“I have found out where was hid the ‘Lake of Wine.’”
Tuke, withdrawn into his dining-hall, was sprung to his feet and faced
his serving-man with wide eyes. He, the latter, was all hurried and
high-strung. His lips looked as if his teeth were chattering.
“God forgive me, sir,” he said, “and grant me no break in your favour.
I would, in His holy name, the bugbear had not risen again to vex us.
But so it is, and I must do my duty by acquainting you of the
particulars.”
“Why, man, what’s all the to-do? You are not about to convict
yourself?”
“Only of carelessness or stupidity, sir, before Heaven. I might have
guessed, had I the wit of a mouse. But her cranks and her whimsies,
poor soul, have been little inviting to my soberer tastes, and----”
“Whose cranks?”
“My sister Darda’s.”
“Has she revealed the hiding-place?”
“She has known it all along, from near the time when she first brought
the deadly thing into her collection.”
“Now, Dennis, will you craze me by assuming so much of intuition on my
part? Out with it all, man! To what are you alluding?”
“To _it_, sir--that gallows relic.”
“The skull, do you mean?”
“Yes, yes,” was the low answer.
“And what of it?”
“It is hid therein.”
A pregnant pause fell between the two.
“Now,” said the master presently, “give me the whole history as plain
as you can speak.”
The man looked up appealingly. Some strange knowledge or emotion was
impeding his every effort at an explanation. But at last he forced
himself to speech.
“I have noticed her very strange of late--ever since--I have noticed
her very strange, sir. Her soul seemed caught in a deeper thrall than
she had known before. Somehow there has appeared more of the woman in
her eyes and less of madness. To-day, in the dusk afternoon, she came
upon me out of your library, sir, where she was at work. ‘Dennis,’ she
said, all in a moment, ‘isn’t there a love that can be bribed with
gifts of jewels?’ I answered the poor wench laughing--‘Oh, yes; no
doubt there was.’ ‘Tell him,’ she said--‘tell him, your master, that I
know where the great ruby is hid. I said so once to him before; but
then it was for hate and he should know nothing. Now he shall learn
the truth if he will.’”
“I remember something of it. Go on.”
“‘Tell him I said to you,’ she went on, ‘that the chalky dead eye of
the skull is the jewel itself, and that the eye-socket is its
hiding-place.’”
Tuke drew himself back, uttered a great sigh, and stood staring.
“Oh, sir,” continued the man, “I was as wildly incredulous of it as
you. Much more she said, and that I am fain not to injustice the poor
wench by repeating. But on the main point she was firm.”
“That the very dead eye of the horror was the ‘Lake of Wine’ itself?”
“Yes. And--oh! sir, when at last I came to think of the living
highwayman as I knew him; of his resourceful cunning and ingenuity; of
how, in my memory of him, this fixed and protruding eye, painted into
the semblance of a real one, stood out horribly, under the nerveless
lid, I was forced to the conclusion that she spoke right, and had been
all these years the solitary warder of the secret.”
“Why did she hold, nor ever reveal it? How could she guess it was
there? And why, being there, did it not escape when the head fell?”
“Sir, sir, think! She is mad. She would penetrate and maintain such a
secret with every artifice. As to the stone’s breaking away, the skin
was all contracted and toughened about it like leather.”
“Dennis--this is an insane idea! And yet--why, great God! the skull’s
gone!”
He stared blankly at his man.
“Oh!” he murmured in a moment, “if by any chance there is truth in
this--if the wild story is no bogle of the girl’s distemper--how my
own peevishness and cruelty react upon myself!”
He took the other by the shoulder.
“Dennis,” he said, “you have your revenge at last.”
“No, no, no!”
“Then, where is the skull? What have you done with it?”
The man hesitated.
“Did you burn it, destroy it?” cried Tuke. “Speak out, man! I am the
only one to blame.”
“I did not destroy it, sir. I----”
“Yes, yes. Oh, out with it, in the devil’s name!”
“I gave it to the woman, and she took it away.”
“The woman? What--? Ah! you mean the gipsy I saw you in talk with.”
It all recurred to him in a moment--the stolen interview; the bundle
passed from one to the other.
“Where is she?” he said faintly. “Do you know where she is?”
“I--yes, sir. I could lead you to the wild place she inhabits.”
“You must do so,” said Tuke eagerly. “I have done an unwitting wrong
to a great sufferer. Dennis, you will lead me to her, won’t you? and
help me to the recovery of this accursed stone?”
“Sir, it is accursed, I think; but I will lead you to her.”
“Good fellow!--But why did you make her its custodian? What did she
want with it; and has she it still?”
“I will answer for her, with her life, in that.”
He looked strange, and his master as strangely on him.
“What did she want with it?” repeated the latter.
“Sir, sir--how can I say? Perhaps for memory of a great criminal, God
forgive him! I implore you not to force me to an answer.”
Tuke scarcely seemed to heed him, or his obvious distress. His vision
was lost in pre-occupation.
“Wait!” he said, as if talking to himself. “We must take Luvaine into
our confidence before we go further. It is his right to know all; and
he must judge me fairly. Be quiet and secret, my good fellow, and
don’t touch upon this subject again without my invitation.”
He dismissed his servant, and sat for an hour in the red fire-light
deeply pondering. The snow pricked and rustled on the casement, as he
dreamed by the still glowing hearth. A stealthy noise of mice was
behind the wainscot, and through all the house the stealthy tread of
unseen things wandering about the ghostly rooms overhead. One of these
seemed to reveal itself--here, at his feet. It crept in very quietly,
its white bosom heaving, its hair like a flame of autumn mist, and put
warm lips to his hand as it hung slackly, and seized and held it a
moment against its soft neck--and so went silently the way it had
come.
By and by he roused himself, and looked up with a smile, half-comic
and half-pitiful.
“For a country squire of particular morals,” he murmured, “I am quite
unduly St. Anthonied by these visions. Did ever man so pay the penalty
of his weakness?”