A MODERN INSTANCE OF AN ANCIENT PRACTICE
Skittles, when he had, apparently with an effort, mastered the nature
of Mr. Lawrence's instructions, grinned from ear to ear.
He went to where a number of iron rods with broad heads were heaped
together on a shelf. They were branding-irons. Selecting one of these,
he thrust it into the heart of the fire which glowed on the
blacksmith's furnace. He heaped fuel on to the fire. After a movement
or two of the bellows it became a roaring blaze.
Lawrence turned to Mr. Paxton--
"Still once more--are you disposed to tell us where the Datchet
diamonds are?"
"No."
Lawrence smiled. He addressed himself to the two men who held Paxton's
arms.
"Hold him tight. Now, Skittles, bring that iron of yours. Burn a hole
under Mr. Paxton's right shoulder-blade, through his clothing."
Skittles again moved the iron from the fire. It had become nearly
white. He regarded it for a moment with a critical eye. Then,
advancing with it held at arm's length in front of him, he took up his
position at Mr. Paxton's back.
"Don't let him go. Now!"
Skittles thrust the flaming iron towards Paxton's shoulder-blade.
There was a smell of burning cloth. For a second Paxton stood like a
statue; then, leaping right off his feet, he gave first a forward and
then a backward bound, displaying as he did so so much vigour that,
although his guardians retained their hold, Skittles, apparently, was
taken unawares. Possibly, with an artist's pride in good workmanship,
he had been so much engrossed by the anxiety to carry out the
commission with which he had been entrusted thoroughly well, that he
was unprepared for interruptions. However that may have been, when
Paxton moved his grip on the iron seemed to suddenly loosen, so that,
losing for the moment complete control of it, it fell down between
Paxton's arms, the red-hot brand at the further end resting on his
pinioned wrists. A cry as of a wounded animal, which he was totally
unable to repress, came from his lips--a cry half of rage, half of
agony. But the red-hot iron, while inflicting on him frightful pain,
had at least done him one good service; if it had burned his flesh, it
had also burned the cords which bound his wrists together. Exerting,
in his passion and his agony, the strength of half a dozen men, he
severed the scorched strands of rope as if they had been straws, and,
hurling from him the two fellows who held his arms--who had expected
nothing so little as to find his arms unbound--he stood before them,
so far as his limbs were concerned, free.
Once lost, he was not to be easily regained. He was quicker in his
movements than Skittles had ever been, and the latter's quickest days
were long since done. Dropping on to one knee, plunging forward under
Skittles' guard, he butted that gentleman with his head full in the
stomach, and had snatched the iron by its handle from his astonished
hands before he had fully realised what was happening. Springing with
the rapidity of a jack-in-the-box, to his feet again, he brought the
dreadful weapon down heavily on Skittles' head. With a groan of agony,
that gentleman dropped like a log on to the floor.
Armed with the heated iron--a kind of article with which no one would
care to come into close contact--Paxton turned and faced the others,
who as yet did not seem fully alive to what had taken place.
"Now, you brutes! I may be bested in the end, but I'll be even with
one or two of you before I am!"
Lawrence stood up.
"Will you? That still remains to be seen. Shoot him, Baron!"
The Baron fired. Either his marksmanship, or his nerve, or his
something, was at fault, for he missed. Before he could fire again
Paxton's weapon had crashed through his grotesquely tall high hat, and
apparently through his skull as well, for he too went headlong to the
floor. Quick as lightning as he fell Cyril took his revolver from his
nerveless grasp. Lawrence and his two colleagues were--a little late
in the day, perhaps--making for him. But when they saw how he was
doubly armed and his determined front they paused--and therein showed
discretion.
The tables had turned. The fortune of war had gone over to what
hitherto had been distinctly the losing side. So at least Paxton
appeared to think.
"Now, the question is, what shall I do with you? Shall I shoot all
three of you--or shall I brain one of you with this pretty little
play-thing, which I have literally snatched from the burning?"
If one could draw deductions from the manner in which he bore himself,
Lawrence never for an instant lost his presence of mind. When he spoke
it was in the easy, quiet tones which he had used throughout.
"You move too fast, forgetting two things--one, that you are caught
here like a rat in a trap, so that, unless we choose to let you, you
cannot get out of this place alive; the other, that I have only to
summon assistance to overwhelm you with the mere force of numbers."
