“This, gentlemen,” said Mr. Tuke, “is a quite overpowering welcome.”
He saw surrounding him a very choice variety of villainous
faces--perhaps a dozen types in all; but, if his blood ran cold, he
had a lofty fancy to attribute it to the weather.
“And why am I detained in this forcible manner,” he said, “when I come
to visit my own lodge?”
A second little griding of laughter was his response.
“Here be a mouching toff,” croaked one of the rascals that held him.
“Give us the griffin, l’utenant,” quoth another hoarsely.
“Stow your cursed babble!” yawped a voice that the captive recognized;
“and tie his hands behind him.”
He had not been able to suppress a start at the tones, though he
cursed himself for his weakness; but now he looked forward cool and
steady as the speaker faced him.
“Oh, Mr. Brander!” he said--“so you captain this amiable company? I
see, I see.”
“Why, sir,” said the pedagogue sourly, “you may have stumbled through
the fifth proposition and yet lack penetration. I have not the honour
to lead in this business.”
“Will you answer me a question?”
“Not one. Are his hands tied, you?”
“As fast as your tongue, sir, I can assure you. Mr. Corby here, whom I
recognize by his bashfulness, has spliced me as conscientiously as he
would bud a rose. How is gardening doing, Joe?”
“Get along!” said that person. “You want bedding out, you do.”
“Why, Joe, I’m with you. I never felt myself in closer quarters.”
Another squiggle of laughter greeted the sally.
“You might graft a new pair of ears to this gentleman,” said Tuke.
“He’s been lopped, it seems, for canker; and that’s a disease peculiar
to roses and curs, Joe.”
Brander’s face went furious.
“You stinking aristocrat!” he screamed. “I’ll pipe a tune for you by
and by, and you shall dance, by God!”
He stamped his foot and waved with his gaunt arms.
“Kick him into the parlour!” he shouted--“and let his wits fatten on
the frog-skins. He’ll want them in good condition presently.”
The prisoner made no resistance, and was haled rather than driven
through the doorway of the room to his right--thrust and locked in.
The shutters, it seemed, were closed, and the place--except for the
little glow diffused by a fire smouldering on the hearth--was in
darkness. Not knowing if a trap of some sort was set for him, and
being indeed considerably amazed and dumbfounded for all his fine show
of _sang-froid_, he would not venture to do more than cross cautiously
to the neighbourhood of the chimney corner, where he set his back
against the wall and awaited events with what philosophy he could
muster.
Little sound of voice or movement came to him from without. The
rogues, their ruse accomplished, assumed all the secrecy of their
profession, and to the noise of boisterous mirth succeeded some fitful
suggestions of stealthy toing and froing that it was far more
difficult to hear with equanimity.
Fortunately his trial of suspense was a short one. He had not been in
the room many minutes, when he became conscious that he was not alone.
Somebody had come in, but so softly and with so sidling an action that
he was hardly aware of the fact until he heard gentle fingers
manipulating the bolts of the shutters. The next moment the flaps were
pushed quietly open and white daylight broke into the room.
He was in Darda’s museum--that he had guessed--and advancing towards
him was a figure, very placid, very venerable--Mr. Fern, whom it
seemed a profanation to dub Jack.
The new-comer stooped a little courteous bow as he came forward.
“We are badly accommodated for seats,” he said in his mild, high
voice; “but here is a chair--or the remains of one, and a little
steadiness of posture may make it even comfortable to you. Pray avail
yourself of it.”
The gentleman laughed.
“If you will untie my hands,” he said.
“I see no difficulty, Mr. Tuke. You will of course give me your parole
not to attempt to escape.”
“Am I to be a prisoner in my own lodge?”
“I greatly fear so, sir. This quite unexpected development largely
facilitates what might have been otherwise a prolonged and tiresome
business, and we can’t afford to let you go. I will be frankness
itself, Mr. Tuke; and we really can’t afford it, sir.”
