I’ll tell you, Major
Harry, General Willoughby and the magistrates had me under fire there
for many a day.”
“See here, Simpson,” said Major Hardwicke, “a man who would murder the
father, would rob the daughter! I’ll give you a thousand pounds if you
instantly notify me, if Hawke ever is found creeping around here. There
may be some ugly old family secrets, you know.”
“I’m your man! Pay or no pay!” cried Simpson. “Only they think of giving
me a three months’ leave on pay to visit my people.”
“Don’t go! Don’t go! till I tell you!” cried the Major.
“I am glad this fellow Hawke, whom you say has been dropped, is now on
his way back to India,” said Simpson.
“Yes, but he might show up here devilish strangely,” mused Hardwicke.
“He is just the fellow for a dirty fluke. Watch over Nadine, Simpson,”
cried Hardwicke, “for I’ve sworn to make her my wife, within three
months, uncle or no uncle!”
“I will,” growled Simpson. “I’ve an old grudge to settle with the Major,
and I’ll tell you some day,” said the veteran. “Let us go in. There are
some curious people here. I’ll tell you all when I’m your own man, and
the young mistress is Mrs. Major Hardwicke!”
On this very evening, as the gray mists hid the Jersey outline from the
windows of Etienne Garcin’s den, Jack Blunt and Major Alan Hawke were
seated in the Major’s bedroom in the cabaret. They were cheerfully
discussing two steaming “grogs,” but there was doubt and a shifty lack
of thorough confidence between the two scoundrels as yet.
“So you think the boat will do?” flatly demanded Jack Blunt, offering
some exceptional cigars.
“Just the thing,” carefully replied the Major. “And your terms for a two
weeks charter?”
“Twenty-five hundred francs for the boat and outfit--the same sum for
the gang, cash down. Two weeks, with the privilege of renewal for two
more-at the same rate,” doggedly said Blunt. “Now, you’ve got to make
up your mind soon, Hawke,” said Jack Blunt roughly. “I’ve told you the
whole lay, and so far, have given you the worth of your money. If you
can’t ‘come up,’ then I’m going to run a lugger load of brandy and
‘baccy over to the Irish coast. She’s a sixty tonner and by God! fit
to cross the Atlantic! Old Garcin, too, is getting impatient. Our being
here, stops his ‘regular business,’” gloomily said Blunt.
Hawke’s impassive face angered Jack Blunt as he continued: “And you say
that I can trust Garcin’s brother Andre down at Isle Dial.”
“Yes. Even if we had to stow one or both of these fools away down
there.”
“I am sure that Angelique and I could hide them away for a year or else
safely forever there,” cried Jack Blunt, in a hoarse whisper. “It’s only
a matter of money and damme if I believe you’ve got any! If you fool
us, you’ll never get out of here alive!” Major Hawke only smiled, and
dropped his hands lightly on the butts of two heavy bull-dog revolvers
ready there in his velveteen trousers’ pockets.
“Jack! Don’t be an ass!” he said. “I play this game to win. Do you think
that I would bring my ready money into this murder pen? Now, tell me
what you will take in cash, to tell me where the old miser has hidden
the stuff I want? And how much will you take to do the job? I want to
know when they return, and I want your help and the aid of the gang. You
are to crack the crib--alone--while they are away, and then we, perhaps,
may meet them, on their way home. The lugger lying off in that cove to
the north of Rozel Head, below the old martello tower.”
“Have you been over there?” amazedly cried Blunt.
“Oh! I know every inch of the place of old,” laughed Hawke, still with
his hands on his revolvers.
“Well, Major,” said Jack, pouring out a cognac, “I’ll take, first, five
hundred pounds cash for the information. Another five hundred for the
job, with a quarter of what we get. And this second sum you can put up
with Etienne Garcin. You can pay him now the two hundred for the men
and the boat, out of that, and give me the rest of the odd change later.
We’ll never lose sight of each other after we start. For the Hirondelle
will not leave me in the lurch. I’ve sworn never to wear the widow’s
jewelry again.” Jack Blunt’s eyes were devilish in their glare.
“So, it’s five hundred pounds down now, and I can order the expedition
on, after the payment. You’ll give me on the instant all the news from
Mattie Jones of the intended return, for I propose to have some fun with
the Professor.”
“Honor bright,” said Jack forcibly. “For we will all hang or ‘go to
quod’ together, if there’s a break once that we begin. We had better
start when I get her next letter, for Mattie is to write me to the
Jersey Arms and then telegraph there, too, from Southampton. I’ll have
one of the crew pipe them off from the pier home to the Tolly, and a
half dozen of the boys will be in hiding, ready for work. So you can
work your scheme as you will.”
“It’s a go, then. Come on, now, and get your money,” said Hawke, as
he led the way to the nearest fiacre. In ten minutes, Alan Hawke
disappeared into the railway waiting-room, and returned after a visit to
the luggage store-room. Jack Blunt was astonished at his pal’s evident
distrust. “Here you are, Jack,” the Major cordially cried, as they
sought the rear room of the neat cafe opposite the gare. “Now, count
over your five hundred pounds. I’ll give Garcin the other sum in your
presence. Then, I suppose that I am safe,” he coldly smiled. “Tell me
now where has old Fraser hidden the stuff.”
“In his study on the first floor, in a secret hiding place. The girl
Mattie has watched the old fellow through the keyhole. I know just where
to easily break in on the ground floor. These damned Hindus are far away
in the other wing, so there’s only Simpson to hinder. Now, I’ll have a
couple of the boys pipe him off at the Jersey Arms. Old Janet Fairbarn’s
strait-laced ways make him sneak out late at night for his toddy. When
he is ‘well loaded’ and tired with climbing up the cliff, they will
follow him and fix him, for good. One of the boys will come along with
me, to my hiding place, and be ‘outside fence’ while the two others
will watch the road and the gardener’s quarters. The three men are two
hundred yards away, in the porter’s lodge. The old Scotch woman
sleeps like a post. Then I make my way when I’ve done, at once to the
Hirondelle, alone and hide my plant. The men relieved can rally on your
party at the old martello tower, and so we will be ready to sail when
your part of the job is done. Two on board, three with me, nine with
you, will be plenty! My work is a quiet job! I can do the whole trick in
five minutes! Yours, I leave for yourself. I know just where to lay my
hand.”
“But, should any trouble occur?” said Alan Ha wke, “any outcry, any
pursuit?”
“Then I will bury the stuff on the shore, saunter back openly to the
Jersey Arms, and just stay there as friend Joseph Smith, till I can get
over to Granville by the steamer. The Hirondelle will not be seen by any
one; there are fifty luggers always hovering around. She will first land
us all in Bouley Bay in the morning, or drop half the men off at St.
Catherine’s Bay in the early afternoon. They all know every inch of
the ground.” In half an hour the chums in villainy dined gayly with
“Angelique,” and a running mate, rejoicing in the cognomen of “Petite
Diable Jaune.” The next day, a secret meeting with a confidential Jewish
money-lender, enabled Major Alan Hawke to safely market the half of the
jewels which he had extorted from Ram Lal Singh. In a waist belt, he
wore a thousand pounds of Banque of France notes neatly concealed. Jack
Blunt and Garcia had earned an extra bonus of a hundred pounds each in
the jewel sale, and Alan Hawke laughed, as he laid away four thousand
pounds in his safely deposited luggage, in the railway office. “I can
trust to the French Republic--one and indivisible,” he said, as he sent
a loving letter to Justine Delande, and then mailed her the receipt
for his valuable package, with his last wishes, “in case of accident.”
“These fellows might kill me for this, if they knew of it!” he growled.
Three days later, the stanch Hirondelle was beating up and down
Granville Bay, while Alan Hawke awaited the letter of the faithful
Mattie Jones. He had furnished the twenty-pound note which made that
natty damsel doubly anxious to meet her faithful lover “Joseph Smith,”
to whom she now dispatched the news of the immediate return of the
anxious Professor. Fraser was burning to take up the gathering of
Thibetan pearls of hidden knowledge, while the artful and restless
Professor Alaric Hobbs was stealthily waiting Prince Djiddin’s
departure, but kept busied with some personal tidal and magnetic
observations on Rozel Head. In the deserted second floor of an old
martello tower, he had made a lair for his evening star and planetory
researches, and the ingenious Yankee concealed a rope ladder in the
clinging ivy which enabled him to cut off all intrusion on his eyrie.
CHAPTER XV. THE FRENCH FISHER BOAT, “HIRONDELLE.”
It was four o’clock of a wild November afternoon when Major Alan
Hawke, cowering in a hooded Irish frieze ulster, crawled deeper into a
cave-like recess in the little path leading from the Jersey Arms up to
Rozel Head. The blinding rain was thrown in wild gusts by the howling
winds, now lashing the green channel to a roughened foam. A sudden and
terrific storm was coming on.
Half an hour before the disguised adventurer could see the ominous
double storm signals flying in warning on the scattered coast guard
stations, a signal of danger sent on from the Corbieres Lighthouse. But
now not a single sail was to be seen, and huge banks of heavy blackening
mists were rolling over the stormy channel. Not a stray sail was in
sight!
“Where in hell is Jack?” raged the excited conspirator, swallowing half
the contents of his brandy flask. As he returned it, the butts of his
two revolvers and the handle of a huge couteau de chasse were plainly
visible. “The fiends seem to be let loose to-day,” he growled. “It would
be the night of all nights! Ha!” The discharged officer noted two men in
sou’westers and oilskins now toiling up the path. And his heart leaped
up in a wild joy.