"Then why don't you summon assistance, if you are so sure that it will
come at your bidding?"
"I intend to summon assistance when I choose."
"I give you warning that, if you move so much as a muscle in an
attempt to attract the attention of any other of your associates who
may be about the place, I will shoot you!"
For answer Lawrence smiled. Suddenly, lifting his hand, he put two
fingers to his lips and blew a loud, shrill, peculiar whistle.
Simultaneously Paxton raised the revolver, and, pointing it straight
at the other's head, he pulled the trigger.
And that was all. No result ensued. There was the sound of a
click--and nothing more. His face darkened. A second time he pulled
the trigger; again without result. Mr. Lawrence's smile became more
pronounced. His tone was one of gentle badinage.
"I thought so. You see, you will move too quickly. It is a
six-chambered revolver. I was aware that my highly esteemed friend had
discharged two barrels earlier in the evening, and had not reloaded. I
knew that he had taken two, if not three, little pops at you, and had
had another little pop just now. If, therefore, he had not recharged
in my absence the barrels I had seen him empty, and had taken, before
I interrupted him, three little pops at you, the revolver must be
empty. I thought the risk worth taking, and I took it."
While Cyril seemed to hesitate as to what to do next, Lawrence,
raising his fingers to his lips, blew another cat-call.
While the shrill discord still travelled through the air, Paxton
sprang towards him. Stepping back, the whistler, picking up the wooden
chair on which he had been sitting, dashed it in his assailant's face.
And at the same moment the two men who had hitherto remained passive
spectators of what had been, practically, an impromptu if abortive
duel, closed in on Paxton from either side.
He struck at one with his clubbed revolver. The other, getting his arm
about his throat, dragged him backwards on to the floor. He was down,
however, only for a second. Slipping from the fellow's grasp like an
eel, he was up again in time to meet the renewed attack from the man
whom he had already struck with his revolver. He struck at him again;
but still the man was not disabled.
Meanwhile, his more prudent companion, conducting his operations from
the rear, again got his arms about Paxton. The three went in a heap
together on the floor.
Just then the door was opened and some one entered on the scene.
Paxton did not stop to see who it was. Exercising what seemed to be a
giant's strength, he succeeded in again freeing himself from the grasp
of his two opponents. Leaping to his feet, he made a mad dash at
Lawrence. That gentleman, springing nimbly aside, eluded the
threatening blow from the clubbed revolver, delivered neatly enough a
blow with his clenched fist full in Mr. Paxton's face. The blow was a
telling one. Mr. Paxton staggered; then, just as he seemed about to
fall, recovered himself, and struck again at Mr. Lawrence. This time
the blow went home. The butt of the revolver came down upon the
other's head with a sickening thud. The stricken man flung up his
arms, and, without a sound, collapsed in an invertebrate heap.
The whole place became filled with confusion and shouts.
With what seemed to be a sudden inspiration, swinging right round,
with the branding-iron, which he had managed to retain in his
possession, Paxton struck at the hanging lamp, which was suspended
from the ceiling. In a moment the atmosphere began to be choked by the
suffocating fumes of burning oil. A sheet of fire was running across
the floor. Heedless of all else, Paxton rushed towards the door.
Such was the confusion occasioned by the disappearance of the lamp,
and by the appearance of the flames, that his frantic flight seemed
for the moment to be unnoticed. He tore through the door, up a narrow
flight of steps rising between two walls, which he found in front of
him, only, however, to find an individual awaiting his arrival at the
top. This individual was evidently one who deemed that there are cases
in which discretion is the better part of valour, and that the present
case was one of them. When Paxton appeared, instead of trying to
arrest his progress, he moved hastily aside, evincing, indeed, a
conspicuous unwillingness to offer him any impediment in his wild
career. Paxton passed him. There was a door in front of him. In his
mad haste, throwing it open, he went through it. In an instant it was
banged behind him; he heard the sound of a bolt being shot home into
its socket, and of a voice exclaiming with a chuckle--on the other
side of the door!--
"Couldn't have done it better if I'd tried, I couldn't! Locked hisself
in--straight he has!"
Too late Paxton learned that, to all intents and purposes, that was
exactly what he had done.