“And I will imitate your candour, and ask what the devil you, a common
thief, mean by asking a gentleman for his parole?”
“Rash blood, sir--hot, rash blood. I was older than you before I
learnt to pick my words. But, without that little one of yours, I much
fear that I shall be unable to relieve you of this temporary
inconvenience.”
“Why, zounds, Mr. Fern! You are here in force, it seems--a dozen or
more blazing cut-throats to keep the cage.”
“Honest fellows and well to be trusted, sir. At the same time you are
noted for being a gentleman of daring and resource (I must really make
you that acknowledgment), and far be it from me to risk the least of
those scenes of violence that my soul abhors.”
“Botany Bay has made you squeamish, it appears. Have you buried the
hatchet with which you killed Cutwater?”
Mr. Fern shrugged up his hands deprecatingly.
“It pains me,” he said gently, “to hear a repetition of that old
slander at this date.”
“What! you didn’t murder the miserable rogue, and help to string him
up afterwards?”
“Such an old slander, sir; and is the age of reason never to be
forgiven its youthful peccadilloes?”
“Oh! I cry you mercy, Mr. Fern. If this was a peccadillo, I can
understand your abhorring violence.”
“Harkee! Mr. Tuke. I don’t say I would have withheld my men from their
just resentment; but that I took no active part in it is the truth.”
“What sucking infants, to be sure, are you and your schoolmaster! I
shall believe just this--that Cutwater stabbed himself in twenty
places and then jumped his neck into the chains. But--to be candid
again, Mr. Fern--what an unperspicacious rascal you must have been to
kill your goose with the golden eggs.”
“Sir, there is one crime that, to my mind, cries to heaven above all
others for vengeance, and that is treachery on the part of a
confederate. What was I to hesitate, if I was chosen the minister of a
divine retribution? And now, by your leave, we will come to business.”
“What can there possibly be of that between us?”
“A little, sir--a little. The question of ransom, for instance.”
“Ransom--ransom? in the matter of a few hundreds of yards of drive?”
“What is that to the point? One may lie in Newgate and only three feet
of wall separate him from free pavement.”
“Very pertinently put; and you have all the advantage of knowing. But,
do you seriously propose, as a sane man, Mr. Fern, to place, at this
end of the eighteenth century, a gentleman’s private house under
siege?”
“I am bound to confess I do.”
“Well, you have your plans, I presume, that you are not likely to
acquaint me of.”
“Indeed, sir, you are free to know all. It is my simple intention to
force entrance, and deal summarily with any that shall oppose me in my
perfectly legitimate search.”
For a placable man, Mr. Fern’s eyes assumed a rather lurid complexion.
“I may tell you,” he said, a little loudly for him, “that I have here
a disciplined and rather unscrupulous force under my command, and that
this show of resistance on your part is neither convincing nor
judicious. Indeed, your somewhat fatuous self-confidence in thus
venturing beyond your own lines, proves you quite ill-fitted to cope
with so pregnant a situation.”
“At least you will acknowledge the house is well-defended?”
“Pooh! A mere question of gunpowder. You have Cutwater’s iron
shutters--which you have closed, of course--and a quite inadequate
company to hold them; and of this, one already, as you know, is but
now placed _hors de combat_ by a shot from an over-eager young member
of my band.”
“True, true,” murmured Tuke--“the man.”
“A man, sir, undoubtedly; and a fool to thus expose himself. What
could you do with such material, Mr. Tuke, even had you remained there
to captain it?”
“Oh! thank you, Mr. Fern. You have comforted my heart amazingly. That
Whimple is a sterling soul, and his precautions that I have laughed at
justify themselves. But who thought to put them into practice?”
The other, that was so like a Quaker in his appearance, gasped and
stared.
“Truly, sir,” he said. “I fail to comprehend you.”
“It is simple, my fatuous and over self-confident friend. You have
greatly enlightened me. I do not come from the house. I was benighted
yester-eve in the snow, and this morning, seeking to escape from my
predicament, stumbled hap-hazard upon your camp.”