In another moment, he half dragged his drenched companions into the
weather-worn cave. “What news?” he hoarsely demanded of Blunt, as he
extended his flask.
“The best of all news,” cheerily replied the mobs-man. “Here is Antoine.
He raced down from St. Heliers, in a covered fly, and has brought the
very latest news from Fort Regent. The Stella has lost the tide, cannot
enter, and has, therefore, turned south, running down the channel.
She can not dare to enter St. Heliers now till between ten and eleven
to-night. Of course, she will not put back to Southampton, in the teeth
of this southwest gale, the very heaviest known for twenty years. She
has signaled the ‘Corbieres,’ and they have telegraphed over to the
office at the pier. There’s Mattie Jones’s telegram. The three we want
are on board, sure enough. And, thank God! the Hirondelle is riding safe
and easy around the point. It’s the one night of a million for my job
and for yours.”
“What’s your final plan? We must get out of here soon,” growled Hawke,
shaking off the pouring rain like a burly water dog. “I have my two
men already watching the little gardener’s hut in the Tropical Gardens,
where I hid my cracksman’s outfit. Old Simpson is boozing away down at
the Jersey Arms. I heard him tell pretty Ann, the barmaid, that he would
have to be home by midnight, for the ‘old man’ would surely arrive in
the morning. Now, will you stay here with this man, and ‘do up’ old
Simpson? Mind you, there must be no stab or bullet wound. The ‘life
preserver,’ and, then over with him! They will only think that rum and
the fall did the business.
“I will make straight for the Hirondelle when I am done, and send a man
to report to you at the old martello tower, where your gang are to meet
you. This man can get over to the boat now and warn them to show up,
carefully, one by one, and hide around there till dark. Not in the tower
itself, for some of the coast-guard roundsmen might take shelter there
and pitch into them for smugglers. I’ll stay here till he comes back. If
old Simpson should come along too early, why, you and I could hide him
away here till it is dark enough to throw him over. And you’ll surely
catch old Fraser and the two women on the road between eleven and two.
It will take over an hour to drive from the pier in this weather.
“All right!” sternly said Hawke. “Send your man right away. I will tell
them what to do later, when I meet them. Let him send the boatswain and
two men to meet us here, and wait and hide with the others around the
tower. I will hunt in the bushes till I run on them. Stay! He can come
back here to me with the three!”
It was already dark when the four men returned to where Alan Hawke lay
perdu with his murderous mate. Not a light was now to be seen but the
one glimmer below in the “Public,” on the Rozel pier. And the very last
words had been spoken between “Gentleman Jack Blunt” and his crafty
employer. “Now, remember,” said Jack, “Antoine here goes down with
orders to come up the cliff ahead of old Simpson. You’ll surely be
warned of his approach. You can give the boatswain his orders; there’ll
be three to one. Your man leads you to your men at the tower. And I am
to crack that crib and make for the Hirondelle!
“If chased, the boat runs out to sea, and you are both only honest,
French fishermen storm-driven ashore in search of supplies!”
“That’s it, Jack! You are to wait for me, if the house is not alarmed.
I’ll bring some ‘passengers,’ perhaps, on board. If I fail, you are just
to run for Granville. We will all meet at Etienne’s. I’ve got money to
take care of all my men. You are to make no miss. I can wait and try
again if I am disappointed. I’ll take no chances. With your success,
I can hold the old miser down, and your two thousand pounds is safe;
besides, the swag is your security. You see, he will never dare to make
any public outcry, for he secretly fears the Government! We take only
the safest chances. He may stay down there all night at St. Heliers, and
your lucky chance will never come again. Go ahead, and do not fail!”
The two men grasped hands in an excited clinch. “Do up Simpson for a
dead man, and no mistake!” hoarsely whispered Jack Blunt.
“I’ll fix the old blanc-bec,” growled the boatswain, as the spy slid
down the hill toward Rozel Pier.
“Take my flask, Jack!” said Alan Hawke.
“I don’t drink on duty!” simply replied Blunt. “I shall get at work by
eleven, and you’ll hear from me by midnight! Then, look out only for
yourself! The boat is mine, if there’s any alarm. I’ll send her back
soon to Rozel Pier, if I have to run out to sea, and you are to be only
honest fishermen. How long shall I wait in the cove for you?”
“Sail at three o’clock, if I’m not on board! Remember the hail, ‘Saint
Malo, Ahoy!’”
“This is dead square, for life and death!” cried Blunt.
“Dead square,” echoed the renegade officer. Darkness now doubled its
black folds, and the roar of the surf boomed sullenly upon the rocky
Rozel beach. Crouching in their cave, the two French thugs eagerly
watched the winding path below, and gathered a resentful vulpine
ferocity in their hearts. With knife in one hand, and the heavy
lead-weighted blackjacks in readiness, they cowered upon the path,
waiting for the old soldier, whose thickened eyes were still sullenly
gazing at the dingy clock in the Jersey Arms. He hated to leave the
pretty, white-armed Ann.
Ten o’clock! The red-coated soldiery of Fort Regent and Elizabeth
Castle, the guardians of Mont Orgueil, were all wrapped in slumber, save
the poor, shivering sentinels. Ten o’clock! The drenched tide waiters
at St. Heliers pier anathematized the still distant Stella, whose lights
now blinked feebly, laboring far out at sea. “An hour yet to wait!”
growled the bedraggled customs officers. Ten o’clock! The good burghers
of St. Heliers had given up their whist, and taken their last drop of
“hot and hot.” In St. Aubin’s Bay, from Corbin’s Light, from mansion in
town, and cot among the Druidical rocks, anxious eyes now gazed out on
the wild sea, where Andrew Fraser tried to calm the terrified Nadine
Johnstone.
Mattie Jones was lying senseless, a helpless mass of cowering humanity,
while the anxious captain and pilot vigorously swore, as became hardy
British seamen. The “Chief” had piped up “that the engines would be out
of her,” if they shipped another sea like the last. Prayer in the cabin,
curses on the deck, fear in the hold, and misery everywhere; the stout
Stella struggled shoreward, toward her dangerous landing at the pier,
whose sheer sixty feet of masonry wall was now lashed by the wild waves.
Black waters rose and fell in great surges. The shivering coastguards
in the line of garrisoned martello towers, vowed that no such night had
ever been seen since the “Great Storm.”
Prince Djiddin had also given up all hope of the return of the faithful
Moonshee whose plea of “business,” had led him away to the society of
his brave and beautiful bride. There was but one more day of “home life”
before resuming the hoodwinking of the mentally excited historian of
Thibet. “It’s a fearful night on the Channel,” thought Major Hardwicke
as he waited in vain for Simpson’s return to act as valet de chambre.
“God help all at sea! It’s a fearful night,” Prince Djiddin murmured
as he closed his eyes, little reckoning that the beautiful girl whom he
loved more than life was tempest-tossed off the Corbieres, while poor
Mattie Jones literally “sickened on the heaving wave.”
The great house was lone and still, and for the first time Prince
Djiddin reflected upon the exposed situation of the old miser’s home.
“Poor old chap,” he muttered, as he closed his eyes. “Somebody might
come in and throttle him some night! No one would be here to stop it.
I must speak to Simpson, yes, speak to Simpson--that is, if he is ever
sober enough to listen. Poor old soldier! He will have his drink!”
There was a singular improvised bivouac going on in the ruined martello
tower where Professor Alaric Hobbs had set up his instruments to take
some interesting observations upon an occultation of Venus.
A coast-guard station at Bouley Bay and St. Catherine’s Head rendered
the further occupancy of the old martello tower at Rozel Head
unnecessary, and only a few rats and bats now resented Alaric Hobbs’
sequestration of the second story. He meditated a comparative memoir
upon the “Tides of Fundy Bay, and the Channel Islands,” with a treatise
upon “Contracted Ocean Surface Currents.” Astronomer, hydrographer,
geologist, and all-round savant, his lank form was already familiar to
the Channel Islanders. And, like the wind, he veered around “where he
listed.”
“Great Jupiter aid us!” cried the son of Minerva, “Venus is unpropitious
to-night. All my trouble is vain.” For when the black storm broke upon
the little channel islet, Alaric Hobbs saw no way of a comfortable
return to the Royal Victoria at St. Heliers. “I might leave all here
and claim old Fraser’s hospitality for a night. No one can get up to the
second story,” mused Hobbes, who now regretted having ordered the fly to
come for him only at day-break. “Here is a wild night of inky darkness.
The star occults only at three A.M. This hurricane ruins all. And old
man Fraser may not have returned from London.” So with a basket of
luncheon, a roll of blankets, and a bottle of cocktails, the volunteer
astronomer reluctantly sought the dryest corner of the second floor
of the old tower for a night’s camp. A square trapdoor hole whence the
moldering ladder had fallen away, was in the middle of the old barrack
room floor over the four embrasured gun room below. “I’ll just draw
up my ladder, have a pipe, and take a nap. It may clear off. If so the
observation goes, and then the highest tide of the year, I can get the
register in the morning.”
He had brought down his light instrument from the battlemented parapet
for safety, and now, pulling up his rope ladder, he coiled it on the
floor. “I can drop down below if I wish to if the rain should drive me
out of here,” he cried as he curled up like a sleeping coyote.
Below him the heavy door of the tower swung on its massive hinges,
banging and creaking mournfully when a swirling gust set it swinging.
