A NIGHT OF TERROR.
"Mrs. Orban," called a voice softly--a familiar English-speaking
voice; "Mrs. Orban, are you still up?"
Mother and son fell apart, and Eustace sprang to his feet.
"Why, it is Bob!" he exclaimed in bewilderment.
"Bob!" cried his mother. "Impossible!"
"Not a bit," said Bob Cochrane, coming round into the streak of
lamplight, carrying his boots in his hands. "I just strolled over
to see if you were all right. When I got to the steps it struck me
I might startle you if I came thundering up, so I took my boots off
and crept round to find out where you were. You were so quiet I
thought you must have gone to bed and left the lights burning."
"We were talking, nevertheless, when you arrived," Mrs. Orban said,
"for I was telling Eustace a story."
"I didn't hear you," Bob said. "Probably my heart was in my mouth,
and beating so loud that it deafened me; for, of course, I knew I
carried my life in my hand."
"Your life in your hand?" repeated Eustace wonderingly.
"Certainly. I felt sure you would bound on me with a revolver the
moment you heard me, shoot me dead, and then demand an explanation.
It is the sort of ardent thing one might expect from a knight of
your order, Sir Eustace."
Bob's chaff went deeper home than he meant it to. Eustace was in no
mood for joking after the strain of the last few minutes. He hoped
with all his heart that Mrs. Orban would not betray to Bob how
terror-stricken he had just shown himself. Perhaps she understood,
or it may be that she was half ashamed of her own unnecessary
panic, for she only said,--
"It is really very good of you to have come in the face of that
grave peril, and at such an hour too."
"Well, the fact is I wanted to," Bob said in his casual way, "and
the mater insisted. I've left our old foreman sleeping in the house
for to-night, and I thought I would just turn in with Eustace, if
you don't mind."
"We shall be simply delighted," Mrs. Orban said, with a feeling of
real relief.
"The mater wants me to take you all back to the Highlands early
to-morrow," Bob went on; "you, Becky, and Eustace. She can't bear
to think of your loneliness here. Do come and stay with us till Mr.
Orban comes back."
It was the kind of thought good, homely little Mrs. Cochrane was
celebrated for. But Mrs. Orban shook her head.
"It is just like your mother to think of such a thing," she said,
"and just like her son to be her messenger so readily, but I can't
do it, Bob. I couldn't possibly leave the maids and the house to
take care of themselves. Mary and Kate would be terrified."
"Oh, bother Mary and Kate!" said Bob.
"I should be _most_ bothered if they took it into their heads to
run away and leave us, especially now that my sister is coming. No,
really, I cannot leave home, much as I should enjoy it. Your
mother, as an experienced housekeeper, will feel for me in that."
"We forgot the maids and the house," said Bob in a disappointed
tone.
"It can't be helped," said Mrs. Orban lightly; "and, indeed, we are
quite all right. There is nothing to be afraid of, and I have
Eustace.--Which reminds me, old man, hadn't you better be off to
bed? This is considerably later than I meant you to be."
"Oh but, mother," Eustace exclaimed, "what about Aunt Dorothy? I
couldn't sleep without the rest of that story."
"Oh yes, do let's have the rest of the story first," pleaded Bob.
"There isn't much left now," said Mrs. Orban. "I was only telling
him how we once lost Dorothy in a game of hide-and-seek when she
was five years old. We had been hunting the house for hours; a sort
of awful silence had fallen among us, as if we were expecting I
don't know what--"
"When close upon midnight," quoted Eustace in a mysterious voice.
"There arose the cry of a terror-stricken child--shriek upon
shriek--feeble because of the distance it was from the great hall,
where we were all mustered in shivering silence, but distinct
enough to be recognized as Dorothy's voice. I shall never forget
it--it makes me shudder now--for the panic in that child's cry was
appalling. What was being done to her? What awful pain was she in
that she should shriek in such a way? Such were our thoughts as we
hurried in a tumbling mass after father and mother. We reached the
turret stairs, and father commanded every one with lanterns to go
first and light the way. Right to the very top we went, into the
little round room we called the Watchman's Nest, and here the
sounds were loudest; but they were still muffled, and there was not
a sign of Dorothy anywhere."
"Was there any furniture for her to hide in?" asked Eustace,
looking puzzled.
"One table, one chair," said Mrs. Orban, "and a small black oak
cupboard against the inner wall--it would have just about held
Dorothy on the lower shelf. We opened it, flashed in our lanterns,
but it was black and empty. One peculiar feature there was about
it--when the cupboard door was open we heard the child more
clearly. It seemed a stupid, senseless thing to do, but down I went
on my hands and knees to feel those empty shelves, as if I imagined
Dorothy might be there in spite of our seeing nothing--invisible
but tangible. Of course there was nothing but wood to touch; but
with my head inside there, I could hear Dorothy so well I might
have been in the same room with her."
