TELLS HOW A WORD WAS CRIED THROUGH THE PAVILION WINDOW
The recollection of that afternoon will always be graven on my mind.
Northmour and I were persuaded that an attack was imminent; and if it
had been in our power to alter in any way the order of events, that
power would have been used to precipitate rather than delay the critical
moment. The worst was to be anticipated; yet we could conceive no
extremity so miserable as the suspense we were now suffering. I have
never been an eager, though always a great, reader; but I never knew
books so insipid as those which I took up and cast aside that afternoon
in the pavilion. Even talk became impossible as the hours went on. One
or other was always listening for some sound, or peering from an
upstairs window over the links. And yet not a sign indicated the
presence of our foes.
We debated over and over again my proposal with regard to the money; and
had we been in complete possession of our faculties, I am sure we should
have condemned it as unwise; but we were flustered with alarm, grasped
at a straw, and determined, although it was as much as advertising Mr.
Huddlestone's presence in the pavilion, to carry my proposal into
effect.
The sum was part in specie, part in bank paper, and part in circular
notes payable to the name of James Gregory. We took it out, counted it,
enclosed it once more in a despatch-box belonging to Northmour, and
prepared a letter in Italian which he tied to the handle. It was signed
by both of us under oath, and declared that this was all the money which
had escaped the failure of the house of Huddlestone. This was, perhaps,
the maddest action ever perpetrated by two persons professing to be
sane. Had the despatch-box fallen into other hands than those for which
it was intended, we stood criminally convicted on our own written
testimony; but as I have said, we were neither of us in a condition to
judge soberly, and had a thirst for action that drove us to do
something, right or wrong, rather than endure the agony of waiting.
Moreover, as we were both convinced that the hollows of the links were
alive with hidden spies upon our movements, we hoped that our appearance
with the box might lead to a parley, and perhaps a compromise.
It was nearly three when we issued from the pavilion. The rain had taken
off; the sun shone quite cheerfully. I have never seen the gulls fly so
close about the house or approach so fearlessly to human beings. On the
very doorstep one flapped heavily past our heads, and uttered its wild
cry in my very ear.
"There is an omen for you," said Northmour, who, like all freethinkers,
was much under the influence of superstition. "They think we are already
dead."
I made some light rejoinder, but it was with half my heart; for the
circumstance had impressed me.
A yard or two before the gate, on a patch of smooth turf, we set down
the despatch-box; and Northmour waved a white handkerchief over his
head. Nothing replied. We raised our voices, and cried aloud in Italian
that we were there as ambassadors to arrange the quarrel; but the
stillness remained unbroken save by the sea-gulls and the surf. I had a
weight at my heart when we desisted; and I saw that even Northmour was
unusually pale. He looked over his shoulder nervously, as though he
feared that some one had crept between him and the pavilion door.
"By God," he said in a whisper, "this is too much for me!"
I replied in the same key: "Suppose there should be none, after all?"
"Look there," he returned, nodding with his head, as though he had been
afraid to point.
I glanced in the direction indicated; and there, from the northern
quarter of the Sea-Wood, beheld a thin column of smoke rising steadily
against the now cloudless sky.
"Northmour," I said (we still continued to talk in whispers), "it is not
possible to endure this suspense. I prefer death fifty times over. Stay
you here to watch the pavilion; I will go forward and make sure, if I
have to walk right into their camp."
He looked once again all round him with puckered eyes, and then nodded
assentingly to my proposal.
My heart beat like a sledge-hammer as I set out walking rapidly in the
direction of the smoke; and, though up to that moment I had felt chill
and shivering, I was suddenly conscious of a glow of heat over all my
body. The ground in this direction was very uneven; a hundred men might
have lain hidden in as many square yards about my path. But I had not
practised the business in vain, chose such routes as cut at the very
root of concealment, and, by keeping along the most convenient ridges,
commanded several hollows at a time. It was not long before I was
rewarded for my caution. Coming suddenly on to a mound somewhat more
elevated than the surrounding hummocks, I saw, not thirty yards away, a
man bent almost double, and running as fast as his attitude permitted
along the bottom of a gully. I had dislodged one of the spies from his
ambush. As soon as I sighted him, I called loudly both in English and
Italian; and he, seeing concealment was no longer possible, straightened
himself out, leaped from the gully, and made off as straight as an arrow
for the borders of the wood.
It was none of my business to pursue; I had learned what I wanted--that
we were beleaguered and watched in the pavilion; and I returned at once,
and walking as nearly as possible in my old footsteps, to where
Northmour awaited me beside the despatch-box. He was even paler than
when I had left him, and his voice shook a little.
"Could you see what he was like?" he asked.
"He kept his back turned," I replied.
"Let us get into the house, Frank. I don't think I'm a coward, but I can
stand no more of this," he whispered.
All was still and sunshiny about the pavilion as we turned to re-enter
it; even the gulls had flown in a wider circuit, and were seen
flickering along the beach and sand-hills; and this loneliness terrified
me more than a regiment under arms. It was not until the door was
barricaded that I could draw a full inspiration and relieve the weight
that lay upon my bosom. Northmour and I exchanged a steady glance; and I
suppose each made his own reflections on the white and startled aspect
of the other.