The man who had slept out on the Lolo trail and bivouacked alone in the
canyon of the Colorado, laughed the howling storm to scorn. “Better than
being out in a blizzard in the Bad Lands!” he gayly cried, as he dozed
away, having finished a good meal and lowered the level of the “Lone
Wolf” cocktails. From sheer frontier habit, he laid his heavy revolver
near at hand, and his old-time hunting knife. “You see, you don’t
know what emergencies may arise,” often sagely observed Alaric Hobbes.
“Thrice is he armed that hath two six shooters and a knife!”
When half-past ten rang out from the old French hall clock at the
Banker’s Folly, Janet Fairbarn, a gray ghastly figure, made her last
timid rounds of the lower part of the mansion. Her maids were all snugly
nested for the night. Simpson, the erring one, she believed to be in
close attendance upon that foreign heathen, Prince Djiddin, in their
second-story wing. Miss Nadine and her maid had locked their apartments
on departure, the Professor’s study was the only room open and vacant,
and so with a last timid glance at the darkened halls and great salons
of the main floor, the Scotch spinster retired to her rooms adjoining
the Master’s study and bedrooms on the ground floor.
Minded to “read a chapter” and to “compose herself for the night,” the
housekeeper sat late rocking alone in her rooms, while the hollow tick
of the hall clock sounded doubly lonely in the cheerless night. The
modern castle’s walls were proof against the wildest rain and even the
blows of a catapult, and so the dashing storm never even stirred the
heavy leaded diamonded panes. “Thanks be to God, auld Andrew never
ventured to cross on this raging sea! He’ll no be here the morrow,
neither. I must send down for telegrams in the morning,” she mused when
she had finally laid her spectacles across her Bible.
It was nearing eleven o’clock when the two half-drowned thugs hiding on
Rozel Head were roused by their returning mate stumbling wildly into
the muddy cavern in the cliff. They sprang up as he muttered, “On vient,
tout pres d’ici! Soyous tous prets!” A bottle extended was half drained
by the two ruffians, who then eagerly loosened their black jaws with a
mad desire to revenge their cheerless vigil.
“Lei has,” whispered the spy, pointing to a black object creeping
unsteadily up the steep path--Simpson, dreaming still of pretty
Ann’s rounded white arms! It was indeed Simpson, with unsteady
steps, breasting the hill. A fear of Andrew Fraser’s arrival led the
half-fuddled old veteran to hasten homeward now. “I can say the telegram
was late,” he chuckled. “They never will know.” And then feeling for his
pocket-flask, filled by handsome Ann, “as a last night-cap,” he turned
into the little cavern, where the school-boys, on a Saturday outing,
often played “pirates,” for his breath was gone and his eyes were
drenched with salt scud.
Then, a half smothered cry arose, as the three waiting thugs leaped
upon their prey. Simpson was taken off his guard! His muscles were all
relaxed by drink. He fell prone as the heavy black jacks descended upon
his head, muffled in the hood of his “dreadnaught.”
“Ah! V’la un affaire bien fini! Allons! Jettez-le!” growled the grim
boatswain, dropping his loaded club, as all three spurned the prostrate
body, and then, with a heavy lurch, it bounded off the sodden bank
plunging downward, over the cliff.
For a moment, there was no sound! Then skirting the furze bushes of the
headland, the three assassins dragged their stiffened limbs along in the
darkness, hastening to where the stout Hirondelle rocked easily in the
dead water of the one protected cove to the north of Rozel Point.
They were all safely stowed away in the forecastle before half an
hour, and, with grunts of satisfaction, examined the largess of their
mysterious employer, “C’est un gaillard--un vrai coq d’Anglais!” growled
the boatswain, as his chums produced another bottle, and the three
doffed their drenched clothing. Then cognac drowned their scruples
against murder--for the price was in their pockets.
It was half past eleven o’clock when gaunt old Andrew Fraser led his
half-fainting ward ashore from the Stella, at St. Heliers pier. But
one covered carriage had remained on the storm-beaten pier, braving the
rigors of this terrible night. “Never mind the luggage, man,” shouted
the Professor to the driver. “Here’s ten pounds to drive us over to
Rozel, to my home! And, I’ll bait yere horses, put ye up, and give ye
a tip to open yere eyes.” The hardy islander whipped up his horses,
and soon cautiously climbed the hill of St. Saviours, crawling along
carefully over the wind-swept mows toward St. Martin’s Church. The
exhausted maid was fast asleep. Nadine Johnstone herself lay in a
semi-trance, while the fretful old scholar consulted his watch by the
blinking carriage lights, and then wildly urged the driver on. It was
long after midnight when they reached St. Martin’s Church, with three
miles yet to go. A dreary and a dismal ride!
And all was silent, in the Banker’s Folly where the old hall clock
loudly rang out twelve, rousing Mistress Janet Fairbarn from her first
beauty sleep. She started in terror as an unfamiliar sound broke upon
the haunting stillness of the night. The hollow sound of a smothered
cough in the Master’s study, a man’s deep-toned cough, unmistakably
masculine, aroused the spinster whose whole life had been haunted by
phantom burglars.
For the first time since her coming to the Folly, her loneliness
appalled her. “My God! There is the plate! The master away, and no
one near.” Her nerves were thrilling with nature’s indefinable protest
against the dangers of the creeping enemy of the night. A sudden ray of
hope lit up her heart. “Had the Professor returned?” He had the keys.
It would be his way. Yes, there was the sign of his presence. And,
so, timorously moving on tip-toe, she crept down the hall in her white
robes, and barefooted. Yes, he had returned, for she had left the
study door open. It was closed now. There was a pencil of light shining
through the keyhole, and, yet, silently she stood at the door, and
listened. There was the sound of muffled blows within. A panic seized
upon her. “Thieves, thieves--at last!”
Scarcely daring to breathe, she fled, ghostlike, up the stair, and in
a wild paroxysm of fear dashed into the room at the angle of the hall,
where “Prince Djiddin” lay extended upon his couch of Oriental shawls
and cushions. He was restless, and still dreaming, open-eyed, of his
absent love.
The young man leaped to his feet as the frantic woman, with affrighted
gestures, besought his aid and protection, pointing down to the
stairway. Hardwicke’s ready nerve failed him not.
Grasping a heavy revolver from under the pillow, a mechanical
arrangement, a memory of his Indian life in the midst of untrusted
subordinates, the officer seized in his left hand the Sikh tulwar,
which was his own “property saber” of Thibetan royalty. Its naked,
wedge-shaped blade was as keen as that of a razor.
Pointing to the key, he mutely signed to the woman to lock herself in.
Then down the stair he crept, ready to face any unseen enemy. The light
streamed out from Janet Fairbarn’s open door. “Perhaps it was only old
Simpson, drunk, or trying to gain a surreptitious entrance,” he mused.
But the woman had pointed to the light and the keyhole of the door.
“Some one is in the old man’s study!” Yes! There was the little
tell-tale pencil of light flickering on the darkened wall opposite. And
Hardwicke scented danger. “Was it Alan Hawke?”
Light-footed as the panther, the young soldier crept to the heavy oaken
door. A moment in his crouching position showed to him a man, with his
back toward him, raising one of the great red tiles of the study floor.
Yes! There was only a moment of suspense, for the tile was slid aside,
and a package was then eagerly clutched. With one mighty leap, the Major
bounded to the man’s side as the door swung open. The cold steel
muzzle pressed the ruffian’s temple as Hardwicke’s hand closed upon
the burglar’s throat. There lay the sealed canvas package, covered
with official Indian seals. In an instant, the Major’s knee was on the
scoundrel’s breast.
“One single sound, and I blow your brains out!” hissed the disguised
Englishman. And, astounded at the apparition of a stalwart Hindu
warrior, Jack Blunt’s teeth chattered with fear. Dragging the
half-throttled wretch to his feet, Hardwicke tore off the sash of his
Indian sleeping robe and bound the villain’s arms behind him. Picking up
his saber, he then cut the bell cord and lashed the fellow’s legs to a
chair. Then, giving the canvas package a closer glance of inspection,
Hardwicke pressed the edge of his tulwar to Jack Blunt’s throat, when
he had closed the window, half raised, and shut the shutter so neatly
forced with a jimmy. “What’s in that package?” he said, with a sudden
divination of Alan Hawke’s overmastering influence.
“A lot of valuable jewels,” the sneaking ruffian answered. “If you’ll
turn me loose, I’ll now save what’s dearer to you than all this diamond
stuff that I was sent for. I’ve watched you here for three weeks. You’re
after the girl. By God! Hawkes got her now!”
“Do you speak the truth?” said Hardwicke. “If you deceive me, I’ll
butcher you! Speak quickly! You’ve got just one chance to save
transportation for life now!”
The coward thief muttered: “The old man is on his way back from St.
Heliers, and Hawke’s got a dozen French fellows to run the girl off and
perhaps ‘do up’ the old man. But he wanted this same stuff. He’s a downy
cove!”
While Jack Blunt worked upon the lover’s fears, “Prince Djiddin’s”
hands, on an exploring tour, drew out a knife and two revolvers from the
captured burglar’s wideawake coat. He picked up the bulky bundle which
the thief had dropped, and saw the bank seals of Calcutta and the
insurance labels thereon. “I’ll give you a show. Keep silent!” cried
Hardwicke as he cut the cords on the fellow’s legs. Then grasping him
by the neck, he dragged him bodily to the door of the “Moonshee’s” room,
where he thrust him in. Then he locked the door, and knocking on his
own, induced the frightened Janet Fairbarn to open at last. The poor
woman screamed as “Prince Djiddin” calmly said: “Go and rouse up the
girls. Send one of them to bring the gardener and his two men over here.