"How queer!" Eustace broke out excitedly.
"'Dorothy, Dorothy,' I shouted. 'Mother--I want mother, mother,
mother,' she shrieked. 'Where are you? Tell us where you are,' I
called. 'I want mother, mother, mother,' was the only answer.
'Mother is here,' I said; and again, 'Tell us where you are.'
Something made me feel the cupboard again, and this time I did not
only touch the shelves, but put my hand right back. 'Quick, quick!
a lantern,' I simply screamed, and half a dozen were lowered
instantly. There was no back to the cupboard on the lower shelf.
The blackness we had mistaken for the old oak was just
nothingness--a deep, deep hollow into the wall."
"Mother," Eustace cried, "a secret chamber!"
"A secret chamber that no one had ever suspected; and Dorothy it
was who had found it."
"But how?" The question came from Bob Cochrane.
"She was the most daring child I have ever known," said Mrs. Orban.
"I don't think Dorothy knew what fear meant in those days. She knew
that scarcely any one ever searched the turret, because it was
difficult to get away from, and it entered her small head to creep
up to the Watchman's Nest and into this cupboard. Whether she went
to sleep waiting for us to find her, or whether she rolled over at
once and fell down the little flight of steps into the secret
chamber, to lie there stunned, no one knows. Dorothy could not
explain herself. Anyhow, there she was, and the moment she came to
her senses and found herself in the dark she began to scream with
fright."
"But how was it no one had ever discovered the secret chamber
before?" demanded Eustace. "It seems funny."
"You would not think so if you saw the cupboard," Mrs. Orban said.
"It is a little, insignificant-looking thing--low and rather deep,
and, as we then found, built into the wall. The back of the lower
shelf was a sliding panel; and your grandfather's theory is that
the last person who used the secret chamber left the panel open.
Without nearly standing on one's head it was impossible to see the
back of the lower shelf, and no one had ever suspected such a
thing."
"O Bob, Bob, wouldn't you just like to see Maze Court?" cried
Eustace. "I shall never be happy till I do."
"I tell you you will all be off on Miss Dorothy's broomstick one of
these fine days," growled Bob. "She is a witch, and she has already
bewitched you, for you can talk of nothing but England now."
"You had better go to bed, Eustace," Mrs. Orban said with a laugh.
"Bob is getting quite fierce."
Bob left very early next day to get back to work. As Nesta and
Peter were having holidays, Eustace, of course, did no lessons, but
spent the day very contentedly helping his mother. She was busy
rearranging furniture in the room that was to be Miss Chase's, and
they scarcely sat down the whole day till evening.
"Early to bed this night, my son," said Mrs. Orban as they left the
dinner-table. "I expect you will sleep like a top."
He was looking sleepy already, and a quarter of an hour later went
very readily to his room, with a parting entreaty to his mother
that she would not sit up late.
"Not I," was the laughing rejoinder. "I promise you I will only
write one little line to father and begin my mail letter to
grannie, and then I will go to bed."
This Mrs. Orban did, and being very tired she fell asleep almost as
soon as her head touched the pillow.
For several hours a great silence reigned over the house; but even
when it was broken by the soft pad-pad-pad of bare feet creeping
stealthily round the veranda, the sleepers lay utterly unconscious.
The stairs had not creaked under the weight of this figure; it cast
no shadows, for there was no light either within the house or
without. At every window it halted, listened, peered in, as if it
had the eyes of a cat to see with in the dark.
First came the dining-room, and next it the room in which Eustace
and Peter slept. Round the corner were Mrs. Orban's room and part
of the drawing-room. At the other corner was Nesta's room, where
Miss Chase would also sleep, and next to that the servants' room.
The strange visitor made a complete tour of the veranda and reached
the stair again.
Eustace was dreaming vividly. He was out with Nesta and Becky.
Becky had been specially entrusted to their care, and they had been
told only to go a little way into the scrub. As a rule the children
were not allowed to go into the scrub without a grown-up in charge,
for there were dangers among the thick bushy undergrowth known by
this odd name. For one thing, snakes abounded there; for another,
it was only too easy to lose one's bearings, wander farther and
farther into the wood, and eventually die of thirst and
starvation, utterly unable to find the way home again. To Eustace's
distraction, in his dream Becky would insist on playing
hide-and-seek, and kept constantly disappearing and returning,
flitting on in front of them now and again like a will-o'-the-wisp.
"We mustn't let her do it," Eustace exclaimed. "Run, Nesta; we must
catch her."
But the faster they ran, the farther Becky went; it was
extraordinary how fast she could go.
"I can't keep up," Nesta panted.
"Just like a girl," puffed Eustace back, for he was getting
exhausted himself.