"You were right," I said. "All is over. Shake hands, old man, for the
last time."
"Yes," replied he, "I will shake hands; for, as sure as I am here, I
bear no malice. But remember, if, by some impossible accident, we should
give the slip to these blackguards, I'll take the upper hand of you by
fair or foul."
"Oh," said I, "you weary me."
He seemed hurt, and walked away in silence to the foot of the stairs,
where he paused.
"You do not understand," said he. "I am not a swindler, and I guard
myself; that is all. It may weary you or not, Mr. Cassilis, I do not
care a rush; I speak for my own satisfaction, and not for your
amusement. You had better go upstairs and court the girl; for my part,
I stay here."
"And I stay with you," I returned. "Do you think I would steal a march,
even with your permission?"
"Frank," he said, smiling, "it's a pity you are an ass, for you have the
makings of a man. I think I must be _fey_ to-day; you cannot irritate me
even when you try. Do you know," he continued softly, "I think we are
the two most miserable men in England, you and I? we have got on to
thirty without wife or child, or so much as a shop to look after--poor,
pitiful, lost devils, both! And now we clash about a girl! As if there
were not several millions in the United Kingdom! Ah, Frank, Frank, the
one who loses this throw, be it you or me, he has my pity! It were
better for him--how does the Bible say?--that a millstone were hanged
about his neck and he were cast into the depth of the sea. Let us take a
drink," he concluded suddenly, but without any levity of tone.
I was touched by his words and consented. He sat down on the table in
the dining-room, and held up the glass of sherry to his eye.
"If you beat me, Frank," he said, "I shall take to drink. What will you
do, if it goes the other way?"
"God knows," I returned.
"Well," said he, "here is a toast in the meantime: '_Italia
irredenta!_'"
The remainder of the day was passed in the same dreadful tedium and
suspense. I laid the table for dinner, while Northmour and Clara
prepared the meal together in the kitchen. I could hear their talk as I
went to and fro, and was surprised to find it ran all the time upon
myself. Northmour again bracketed us together, and rallied Clara on a
choice of husbands; but he continued to speak of me with some feeling,
and uttered nothing to my prejudice unless he included himself in the
condemnation. This awakened a sense of gratitude in my heart, which
combined with the immediateness of our peril to fill my eye with tears.
After all, I thought--and perhaps the thought was laughably vain--we
were here three very noble human beings to perish in defence of a
thieving banker.
Before we sat down to table I looked forth from an upstairs window. The
day was beginning to decline; the links were utterly deserted; the
despatch-box still lay untouched where we had left it hours before.
Mr. Huddlestone, in a long yellow dressing-gown, took one end of the
table, Clara the other; while Northmour and I faced each other from the
sides. The lamp was brightly trimmed; the wine was good; the viands,
although mostly cold, excellent of their sort. We seemed to have agreed
tacitly; all reference to the impending catastrophe was carefully
avoided; and, considering our tragic circumstances, we made a merrier
party than could have been expected. From time to time, it is true,
Northmour or I would rise from table and make a round of the defences;
and, on each of these occasions, Mr. Huddlestone was recalled to a sense
of his tragic predicament, glanced up with ghastly eyes, and bore for an
instant on his countenance the stamp of terror. But he hastened to empty
his glass, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and joined again in
the conversation.
I was astonished at the wit and information he displayed. Mr.
Huddlestone's was certainly no ordinary character; he had read and
observed for himself; his gifts were sound; and, though I could never
have learned to love the man, I began to understand his success in
business, and the great respect in which he had been held before his
failure. He had, above all, the talent of society; and though I never
heard him speak but on this one and most unfavourable occasion, I set
him down among the most brilliant conversationalists I ever met.
He was relating with great gusto, and seemingly no feeling of shame, the
manoeuvres of a scoundrelly commission merchant whom he had known and
studied in his youth, and we were all listening with an odd mixture of
mirth and embarrassment, when our little party was brought abruptly to
an end in the most startling manner.
A noise like that of a wet finger on the window-pane interrupted Mr.
Huddlestone's tale; and in an instant we were all four as white as
paper, and sat tongue-tied and motionless round the table.
"A snail," I said at last; for I had heard that these animals make a
noise somewhat similar in character.
"Snail be d--d!" said Northmour. "Hush!"
The same sound was repeated twice at regular intervals; and then a
formidable voice shouted through the shutters the Italian word
"_Traditore!_"
Mr. Huddlestone threw his head in the air; his eyelids quivered; next
moment he fell insensible below the table. Northmour and I had each run
to the armoury and seized a gun. Clara was on her feet with her hand at
her throat.
So we stood waiting, for we thought the hour of attack was certainly
come; but second passed after second, and all but the surf remained
silent in the neighbourhood of the pavilion.
"Quick," said Northmour; "upstairs with him before they come."