I’ve got the thief locked up.”
“My God! who are you?” screamed the affrighted Scotswoman, as the Prince
dropped into English.
“I’m an English officer, madam. Don’t be a fool. Rouse these people.
There’s been one crime already committed, and there may be another.
There’s no one else in the house. Get the three men over here at once to
me. I’ll stand guard over this thief.” Then as Janet Fairbarn fled away
shrieking and yelling, Harry Hardwicke locked the recovered package in
his own trunk, which stood in his room. Bounding across the hall, he
then dragged his captive over the way and thrust him in a helpless heap
into a chair. Before Hardwicke was dressed, he had extorted the secret
of the rendezvous at the old Martello tower.
“Now, sir, no one has seen you yet,” said Hardwicke. “If you guide me
there and save her, you shall cut stick. If you betray me, then, by God,
you shall die on the spot.” A groan of acquiescence sealed the bargain,
as the three gardeners, armed with bili-hooks and pruning-knives, now
burst into the room. “One of you stay here with the women. Light up the
whole house now. Let no one leave it till I return. Now, you two, each
take a pistol. Get your lanterns, at once, and a good club each. Come
back instantly here.”
The procession was descending the stair, when there was heard a vigorous
knocking on the front door. As it opened, the excited “Moonshee”
leaped into the hallway. “What’s up?” he cried, forgetting his assumed
character. “I came over, for I had a telegram that the Stella was in
with old Fraser and Nadine. The General sent a special messenger to me.”
“Run up and get my saber and your own pistol and join me! There’s foul
play here! The house is all right! Come on, for God’s sake!” shouted
Harry Hardwicke. He led his captive by the trebled bell cord passed with
double hitches around the burglar’s pinioned arms, and the Moonshee
now leaped back--ready to take a man’s part--for he easily divined the
treachery.
Out into the wild night they hurried, leaving behind them the barricaded
“Banker’s Folly,” now gleaming with lights. “Where in hell is Simpson?”
demanded Eric Murray, as he struggled along clutching the gleaming
tulwar tightly in his hand.
“Drunk at Rozel Pier, I suppose!” bitterly answered Hardwicke. “Come
here and just prick this fellow up into a trot!”
As they hastened on, Prince Djiddin succeeded at last in convincing the
two gardeners that he was not a ghost, but a reincarnated Englishman who
had been larking disguised as a Hindu Prince. “What’s the devilish game,
anyway?” puffed out Captain Murray, still in the dark, as they struggled
on in the darkness along the road.
“Hawke has tried to kidnap Nadine!” hastily cried Hardwicke.
“My God! what’s that?” They soon came up to an overturned carriage. The
traces had been cut, and the horses and driver were not visible. The
gardener’s lantern showed to them only the insensible form of the maid,
Mattie Jones, who lay moaning in a sheer exhaustion of terror. “How far
is it to the tower?” almost yelled Hardwicke, his heart frozen with a
new terror. “They have murdered her, my poor darling!”
“The tower is now about three hundred yards away!” said the gardener, as
Hardwicke sternly dragged his reluctant prisoner along.
“On, on!” he cried. “We may even now be too late!” They were only a
hundred yards from the tower, when the sound of rapid pistol shots was
heard, wafted down the wind, and a confused sound of cries on the cliff
was wafted to them, as a dozen twinkling lantern lights appeared on the
brow of the bluff.
“It’s a rescue party!” joyously cried Murray. “Hurry! hurry on to the
tower!”
With cheering cries, the pursuers neared the old Martello tower, and
a clump of dark forms vanished quickly into the shrubbery as the three
lanterns were flashed full upon the door. Eric Murray, sword in hand,
was the first man at the entrance, as a desperate assailant leaped from
the narrow door and sprang upon him, pistol in hand. There was the
snap of a clicking lock and then the sound of a hollow groan, for the
robber’s pistol had missed fire, and Captain Murray ran the wretch
through the body with the razor-bladed tulwar!
There was a silence broken only by the trampling of approaching feet, as
Red Eric flashed the light in the face of his fallen foe, for the storm
had spent its fury and the stars were gleaming out at last.
“By God! It’s Hawke, himself!” he shrieked. “Alan Hawke, a midnight
robber!” But, Harry Hardwicke, with the two men at his back, had dashed
on into the gun-room of the old tower, leaving Murray with his prostrate
foe--empty, not a sign of any human presence.
With one wild cry Hardwicke turned to the door, “Nadine! Nadine!” he
yelled, and his voice sounded unearthly in the night winds.
And then, from over their heads, a cheery hail replied, “All right,
on deck! The lady is safe up here with me. I am Professor Hobbs, the
American. Who are you?”
“Friends! friends!” cried Hardwicke. “The house was attacked! Where is
the Professor?”
“I reckon they have carried him off!” the nasal voice of the American
answered. “If they’ve killed him it’s a great loss to science, you bet!
I’m coming down.” And while the gun-room was soon filled with a motley
crowd from Rozel Pier, Professor Alaric Hobbs long legs dropped dangling
down his rope ladder. He gazed, open-mouthed, at the anglicized Prince
Djiddin.
“Who are you--friends, also?” now demanded the astonished “Prince
Djiddin” of the rescuers.
“We are friends of Simpson!” cried the nearest. “The smugglers
bludgeoned him and then threw him off the cliff, but the banks were soft
and wet, and his heavy coat saved him. He sent us up here to the rescue,
for he crawled half a mile on his hands and knees. We’ve found the old
Professor tied to a tree over there in the bushes. They are bringing him
here. Simpson is at the ‘Jersey Arms,’ all safe.”
“See here, stranger!” demanded the American, still standing amazed,
pistol in hand, “I winged a couple of these damned robbers; they tried
their best to get the girl away from me. I’m a pretty good shot. Now,
are you a prince or a fraud? I suspicioned you from the first! If you
are a fraud, then the History of Thibet is all damned rot! I suppose
that you were just ‘girl hunting.’ The girl’s yere sweetheart. I see it
all now. Hoodwinked the old man! Who’s this fellow that you’ve got tied
up there, anyway? One of the Johnny-Bull-Jesse-James gang?”
“Why! It’s Joe Smith, our friend!” chimed out a dozen friendly voices.
Then Harry Hardwicke stepped up to the shivering wretch who stood gazing
on Alan Hawke, now propped up on a doubled-up coat, and rapidly bleeding
to death. “I’ll keep your secret, and save you yet, if you will disclose
the whole, and keep mum!” Jack Blunt nodded, and hung his head in shame.
But, on his knees beside the dying man, Eric Murray bent down his head
to listen to the final adieu of the dying wanderer, whose luck had
turned at last. “Justine Delande is to have all! The drafts, and my
money, at Granville. Murray, I’ll tell you everything now. Ram Lal Singh
murdered old Hugh Johnstone to get the jewels that Johnstone stole. The
same ones that this old scoundrel, Fraser, here, is hiding.” The red
foam gathered thickly on Hawke’s trembling lips. “Tell Major Hardwicke
all! He’s a good fellow! The knife that Ram Lal killed old Fraser with
is in my own trunk at Granville, stored in Railroad Bureau. He got in
through the window. I was in the garden, and caught him coming out. I
was watching old Johnstone, for fear he would give me the slip. I didn’t
tell--I wanted to come over here and get the jewels myself. Hang old Ram
Lal! He’s a cowardly murderer! Telegraph to the Viceroy to arrest the
jewel seller; he will break down and confess at once. Make him pay poor
Justine Delande all my drafts--Johnstone gave him that money for me to
keep me silent about the stolen crown jewels. Now--now, all grows dark!
Lift me up high--higher!” he gasped. “I played a hard game, but the luck
turned--turned at last! That woman, Berthe Louison was too much--too
much for me! Poor Justine! Tell her--tell her--” His voice grew fainter
and fainter.
“Do you know this man, Hawke?” whispered Hardwicke, forcing Jack Blunt’s
face down to the dying renegade’s glance.
“Never--saw him--before!” gasped Alan Hawke. “Poor Justine, tell her--”
and with a sighing gasp, his jaw dropped, and at their feet, the fool of
fortune lay dead, with a last lie on his lips.
“By God! He was dead game!” muttered Jack Blunt, kneeling there, by the
stiffening form of the wreck of a once brilliant Queen’s officer. He
dared not lift his craven eyes!
“He had the making of a gallant soldier in him!” cried Hardwicke, as he
turned to the American, and motioned to the rope ladder. “We must not
let Miss Johnstone see the body. Some of you run and get a ladder or
some other means to aid her descent. And rouse up the nearest farm
people. Get a carriage and bring the old Professor and maid here!”
While a dozen volunteers darted away to bring a conveyance, the rest
hastily covered Hawke’s body with their coats. The gun-room was now lit
up, and in five minutes the waylaid carriage was drawn by hand to the
door of the lonely tower. Within it lay the bruised and exhausted
old scholar, bareheaded and ghastly, in the light of the flickering
lanterns, while pretty Mattie Jones, with a shriek of terror, ran to the
side of her sweetheart, his arms still bound with Prince Djiddin’s sash.
Jack Blunt’s “swell mob” assurance stood him in good stead.
“It’s all a mistake, my girl,” bluntly said the mobs-man, feeling safe
now that Alan Hawke’s lips were sealed in death. While the old Professor
was revived with copious draughts of “usquebaugh,” Jack Blunt saw the
flash below him, on the darkened seas, of a red light above a white one.