Then Becky disappeared right out of sight, and though Eustace
called her till the echoes rang again and again with her name,
there came no answer.
"Now I guess we shall all be lost," thought Eustace desperately.
He was rushing madly hither and thither, when suddenly he heard a
blood-curdling yell not very far off. It was followed by another
and another, till his heart stood still with terror.
"Of course," he said, pulling himself together with all his might,
"she must be in the secret chamber. I never thought of that."
But even as the notion flashed into his mind he knew how silly it
was to think of a secret chamber in the Bush. He was so paralyzed
by the awfulness of the sounds that for a moment he could not move;
but at last, with a mighty effort, he forced himself to dart
forward in the direction whence the cries came.
A second later he was fighting blindly with some thing that clung
unpleasantly to him. It took him a moment to realize that this was
the mosquito net round his bed. He was out on the floor in his own
room at home. He had been dreaming, and was now awake; but the
screams continued, and were most horribly real. It was not Becky's
voice--no child could have cried like that.
There was a door from his room into Mrs. Orban's, and through this
the boy dashed.
"Mother, mother," he cried, "what is happening?"
There was a light in the room. Mrs. Orban was standing with a look
of terror on her face.
"I don't know," she said unsteadily.
"It has been going on for ages," Eustace whispered.
But Mrs. Orban shook her head. "It has only just begun," she said.
"I must go and see what is the matter."
Eustace was haunted by his dream--a second in a dream is equivalent
to hours of real life.
"O mother, don't go!" he exclaimed in an agonized voice, and clung
to her.
"I must," was the answer, and gently but firmly Mrs. Orban put the
boy from her. "Perhaps one of the servants is ill. At least they
are both frightened, and need me. Stay here with Becky."
The words were hardly out of her mouth when the door burst open,
and in rushed Mary, followed by Kate. Both girls looked half mad
with fear.
"O ma'am, ma'am," they cried, piecing out the tale between them,
"there was a black-fellow in our room. He has stolen our watches
from under our pillows, and everything he could find before we
woke, and he was pulling the rings off Mary's finger when she felt
him and jumped out of bed. But he got the rings, and we don't know
where he is--somewhere about the house--and maybe there are others
with him. O ma'am, whatever shall we do? We shall all be murdered
in our beds."
"Nonsense, you silly girls," said Mrs. Orban, with sudden
sternness; "we can't possibly be murdered in our beds when we are
all out of them."
Even in the stress of the moment Eustace could not help being
struck by the humour of the assertion, but he was in no mood for
laughing.
Creeping to the window, he peered out, to find that it was no
longer pitch dark; there was a sufficient glimmer of light to have
enabled their uninvited guest to do all that the servants
described.
By this time Becky was awake and howling. Her mother took her into
her arms and soothed her gently.
"As to what we shall do," Mrs. Orban said in that same firm tone;
"we must all stay here till daylight together. If there are thieves
about the house, we can do nothing to check them. They will not
hurt us if we don't interfere. There is nothing to be done but to
behave as little like cowards as we can manage."
"But black-fellows do such--" began Kate.
"Hold your tongue, Kate," said the usually gentle Mrs. Orban, with
sudden anger. "What good can it do to scare yourself and us by
talking in such a way? We are in God's hands, don't forget that."
"Mother," Eustace said, "has father got his revolver away with
him?"
"There are two in this room," Mrs. Orban replied. "Could you use
one if necessary?"
"Oh, for mercy's sake don't let Master Eustace have a gun in his
hands!" said Mary. "There's no saying which of us he might shoot in
mistake if he began playing with one."
"Playing with one!" repeated Eustace scornfully; "why, father says
my shooting is very good for my age."
Mrs. Orban took a revolver from a cupboard and gave it into the
boy's hands.
"It is loaded," she said, and now there was the suspicion of a
quiver in her voice; "but realize I am trusting you to be sensible.
Don't shoot at random. Remember what Bob said last night. You are
only to fire if terribly necessary. Now jump into Becky's bed, or
you will be getting a chill and fever."
From beneath her own pillow she drew out a second revolver,
examined it, and set it on a table within easy reach.
"Mother," said Eustace in surprise, "do you always sleep with a
revolver under your pillow?"
"Only when your father is away," was the reply. "Now, Mary and
Kate, get into my bed. I am going to sit in this cosy chair with
Miss Becky. We will talk and keep the light burning; but it is my
belief nothing more will happen to-night."
The maids obeyed, still looking terrified, and then Mrs. Orban
seated herself, with Becky in her arms, near the table where the
revolver lay.
Thus they prepared to face the remaining hour of darkness,
powerless to do anything, utterly helpless, with nerves strung to
the highest possible pitch, and hearts that beat wildly at every
sound.