“You do not come from the house!”
“On the contrary. From quite another direction.”
“And you are alone?”
“Surely that is a superfluous question?”
For the moment Mr. Fern seemed to blaze up into a rather fearful
travesty of himself. The contrast between his white hair and brick-red
face became an exceedingly baneful one. In the flashing of the fire,
however, he was his placid self again.
“This,” he said (his precise lips seemed educated, like stops, to the
exact harmonies of speech), “all redounds to our advantage. Wherever
you come from, you have fallen a very opportune hostage.”
“Ah! my friend. But it shows others than the master of the house to be
on the alert. I am not informed of the details of your attack; but no
doubt you thought to rush the place at your first assault.”
“You are absolutely right. We failed in that; but I may tell you, sir,
that any prolonged resistance there, besides necessarily proving
futile, will greatly incense my men.”
“But why necessarily futile?”
“Pooh! Mr. Tuke. We have gone over our ground long and carefully.
(Again I will be entirely open with you. Why should I not? If ever
right justified might, it does in this business.) Do you fancy I am
ignorant of the nature and capacity of your household?”
“True, true. Now, I am curious to know, Mr. Fern, how long you have
been gathered here in this force?”
“Shall we put it at seventeen hours? When the snow increased we saw
that Providence was set to favour the cause of justice, and we moved
up here by twos and threes, and were all--thirteen of us,
sir--assembled in the lodge by four o’clock of yesterday afternoon.”
“So ’twas the snow decided you?”
“Sir, I will own to you that we had thought originally to make a
simpler finish of the matter; but your unexpected return from London
disturbed our plans. However, all has worked for the best; for here we
stand in our relations of besieged and besieging, as isolated as
though we were vulture and deserted camel in the midst of Sahara. You
see your position, Mr. Tuke. There is no hope of succour from any
quarter. We have food and ammunition in abundance, and if we choose,
we can batter your house about the ears of its two or three defenders.
Already my strong fellows have been at work, cutting a path up the
drive and beyond it, and they have accounted for one of your trumpery
force. If you are wise, you will consent to treat. If you are humane,
you will forbear to sacrifice to your vanity the lives of the
unthinking few who serve you. And you have women there, Mr.
Tuke--women, sir, women! They have a fashion of thinking death not the
worst evil they can suffer.”
The captive, his heart blazing, saw the soul of this unspeakable
ruffian revealed. He would have risked all and choked him with his
hands, had these been free. As it was, he sought to play a sounder
part by hiding his repulsion.
“Now, sir,” said the white-haired man very softly, “I put my proposal
quite definitely--quite plainly, that there may be no mistaking it and
no temporizing with it. I will exchange the person of Mr. Tuke for the
stone that goes by the name of the ‘Lake of Wine,’ and, upon receipt
of the latter, will withdraw my men and leave this neighbourhood for
ever at peace.”
The other did not answer.
“You need not say,” went on Mr. Fern in the same quiet tone, “that you
have not the jewel or any knowledge of its whereabouts. That were
superfluous. I possess convincing evidence of its being concealed
somewhere in your house. Pray do not trouble yourself or me with a
denial.”
He paused for an answer. An acute observer might have noticed that his
fingers twitched a little, as though they longed to tear out by the
roots the confession he so suavely invited.
“And if I refuse your terms?” said Tuke, looking steadily at his man.
“Then I much regret it will be necessary to adopt coercive measures.”
The baronet drew himself up, the fury he had so long suppressed
glinting in his eyes.
“You brazen scoundrel!” he cried, “to dare to assume that any threat
could bring me to condone your villainy! Do your worst, you dog, and
clinch your account with the devil!”
He was starting forward, when the other went swiftly to the door,
opened it, looked back with a horrible smile, and vanished.
“And here endeth the first lesson,” said Mr. Tuke.