And he heaved a great sigh of relief,
“There goes the Hirondelle now, driving along out to sea with the whole
gang,” he murmured. “Now, by God, I am safe if this yellow masquerader
only plays the man!” There was a hubbub of cackling voices, as on the
night when the geese saved Rome! Above them, on the barrack room floor
of the Martello tower, Harry Hardwicke was already holding Nadine
Johnstone’s drooping head upon his breast, while the lanky American
gazed at the strange picture before him. The girl’s arms were clasped
around her lover’s neck. “Do not leave me--not a moment!” she moaned.
Alaric Hobbs, with quick forethought, tossed his blankets down below,
with a significant gesture.
“Darling! You will be mine for life, now!” cried the happy soldier, as
he covered her shivering form with his coat. Alaric Hobbs had promptly
descended and hastened the necessary preparations for departure. “Damn
the explanations. Let’s get the whole party out of this!” he said to
Captain Murray, and then rejoined Hardwicke.
“Tell me all, quickly!” said Hardwicke. “I am a Queen’s officer and
shall telegraph to the Home Guards and send for General Wragge. I must
report this by cable to the Indian Government. There is justice yet to
be done!”
“I was taking some private star observations here,” whispered Hobbs,
bending down at Hardwicke’s warning signal. “Storm bound, I waited for
the return of my wagon at dawn. I was aroused from sleep by the sounds
of a struggle below.
“Some one had dragged this young woman screaming and wailing into the
tower below. She soon fainted. I heard the followers tell the leader of
the gang that the coachman had just cut the traces and decamped with the
horses. He then bade them gather all the gang waiting in hiding so as to
carry her down to some boat below, and then closing the door, he stood
on guard outside. They were, however, baffled. Some of the scoundrels
had taken the alarm and fled, seeing the lights of the other party
moving up from the pier. Then the desperate leader tried to lead a party
to steal a horse from the nearest farmhouse. They were busied in their
quarreling. I dropped my ladder down, and while they wrangled, cried
softly to the imprisoned woman to mount the ladder. She knew my voice
at once, as I had been a visitor at her uncle’s house. With my help, she
got up into the barrack room, and, you bet, I quickly pulled up my
rope ladder. In ten minutes more, the door was opened. The trick was
discovered. They tried a pyramid of men to reach the nine feet. But I
waited till they were all good and blown with their exertions and then,
shot a couple of them! You’ll find those fellows lingering somewhere in
the bushes. I had stowed the girl safely away in the middle of the pier,
over the doorway, between two pillars. She was game enough. I let them
just shoot away a bit. I kept my powder and lead to kill. I’ve even now
four cartridges left.
“But when you came on the ground, the whole coward gang skedaddled at
once, and the brave chap you killed got his dose for good, for he stood
his ground like a man! The girl didn’t bother me. She fainted in good
shape when the close fighting began. I was a dead winner from position.
I could have stood them off for hours!”
“You are a hero!” warmly cried Harry Hardwicke.
“Let’s all get out of this!” replied Alaric, modestly.
The American offered Hardwicke his cocktail bottle. “Let’s get her down.
I hear carriage wheels now. Would you just tell me your real name,
now, the name you use when you are not doing your ‘character’ song and
dance.” The young officer smiled at the American’s rough address.
“Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, and, this lady’s future
husband,” confidently remarked Prince Djiddin.
“Oh, yes,” grinned Alaric Hobbs, “the last part I’ll take for
gospel truth. Well, Major, I’m glad to know you.” And he then, very
practically, aided the descent of Miss Nadine Johnstone, for a dozen
stout arms now held up the ponderous old ladder which had been purposely
dislodged by the Coast Guardsmen. Alaric Hobbs surveyed his battle
ground.
“If they had only dared to use lights, I might have had a harder fight,”
chuckled Alaric Hobbs, as he descended the very last one. “Major,” said
he huskily, “I’ve got my things corraled up there, and the instruments,
and so on. Leave me a couple of men, and get your own people back now
to the Folly. I’ll ‘hold the fort’ here, till you bring the proper
authorities. Our man won’t run away now. He is ‘permanently fixed’ for a
long repose from ‘further anxieties.’”
But fiercely bristling up, old Andrew Fraser now loudly demanded to be
allowed the ordering of all. “This is an outrage,” he babbled. “You are
a cheat, a fraud, an impostor, in league with the robbers.” So, fiercely
addressing Major Hardwicke, he tried to drag away Miss Nadine Johnstone,
at whose feet the stout Mattie Jones was blubbering and wailing.
“Captain Murray,” sternly cried Major Hardwicke, “take Miss Nadine and
her maid to the Folly. Leave the two gardeners on guard. Return here
as soon as you can, for the Professor and myself. I will come over with
him. Have a horse at once saddled and bring a man to take my dispatches
to General Wragge and for London. Bring me some writing materials. This
must be reported at once.”
“Go now, dearest Nadine,” her lover implored. “I will join you at once.
Trust to me, all in all. I will never leave you again,” and then and
there, before her astounded guardian, Nadine Johnstone threw her ams
around her lover in a fond embrace. “You will come?”
“At once,” cried the Major, as he cried out hastily, “Drive on!”
Old Andrew Fraser writhed in vain in Hardwicke’s grasp. “Be quiet, you
damned old fool!” pithily said Alaric Hobbs. “They saved your life for
you!”
“You shall never darken my doors,” raged Andrew Fraser.
“I will go there to-night, and at once remove my property,” coldly
answered Hardwicke. “After that I care not to visit you, save to lead
your niece to the altar. But I will have a reckoning with you! Don’t
fear!”
“You shall never marry her,” the old pedant cried. “You shall answer to
me for this whole dastardly outrage.”
“All right,” coolly said Hardwicke. “It’s man to man, now. I will marry
your niece within a month, and, with your written permission!” And
not another single word would the disgusted Hardwicke utter--while old
Fraser clung to Alaric Hobbs, whining in his wrath. In an hour, a motley
cortege slowly left the door of the martello tower. Murray and Hardwicke
walking, armed, beside the carriage, where Mr. Jack Blunt, still bound,
was the sullen companion of the half-crazed Professor Fraser.
To the demands of “Joseph Smith’s” friends Hardwicke replied: “He will
undoubtedly be released tomorrow by the proper authorities if there is a
mistake.”
A smart groom was already half-way to St. Heliers, galloping on with
a sealed letter to General Wragge, the commander of the Channel Island
forces. “That will bring Anstruther over at once. He must act now!” said
Hardwicke. “In two days Ram Lal will be in irons at Delhi, and I think
that we will prepare a crushing little surprise for this defiant old
fool and miser, Professor Andrew Fraser.” And Red Eric Murray now
inwardly rejoiced to see the end of all his masquerading as the
Moonshee. He received a parting salute, also. “You are no gentleman, a
vile swindler, sir,” raved old Andrew, as Captain Murray allowed him to
descend and enter his own door. The “History of Thibet” fraud rankled in
old Fraser’s mind.
But the “ex-Moonshee” only smiled and politely bowed, while “Prince
Djiddin” sternly marched with his prisoner, Jack Blunt, upstairs
and then locked the doors of his apartments. It was an “imperium in
imperio.”
In the hall, he had turned and faced Andrew Fraser only to say: “I shall
await here, sir, the orders of the civil and military authorities; yes,
here, in my own room. The very moment that they take charge, I shall,
however, leave your roof. But not until then! And for your future
safety, I warn you to moderate your ignorant abuse.”
There was no sleep in the house until the gray dawn at last straggled
through the mists of night. And the sound of outcry and excited alarm
long continued, for Professor Andrew Fraser and Janet Fairbarn were
excitedly wailing over the easily detected work of the burglar, in the
old pedant’s study. The aged Scotsman ran up and down the hall, tearing
his hair and bemoaning his lost manuscripts and papers. For, he dared
not announce the loss of the stolen crown jewels!
The family coachman had already departed for Rozel Pier, to bring home
the wounded Simpson, while a doctor, summoned by the messenger from St.
Heliers, was led by Janet Fairbarn to the apartments of the heiress.
Murray and Hardwicke rejoiced in secret over the recovery of the key to
the whole deadlock--from Delhi to London! The game was now won!
At ten o’clock, a staff officer of General Wragge joined Major Hardwicke
and Captain Murray in their room, while one of the terrible army of
twelve policemen of an island populated with “three thousand cooks”
watched over the “Banker’s Folly,” and another garrisoned the old
martello tower, where Alan Hawke lay alone in the grim majesty of death.
The fox-eyed American professor “invited himself” to breakfast with
Professor Andrew Fraser and cheered the broken old man.
“Never mind, we will finish up the ‘History of Thibet’ together,” he
cried, “when these two swashbucklers are gone, and the house will be
much quieter when the girl is married off and out of the way.” But
old Andrew Fraser refused to be comforted. He sternly forbade all
communication with his ward and bitterly bewailed a further personal
loss, which he dared not explain!
“There was a suspicious French fishing-boat lately seen knocking around
Rozel,” acutely said Alaric Hobbs. “We also found the bloody trail where
they dragged their wounded away down to the beach. And so they are off
on the sea, with your valuable plunder. No one knows the dead scoundrel
up there.”
“But we will finish the Thibet history, if I have to go out there myself
and get the honest information.” Whereat old Fraser feebly smiled
and opened his heart to Alaric Hobbs at once. When a bustling country
magistrate arrived to potter around, Andrew Fraser was astounded to see
the General’s aid-de-camp lead out the man whom the two officers had
guarded, and send him off to St. Heliers under a military guard.