The place in which he found himself was pitchy dark. He had supposed
that it might be a passage leading to a door beyond. It proved
to be nothing of the kind. It seemed, instead, to be some sort of
cupboard--probably a pantry--for he could feel that there were shelves
on either side of him, and that on the shelves were what seemed to be
victuals. Though narrow, by stretching out his arms he could feel the
wall with either hand; it extended, longitudinally, to some
considerable distance--possibly to twenty feet. At the further end
there was a window. It was at an inconvenient height from the floor,
and directly under it was a shelf. On this shelf, so far as he was
able to judge, was an indiscriminate collection of pieces of crockery.
The shelf, however, was a broad one, and, disregarding the various
impedimenta with which it seemed to be covered, by clambering on to it
he was brought within easy reach of the window. It was a small one,
and had two sashes. Had the sashes not been there, there might have
been sufficient space to enable him to thrust his body through the
frame. They were of the ordinary kind, moving up and down, and, in
consequence, when they were open to their widest extent, only half the
window space was available either for ingress or for egress.
He did throw up the lower sash as far as it would go, only to discover
that it scarcely gave him room enough to put the whole of his head
outside. Taking firm hold of the framework, he tested its solidity; it
appeared to be substantially constructed of some kind of heavy wood.
Though he exerted considerable force, it could hardly be induced to
rattle. To remove it, even if it was removable, would be a work of
time and of labour. Time he had not at his command. Although he was
fastened in, his assailants were not fastened out. At any moment they
might enter; his struggles--against such odds!--would have to be
recommenced all over again.
He was conscious that the best of his strength was spent. He was stiff
and sore, weary and bewildered. Nor had he escaped uninjured. He was
covered with bruises--bruises which ached. Where the red-hot
branding-iron, slipping from Mr. Skittles' grasp, had struck against
his wrists, the flesh felt as if it had been burnt to the bone; it
occasioned him exquisite pain. No, in his present plight, recapture
would be easy. After the recent transactions, in which he had played
so prominent a figure, recapture would mean nameless tortures, if not
death outright. His only hope lay in flight, or--the thought came to
him as he was endeavouring to marshal his faculties in sufficient
order to enable him to take an impartial view of his position--in
summoning help.
Summoning help? Yes! why not? The thing was feasible. Here was the
open window. He could call through it. His cries might be heard, and
if he could only make his shouts heard by some one without the alarm
would be raised, and he would soon be rescued from this den of
thieves.
Thrusting his head out as far as possible, he shouted, with might and
with main--"Help! Murder! Help!"
He listened. He seemed to hear the faint echo of his own words
travelling mockingly, mournfully, through the silent air. Naught else
was audible. All else was still as the grave.
Nor did the prospect of his being able to make himself heard seem
promising.
He had no notion whereabouts the house in which he was so unwilling a
guest was situated. In front of him he could see nothing but open
space. There was neither moon nor stars, nor was the atmosphere
particularly clear; yet, as his eyes grew more accustomed to the
darkness, it seemed to him that he could see for miles, and that there
was nothing to be seen. There was not a light in sight; no glare of
lights upon the distant sky; the shadow neither of a house nor of a
tree. No murmur of voices; no hum of far-off traffic; not even the
unceasing turmoil of the restless sea.
Since, so far as he was able to perceive, the place seemed to be given
up to such utter and entire solitude, it struck him with unpleasant
force that it might be located in the very heart of the open Downs. In
that case it was quite upon the cards that there was not another human
habitation within miles. At night--even yet!--few places are more
deserted than the Brighton Downs. All sorts of deeds without a name,
so far as human witnesses are concerned, can be wrought thereon with
complete impunity.
If the house was really built upon the Downs, his chances of making
himself heard were remote indeed. Still, in his desperate position, he
was not disposed to give up hope without making at least another
trial. Once more he shouted "Help! Murder! Help!"
Again he listened. And this time, from what evidently was a
considerable distance, there was borne through the night what seemed
to be an answering call--"Hollo!"
Seldom was so slight a sound so grateful to a listener's ears!
With renewed ardour he repeated his shouts, with, if possible, even
greater vigour than before: "Quick! Help! Murder! Help!"
Again, from afar, there seemed to come the faint response--"Hollo!"
And at the same instant he became conscious of voices speaking
together outside the door of the cul-de-sac in which, foolishly
enough, he had allowed himself to be made, for a second time, a
prisoner.