“Hold this man only as a suspicious person. There may be some mistake.
They say he is known at Rozel Pier as an honest man,” said the aide.
“The real robbers seem to have escaped in the boat. The dying robber did
not seem to know this person, who has undoubtedly borne a good character
for a month past at the Jersey Arms as a lodger.” It was true, and even
the befuddled Simpson, on his questioning, only could falter that he had
been attacked by three unknown footpads. He failed to make any charge
against the mute Jack Blunt. “This man is a proper, decent fellow
enough,” kindly testified the old soldier.
In vain Andrew Fraser raved to the Magistrate, demanding that Major
Hardwicke and Captain Murray should explain their past conduct. “I
am directed by General Wragge to say that he will visit you, himself,
officially, to-morrow, Professor Fraser, and he will have an important
governmental communication for you. Until then, I desire these two
gentlemen to be allowed to remain in your house. They will remove all
their luggage this evening.” And then, old Fraser, with a presage of
coming trouble, shivered in a sullen silence. Conscience smote him,
sorely.
“The lost jewels!” In fact, a handsomely appointed carriage and a
van, in the afternoon, removed all of the effects of the two pseudo
“orientals,” who, half an hour after the carriage had arrived, appeared
in their respective undress uniforms of the Royal Engineers and the
Eighth Lancers, to the dismay of old Fraser--now affrighted at his
dangerous position. There was gloom in the house now, for Miss Nadine
Johnstone flatly refused to even see her guardian a single moment! And
Simpson, alone, sat in conclave with Major Hardwicke, who had learned
privately of the secret removal of Alan Hawke’s body to St. Heliers.
Messengers, in uniform, coming and going rapidly, were hourly admitted
to Major Hardwicke’s presence, and already a pale-faced woman was on
her way from Geneva to rejoin Madame Alixe Delavigne, at the old chateau
mansion where Captain Murray only awaited the arrival of Anstruther
now ready to open his siege batteries on the man who had covered up
his brother’s crime. There was not a word to be gleaned from the
authorities, and St. Heliers was simply convulsed in a useless fever
of curiosity. Even Frank Hatton, representing the London press, was
muzzled. Not a soul was, as yet, permitted to approach the old martello
tower, where Alan Hawke had faced the Moonshee, “man to man.” A squad of
coast guardsmen sternly picketed the vicinity of Rozel Head. And a great
smuggling raid was the only accepted explanation to the public.
Captain Murray had duly reported the completion of all the Major’s
carefully matured preparations, and fled away to await the arrival of
Justine Delande and Captain Anson Anstruther.
It was a sunny morning, two days later, when Major Hardwicke descended
at Simpson’s summons, dressed in his full uniform, to the great library,
where several grave-faced visitors were now awaiting a formal interview
with the agitated Professor Andrew Fraser. The young Major’s face was
simply radiant, for Mattie Jones had just given him a letter and a
nosegay, sent by the young heiress, who had already read a dozen times
her lover’s smuggled love missive of this fateful morning.
“To-day will decide all. And you will be to-morrow as free as any bird
of the air. Then, darling, it will be only you and I, all in all to each
other forever more! I will send for you. Wait for me. Our hold on Andrew
Fraser is the deadly grip of the criminal law. He must yield.”
“The flowers are from Miss Nadine’s breast; she sent them to you, with
her dearest love,” cried Mattie, who rejoiced in the private assurance
that her own liberal-minded sweetheart was soon to be discharged
‘for lack of evidence.’ Captain Eric Murray had obtained a complete
deposition, which the magistrate representing the Parliament of Jersey
had accepted as State’s evidence, under the special orders of the Home
Office.
In Andrew Fraser’s study, the sallow face of Professor Alaric Hobbs was
seen bending over many documents and papers. He was not only busied as
a volunteer lawyer for Fraser, but was now the commentator and
collaborator of that famous interrupted work, “The History of Thibet.”
“Say! Go light now on the old man!” prayerfully whispered Alaric Hobbs,
drawing Major Hardwicke into the study. “Captain Murray is a devilish
good fellow. He is going to make this great traveler, Frank Hatton,
my friend. And you’ll both be benefactors to ‘Science,’ if you drop
masquerading and post me honestly on Thibet. You are a dead winner in
the little social game here. You get the girl--that’s all you want.
She’s a nice girl, too! I’ll make the old boy come down and be
reasonable. I helped you out, you know. You owe me a good turn, you do.”
“All right, Professor Hobbs. I believe I do owe you my wife to be. They
would have carried her off or injured her in some way,” said the now
anxious Hardwicke.
“You bet your sweet life they would!” said the strange Western savant,
more forcibly than elegantly. “They would have had the ransom of a
prince, or else they would have chucked her in the channel! That was
their game!”
In the library, General Wragge, Captain Anstruther and Captain Murray
faced Professor Andrew Fraser, whose face was as set as a stone sphinx.
His feeble heart was thumping, for the stolen jewels were not his to
return now. He cursed the day he had lied about them.
The old General gravely said: “Professor Fraser, I desire to say that
Captain Anson Anstruther represents both her Majesty’s Government and
His Excellency, the Viceroy of India. There is a magistrate waiting in
the house even now, and I recommend you to seriously consider the words
of the Captain. If you are officially brought to face your past refusal
to his just demands, I fear that you will be left, Sir, in a very
pitiable position. I will now retire until you have conferred with the
representative of the Indian Government. Remember! Once in the hands of
the authorities, your person and estate will suffer grievously if you
have conspired against the Crown.”
Andrew Fraser’s eyes were downcast as Captain Anstruther, with a last
glance at his friend, then locked the door. “Now, Sir, I repeat to you
for the last time the official demand which I made in London upon you as
executor of the late Hugh Fraser Johnstone, to surrender certain jewels
wrongfully withheld, a list of which I have furnished you, as the
property of Her Majesty’s Indian Government, and which stolen property I
now demand on this list.”
There was a long pause. “I cannot! They are not in my possession! I know
nothing whatever of them,” faintly replied the startled old miser.
“I warn you that I have a search warrant, particularly describing the
articles stolen and the place of their concealment, and a magistrate now
awaits my slightest word,” said the aid-de-camp sternly.
“Do with me as you will. You will not find them! I know nothing about
them,” faltered the desperate old man. He was safe against arrest, he
hoped.
“Then, I will serve the warrant,” remarked the Captain, as Andrew
Fraser’s head fell upon his breast. A fortune lost, and now, shame and
perhaps prison awaited him.
“One moment,” politely said Major Hardwicke. “Do not serve the warrant.
I will surrender the Crown’s property, which I have discovered under the
floor of this man’s study, where he feloniously hid them after denying
their possession.”
“Thief and deceiver!” shrieked Andrew Fraser. “You lied your way into my
house! You have now conspired against my dead brother’s estate!” He was
shaking as with a palsy in his impotent rage. “And you would rob me!”
“You hardened old scoundrel! I will give you now just half an hour,”
sternly said Major Hardwicke, “to consider the propriety of resigning
instantly your executorship of your brother’s estate in favor of your
son, Douglas Fraser. He is honest! You are unfit to control your ward!
You can also first file your written consent to the immediate marriage
of your ward, Nadine Fraser Johnstone, to myself, and apply to have your
accounts passed and approved upon your discharge as guardian upon her
marriage. This alone will save you from a felon’s cell. She shall be
free. Douglas Fraser may be made the sole trustee of her estate until
the age of twenty-one. On these two conditions alone will I consent to
veil the shame of your brother and spare you, for we have traced the
stolen jewels, step by step, with the list, the insurance, and the
delivery by Hugh Johnstone to you. If you wish to stand your trial for
complicity in the theft and concealing stolen goods, you may. General
Willoughby, General Abercromby, and the Viceroy of India have watched
these jewels on their way. And I came here only to recover them, and to
free that white slave, your poor niece!”
There was the sound of broken wailing sobs, and the three officers left
their detected wrong-doer alone. Out on the lawn, the young soldiers
joined General Wragge, who now looked impatiently at his watch. It was
but a quarter of an hour when old Andrew Fraser tottered to the front
door. “What must I do? I care not for myself!” he cried plucking at
Major Hardwicke’s sleeve. “Only save Douglas, my boy, this public
shame!”
“It rests all in your hands, Sir,” gravely answered the lover. “Shall I
call Miss Johnstone down now to have you express your consent and sign
these papers in the presence of the General?” Major Hardwicke saw his
enemy weakening, even as a child.
“Yes, yes, anything, only get her away out of my sight--out of my life!”
groaned the broken old miser, whose sin had found him out. “But, you’ll
keep all this from Douglas--the story of a father’s disgrace? I did it
all for Hugh!”
“The family honor is mine, now, Sir! I will save your niece all
suffering!” stiffly replied the Major, as he boldly mounted the stair.
Captain Anstruther led Andrew Fraser aside. “I had the papers drawn up
at once so that you would not be humiliated in public by your
obstinacy, and General Wragge will now witness them. He has offered the
hospitalities of his family to your niece until she is made a wife.”
“I am ready,” tremblingly said Professor Fraser, and in haste a singular
group soon gathered in the library. A notary and the magistrate entered
with due professional decorum.
And then, Captain Anstruther, addressing the executor, in the presence
of the gray-bearded old General, repeated the words of voluntary
resignation and surrender of all rights as guardian over Nadine
Johnstone, first taking his written consent to the marriage. There was
not a word spoken as the trembling old scholar hastily signed the papers
presented to him. Then he turned to the sweet woman clinging to Major
Hardwicke’s arm. “I’ll be thankful to ye if ye leave my home to me in
peace, as soon as ye can! Janet Fairbarn will be my representative!”
With a last glance of cold aversion at Hardwicke, he bowed to the
Commander of the forces, and then tottered across the hall to his study,
when the tall form of Alaric Hobbs hovered at the door.
“My dear child,” kindly said the old veteran General, lifting her
trembling hand to his lips, and bowing reverently, “Let me be, this day,
your father, as you are soon to be born into the service. Here, Major
Hardwicke, I give her to you to keep against the whole world, if the
lady so consents.” Nadine’s answer was an April smile, when her lover
clasped her hand, and then she hid her blushes on Hardwicke’s breast.
“Take me away forever from this horrible prison-house,” she whispered.
“Mrs. Wragge’s carriage will be here at four for you, and we will have a
little dinner en famille at seven, Miss Nadine, for you,” said the happy
General, as he jingled away, his dangling sword, jingling medals, and
waving white plume, making a gallant show. It was truly “an official
capture.”
“Now,” whispered Captain Murray to Hardwicke, “I will clear out with
Anstruther, and at once deliver over the unlucky jewels to him to be
sealed up and deposited with General Wragge until the Viceroy’s orders
are received. I’ve a cablegram that Ram Lal has been arrested.
“And I fancy Miss Nadine will be astonished at seeing two new faces
at the dinner table. Let Simpson and the maid at once pack all her
belongings, for we can not trust her with this old wreck of humanity.
He is half crazed already. I will cable and write to Douglas Fraser that
‘ill health’ forces the old gentleman to at once give up his trust. Now,
I belong, in future, only to Mrs. Eric Murray, of the Eighth Hussars. I
throw up my job as an all-round Figaro!”
“Stay a moment,” said Major Hardwicke to Captain Anson Anstruther,
when Nadine had fled away to prepare for her flitting from the unloved
granite fortress.
“When do you go over to London, Anstruther?” said Major Hardwicke, for
he now nourished a scheme of “social employment” for the brilliant staff
officers. He was short only a groomsman.
“Not till after I am married,” remarked the relative of the great
Viceroy. “I have done my duty to Her Majesty,” he laughed, “and now, I
am going to do my duty to myself!” Whereat Harry Hardwicke was suddenly
aware that Cupid carries a double-barreled gun, sometimes. In her own
apartment, Nadine Johnstone listened to Janet Fairbarn’s sobbing plaint,
as the heart-happy Mattie Jones flew around the rooms making her young
mistress’s boxes. Nadine was still in an entrancing dream of freedom,
life, and love, and the cunning Scotswoman’s plaint was all unheeded.
Major Hardwicke was announced, “upon urgent business.”
“I cannot tell you yet, darling, just how we vanquished the old
ogre,” said he. “Be brave, and remember that a feast of long-deferred
love-tidings awaits you to-night. I have already sent away all my own
luggage. A horse and a well-mounted orderly will be here at four, and
so I shall not lose you from sight even a moment until you are safe
in General Wragge’s home at Edgemere. Let the maid return alone here
to-morrow and remove all your effects we may overlook. I will dispatch
the luggage and ride after your carriage.”
“The proprieties, you know,” he laughed, as he vanished, after stealing
a kiss.
“The master’s in a woeful way,” mourned Janet. “To think of your
father’s only bairn leaving her ain house so! The master’s half daft
with his troubles, for they’ve scattered and lost the bit bookie--the
work of years!
“Though there’s the braw American scholar, tho’, to aid him now.
He hates you, my poor bairn, for your poor dead mother’s sake! It’s
afearfu’ hard heart these Frasers carried. I know them of old!”
“Do you mean to tell me that the ‘Banker’s Folly’ is really my own
house?” said Nadine, her cheek flushing crimson at the insult to the
memory of her beloved dream mother.
“In truth, it’s yer very ain, my leddy. Old Hugh bought it for his last
home,” whimpered the housekeeper.
“Then you may tell Andrew Fraser,” the spirited girl cried, “that I will
never cross the threshold again, where I have been kept under a
jailer’s lock under my own roof tree! Let him write his wishes to
Douglas--Douglas is a gentleman. I will keep silent for the sake of the
man who was a kindly brother to me on my voyage. But to Andrew Fraser,
I am dead for evermore! My life of the future has no place for a
half-crazed tyrant--the man who tried to bruise the broken heart of an
orphan of his own blood. We are strangers forevermore. And I will leave
old Simpson here as my agent to keep the possession of this place in my
name. I will write Douglas, so that his old father may live out his days
here in peace!”
With a stately tread, the lonely girl descended the stair, when Major
Harry Hardwicke tapped at her door, gently saying: “The carriage waits
below. And--some one waits there to cheer you on your way onward to
Life and Love! Remember, I follow on at once.” Nadine Johnstone sprang
lightly into the carriage. With a gentle art, the soldier turned away
his head and quickly cried, “Drive on!” when the door closed. The
orderly at a sign followed the closed vehicle. It was a sweet surprise.
Love’s coup de main!
Nadine Johnstone never turned her head toward the dark martello tower,
for a woman’s arms were now clasped around her, and loving lips pressed
her own. “Free at last, my own darling! Free!” cried Alixe Delavigne, as
she strained her gentle captive to her bosom. “My own poor darling! Now,
we shall never be parted! My darling! My Valerie’s own image!”
“And, my mother?” faltered the lovely girl, the sunrise of hope flooding
her cheek with affection’s glow of dawn. “My sister--your mother--looks
down from Heaven upon us, joined after many years!” sobbed Alixe. A
softer pillow never had maiden’s head than Alixe Delavigne’s throbbing
bosom.
“Did you not feel in your heart that love led me to your side, my
darling? That I crossed the wide world to find you, and to fight my way
to your heart?” murmured Alixe.
“Ah! Justine always said there was a marvelous resemblance!” faltered
Nadine. “She must be sent for now! At once! Poor Justine!”
“She waits for you, even now, at Edgemere! I must save you, now, from
hearing the story of strangers!” said Alixe, taking the girl’s trembling
hands. “Major Hardwicke telegraphed to her at Geneva, in your name, to
come on here at once. For, while we have sunshine mantling around us,
she, alone, must follow Alan Hawke’s body to an unknown grave.”
“Is he--that terrible man--indeed dead?” gasped Nadine.
“You passed his body that night when they led you from the tower,”
gravely said Alixe. “He fell, fighting as a criminal, by the hand of
Captain Murray, who struck only to save your liberty, and his own life.
The civil authorities will not unveil the dark past of a man who once
wore the Queen’s uniform in honor. General Wragge and the authorities
have softened the blow to Justine Delande, whom he would have made his
dupe. You must only know this, darling, from me--from me, alone! And
so, to shield poor, faithful Justine, we will all leave Jersey at once.
Strange irony of fate. The Viceroy has cabled that Ram Lal Singh has
paid over twenty thousand pounds, to be held for Justine Delande, to
whom Alan Hawke left all his dearly bought bribes; and also the money he
left hidden at Granville--jewels and notes to the value of ten thousand
pounds more. The wages of sin, even death, was all he gained, and,
strangely, through him, Justine will be shielded from penury; for she
bears a broken heart. All that she knows is of his sudden death.
“And now, darling, for I must tell you, the assassin of your father
has saved his miserable life by a full confession made to General
Willoughby. None but myself must ever tell you that your father’s
memory, your uncle’s liberty were all involved in a tangled story
of olden greed, intrigue, shame, and crime. Let the dead past rest
unchallenged. The seal of the tomb will be unbroken. And it is your
mother’s tender love that will gild your bridal. Let me be your sister
forever. None but you and I must know the history until others have a
right to it.”
“Has--has Harry told you of our coming marriage?” faltered Nadine,
hiding her head in her kinswoman’s breast. There were fleeting blushes
as rosy as the Alpenglow now tinging her pale cheek. Nadine Johnstone
saw her new-found sister now glowing in a woman’s gentle triumph. She
had a secret of her own!
It was Alixe’s turn to beg a fond heart’s throbbing sympathy when she
whispered, “General Wragge advises and the Viceroy insists that we
leave the island at once. Captain Anstruther must soon report to His
Excellency the Viceroy at Calcutta, for his promotion to a Majority
takes him back to his kinsman’s suite. The Earl has been honored with
the control of Her Majesty’s Embassy at Paris. And so,” the words came
slowly in trembling whispers, “both Anson and Harry have applied for
‘special licenses,’ and there will be two marriages at Edgemere, instead
of one. Anson gave you to me, through a strange romance, and he demands
to be my loving jailer!
“In three days we can all leave for London. Justine Delande has finished
her solemn duty even now, with General Wragge as sole escort. It was the
only way to hoodwink useless public gossip.”
“And will we be then so soon separated?” cried Nadine, clinging to her
kinswoman, in a tremble of yearning love. “For you must go out with your
husband to India. You must tell me of my mother, her life, her home, and
I must see where she lies.”
“Ah, my darling,” said Alixe, “we will all go on to my home--your home,
at Jitomir, my castle in Volhynia. Your own yet to be. There, Anson
and I will leave you and Major Hardwicke for your honeymoon. There, my
dearest child, where your own mother’s sweet face still looks down from
the walls. Where the Russian violets and Volhynian forget-me-nots bloom
around her tomb, where you will see her name carved in the memorials of
a princely line as ‘Valerie, Princess Troubetskoi.’ There, I will tell
you the whole story.”
An April rain of loving tears silenced the girl’s voice, as she looked
out of the carriage window, and saw Major Hardwicke riding after them.
“Tell me no more, now, Darling Alixe,” murmured Nadine, “I must have
peace--even in this moment of happiness!” Her thoughts went back to the
day when Harry Hardwicke had ridden “Garibaldi” straight to the rescue,
in her moment of deadly peril, and his saber had fended off the huge
cobra. And so, they journeyed on silently-linked in love, dreaming
tender dreams.
In the western skies, the sun was sinking over the purpled sea, as they
drove down to Edgemere, and the glow of the dying day lingered upon the
beautiful hills of Jersey. For the wild storm was quieted and the sea
shone as a sapphire zone. Golden gleams lit up stern old Mount Orgueil
and gray Fort Regent, and tenderly tinted the rugged outlines of the
moss-grown Elizabeth Castle. All nature dreamed in the peaceful, even
fall. On the sea, white sails were flitting afar, and the swift steamers
passed grandly on toward their distant havens. There was a group
gathered in the splendid gardens of Edgemere as General Wragge gallantly
advanced.
The silver-haired veteran graciously surrendered his command, as he
aided his guests to alight. “This is to be ‘Bride’s Hall,’ and not a
‘place of arms’! You are now joint commanders, and so make the best use
of your three days liberty! I give up my sword!”
That night, while Nadine Johnstone sat in a heart exchange of confidence
with Justine Delande and the fair woman--no longer Berthe Louison--while
Flossie Murray was playing hostess with Mrs. Wragge, General Wragge,
Major Hardwicke, Captain Anstruther, and the now full-fledged Benedict,
Eric Murray, gave some pithy parting counsels to Jack Blunt, “Gentleman
Jack,” of the London Swell Mob. “Only a mere fluke, and, our desire to
save a family needless pain, protects you,” said Hardwicke. “These five
hundred pounds will enable you to reach America. I venture to advise you
to avoid landing on English soil hereafter! You certainly owe something
to your plucky, dead comrade, who generously lied, even in death, to
save you from transportation!” With a sullen brow, Jack Blunt departed
the next morning on the Granville steamer, and, only when in the safe
hiding of Etienne Garcin’s Cor d’Abondance did he dare to breathe
freely. There were two sorely wounded lodgers already lying there, who
cursed the unerring aim of the vivacious and eccentric Alaric Hobbs
of Waukesha. They had told the landlord their tales over cognac
and absinthe, and Jack Blunt vainly tried to comfort the sloe-eyed
Angelique, who mourned for the unreturning visitor who had sprung over
the easily-stormed battlements of her mobile heart. “Il etait bien beau,
cet homme la! Il m’aimait beaucoup! Je le regretterai toujours! C’etait
un vrai gaillard!”
Which heartfelt tribute from a nameless wanton served for epitaph to the
man lying in an unmarked grave in the soldiers plot at Fort Regent. With
gnashing of teeth did Garcin and Jack Blunt discover that H. R. M.’s
Consul had officially aided Justine Delande to remove the valuable
deposits of the dead adventurer.
“The whole thing was a dead plant on us. Luck turned against him at
last!” growled Blunt, as they counted up the cost of the bootless cruise
of the Hirondelle. And only Justine Delande’s bitter tears flowed in
silence to lament the bold adventurer who had lost the game of life!
It was at Rosebank that the three brides were assembled for a sweet
review after the quiet double marriage at Edgemere, which caused General
Wragge’s rugged face to wreathe in honest smiles of delight.
And there was no rice left in the General’s military supplies, “when the
bridal parties drove away in great state to the Stella.”
A curious congratulatory visit from Professor Alaric Hobbs led to the
extending of an invitation by Captain Anstruther for the lanky American
scientist to visit him in India.
“We owe you a debt of gratitude,” laughed Anstruther, “for you helped
Hardwicke to his wife. She helped me to mine, and I will see that the
Indian Government gives you an official safe conduct to Thibet, where
you can see the real line of the Dalai-lamas, and I’ll furnish you a
veritable ‘Moonshee’ free of charge. You shall be the very ‘Moses’ of
Yankee investigators! You deserve it!”
“Now you talk horse sense,” said the alert Yankee. “I’m going out to
‘square things’ with old Andrew Fraser’s son. Don’t ever kick a man when
he’s down! The old boy has had a very ‘rough deal.’ That ‘fake’ about
Thibet nearly broke him up. And I’ve a commission from the Buggin’s
Literary Syndicate, of Chicago, to ‘write up India.’ I shall take a hack
at Egypt on my way home, and perhaps ride over to Persia, then get into
Merv and Tashkend, and come back by Astrakhan into ‘darkest’ Russia, and
return home. I shall also write some spicy letters to the Chicago Howler
and the New York Whorl. I tell you, Cap,” said Alaric Hobbes, slapping
Anstruther familiarly on the back, “you three military men have
certainly fitted yourselves out with tiptop wives! I am going to make
a pretty good money haul myself on this trip. I’ll look you up later in
Calcutta. Would like to see the Viceroy. He was a ‘brick’ when he was
Governor-General of Canada. So I’ll get young Douglas Fraser fixed
up all in good trim, and when I get home and have published my books,
settle down and marry a little woman I’ve had my eye on for some time. I
will go in for a family life, you bet!”
“Look out that you don’t lose her,” laughed Hardwicke.
“I will not get left, you bet!” cried Hobbes. “Now, I’m going to vamoose
the ranch. I think that I may have killed one or two of that gang, and I
don’t fancy the ‘monotonous regularity’ and ‘salubrious hygiene’ of your
English prisons.”
And so, “his feet were beautiful on the mountains,” as he went out on
his queer life pathway.
After the week of quiet at Rosebank, Captain Eric Murray was hugely
delighted to receive his orders to take charge of all Anstruther’s
confidential work, in England, until the Viceroy should be pleased to
otherwise direct. “I think that a garrison life here, with Miss Mildred
as commander, will just suit you and Madame Flossie?” laughed the kindly
conspiring aide-de-camp, anxious to be away on his road to Jitomir,
“personally conducted” by the brilliant Alixe.
The Horse Guards were “pleased to intimate” that Major Harry Hardwicke,
Royal Engineers, should be allowed “such length of leave” as he chose to
apply for, and a secret compliment upon his “gift to the Crown” of the
recovered property was supplemented by a request to name any future
station “agreeable at present” to the young Benedict. And the solicitors
had now deftly arranged the complete machinery of the care of the great
estate, until the orphan claimed her own.
While Jules Victor and Marie prepared Madame Anstruther for her state
visit of triumph to Volhynia, Hardwicke and Anstruther soon closed up
all their reports to Calcutta. With due cordiality, the unsuspicious
Douglas Fraser had wired his congratulations to his gentle cousin; and
General Willoughby, and His Excellency, the Viceroy, were also heard
from, in the same way. It was the gallant General Abercromby who spread
the news of Anstruther’s marriage in the club. “Ah!” he enthusiastically
cried, “A monstrous fine woman--came near marrying her myself!” which
was a gigantic “whopper!”
Justine Delande accompanied the happy quartet to Paris, and there, being
joined by her sister, the faithful Swiss sisters remained as guests
of Madame Berthe Louison, awaiting the return of the wanderers from
Jitomir. The Murrays gayly escorted the quartet of lovers to Paris, and,
the laughing face of the gallant “Moonshee” was the very last the four
lovers saw, as the Berlin train left the “Gare St. Lazare.”
Mr. Frank Halton, in his capacity of “journalist in general,” had neatly
stifled all comment upon the strange events in Jersey, with the aid of
the stern General Wragge and the startled civil authorities. “I think
that I had better present you with all the property costumes of Prince
Djiddin and the ‘Moonshee,’” laughed Halton. “We accept on the sole
condition that you will make us a visit at Jitomir, and experience a
Russian welcome,” cried the Anstruthers in chorus. “The Russian bear has
a gentle hug, when his fur is stroked the right way!”
Justine and Euphrosyne Delande drove back happy-hearted to No. 9 Rue
Berlioz, for the beautiful brides had claimed them both as future
colonists of Volhynia, when the mill of Minerva ceased to grind to their
turning.
“We have agreed to own Jitomir in common, as we have both ‘joined the
army,’” laughed the kinswomen. “There is a permanent home for you both,
already awaiting you, and a welcome which time will not wear out. For
Jitomir shall be, now and in the future, a temple of Life and Love, the
headquarters of a happy clan.”
And, so, linked in love, the kinswomen voyaged to the far domain where
a mother had sobbed away her life, hungering for a sight of her child’s
face. The men, grave with the secrets of the troubled past, wondered
over the strange meeting at Geneva which had undone all of Hugh Fraser’s
secretly plotted wiles. “We must never cast a shadow upon Douglas
Fraser,” they mused. “Let the dead past bury its dead, and all sin,
shame, and sorrow be forgotten. For this once, the innocent do not
suffer for the guilty.”
There was only left behind them a broken old man, wandering
disconsolately around the halls of the Banker’s Folly and vainly turning
the leaves of his unfinished “History of Thibet.”
Janet Fairbarn, tenderly nursing the now childish old pedant, vainly
soothed him, and fanned his flickering lamp of life in the silent
wastes of the Banker’s Folly. But the half-crazed scholar refused to be
comforted and called in his mental despair ever for “the Moonshee.”
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg’s A Fascinating Traitor, by Richard Henry Savage