by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XI -- THE WOMAN AT THE WINDOW
Count Victor heard the woman's lamentation die away in the pit of thestair before he ceased to wonder at the sound and had fully realised theunpleasantness of his own incarceration. It was the cries of the outerassault that roused him from mere amazement to a comprehension of thedangers involved in his being thus penned in a cell and his enemies keptat bay by some wooden bars and a wooden-head. He felt with questioningfingers along the walls, finding no crevice to suggest outer air tillhe reached the window, and, alas! an escape from a window at that heightseemed out of the question without some machinery at hand.
"I suspected the little clown's laughter," said he to himself. "The keyof the mystery lies between him and this absurd Baron, and I beginto guess at something of complicity on the part of M. Bethune. Amalediction on the whole tribe of mountaineers! The thing's like a play;I've seen far more improbable circumstances in a book. I am shot at ina country reputed to be well-governed even to monotony; a sombre hostpuzzles, a far too frank domestic perplexes; magic flutes and midnightvoices haunt this infernal hold; the conventional lady of the drama iskept in the background with great care, and just when I am on the pointof meeting her, the perplexing servitor becomes my jailer. But yes,it is a play; surely it is a play; or else I am in bed in Cammercysuffering from one of old Jeanne's heavy late suppers. It is then that Imust waken myself into the little room with the pink hangings."
He raised the point of the sword to prick his finger, more in a humorousmood than with any real belief that it was all a dream, and dropped itfast as he felt a gummy liquor clotting on the blade.
"_Grand Dieu!_" said he softly, "I have perhaps pricked some one elseto-night into his eternal nightmare, and I cannot prick myself out ofone."
The noise of the men outside rose louder; a gleam of light waved uponthe wall of the chamber, something wan and elusive, bewildering fora moment as if it were a ghost; from the clamour he could distinguishsentences in a guttural tongue. He turned to the window--the counterpartof the one in his own bedroom, but without a pane of glass in its narrowspace. Again the wan flag waved across the wall, more plainly the criesof the robbers came up to him. They had set a torch flaring on thescene. It revealed the gloomy gable-end of Doom with a wild, a menacingillumination, deepening the blackness of the night beyond its influence,giving life to shadows that danced upon rock and grass. The light, heldhigh by the man Count Victor had wounded, now wrapped to his eyes ina plaid, rose and fell, touched sometimes on the mainland showing thebracken and the tree, sometimes upon the sea to show the wave, frothyfrom its quarrel with the fissured rock, making it plain that Doom was aship indeed, cast upon troubled waters, cut off from the gentle world.
But little for the sea or for the shore had Count Victor any interest;his eyes were all for the wild band who clamoured about the flambeau.They wore such a costume as he had quarrelled with on his arrival; theycried "Loch Sloy!" with something of theatrical effect, and "Outwith the gentleman! out with Black Andy's murderer!" they demanded inEnglish.
He craned his head out at the Window and watched the scene. The tall manwho had personally assailed him seemed to lead the band in all excepttheir clamour, working eagerly, directing in undertones. They hadbrought a ladder from the shore, apparently provided for such anemergency, and placed it against the wall, with a view to an escalade. Astream of steaming water shot down upon the first who ventured upon therounds, and he fell back with ludicrous whimperings. Compelled by theleader, another ventured on the ladder, and the better to watch hisperformance Count Victor leaned farther out at his window, secure fromobservation in the darkness. As he did so, he saw for the first timethat on his right there was a lighted window he could almost touchwith his hand as he leaned over. It flashed upon him that here wasthe woman's room, and that on the deep moulding running underneath thewindows he could at some little risk gain it, probably to find its dooropen, and thus gain the freedom Mungo had so unexpectedly taken fromhim. He crept out upon the ledge, only then to realise the hazards ofsuch a narrow footing. It seemed as he stood with his hands yet graspingthe sides of the window he sought to escape by, that he could neverretain his balance sufficiently to reach the other in safety. Thegreatest of his physical fears--greater even than that of drowning whichsometimes whelmed him in dreams and on ships--was the dread of emptyspace; a touch of vertigo seized him; the enemy gathered round the torchbeneath suddenly seemed elves, puny impossible things far off, and healmost slipped into their midst. But he dragged back his senses. "Wemust all die," he gasped, "but we need not be precipitate about thebusiness," and shut his eyes as he stood up, and with feet upon themoulding stretched to gain grip of the other window. Something fell awaybelow his right foot and almost plunged him into space. With a terrificeffort he saved himself from that fate, and his senses, grown of asudden to miraculous acuteness, heard the crumbled masonry he hadreleased thud upon the patch of grass at the foot of the tower,apprising the enemy of his attempt. A wild commingling of commandsand threats came up to him; the night seemed something vast beyond allformer estimates, a swinging and giddy horror; the single star thatpeered through the cloud took to airy dancing, a phantom of the eveningheavens; again he might have fallen, but the material, more deadly,world he was accustomed to manifested itself for his relief and hissalvation. Through the night rang a pistol shot, and the ball struckagainst the wall but an inch or two from his head.
"Merci beaucoup!" he said aloud. "There is nothing like a pill," andhis grasp upon the sides of the illuminated window was quite strong andconfident as he drew himself towards it. He threw himself in uponthe floor just in time to escape death from half a dozen bullets thatrattled behind him.
Safe within, he looked around in wonder. What he had come upon was notwhat he had expected,--was, indeed, so incongruous with the cell nextdoor and the general poverty of the castle as a whole that it seemedunreal; for here was a trim and tasteful boudoir lit by a silverlamp, warmed by a charcoal fire, and giving some suggestion of daintywomanhood by a palpable though delicate odour of rose-leaves conservedin pot-pourri. Tapestry covered more than three-fourths of the wall,swinging gently in the draught from the open window, a harpischord stoodin a corner, a couch that had apparently been occupied stood between thefireplace and the door, and a score of evidences indicated gentility andtaste.
"Annapla becomes more interesting," he reflected, but he spent no timein her boudoir; he made to try the door. It was locked; nor did hewonder at it, though in a cooler moment he might have done so. Hurriedlyhe glanced about the room for something to aid him to open the door, butthere was nothing to suit his purpose. In his search his eye fell upona miniature upon the mantelshelf--the work, as he could tell by itstechnique and its frame, of a French artist. It was the presentment ofa gentleman in the Highland dress, adorned, as was the manner of someyears back before the costume itself had become discredited, withfripperies of the mode elsewhere--a long scalloped waistcoat, a deepruffled collar, the shoes buckled, and the hair _en queue_,--theportrait of a man of dark complexion, distinguished and somewayspleasant.
"The essential lover of the story," said Count Victor, putting it down."Now I know my Annapla is young and lovely. We shall see--we shall see!"
He turned to the door to try its fastenings with his sword, found thetask of no great difficulty, for the woodwork round the lock shared thecommon decay of Doom, and with the silver lamp to light his steps, hemade his way along the corridor and down the stair. It was a strange andromantic spectacle he made moving thus through the darkness, the lampswaying his shadow on the stairway as he descended, and he could haveasked for no more astonishment in the face of his jailer than he foundin Mungo's when that domestic met him at the stair-foot.
Mungo was carrying hot water in a huge kettle. He put down the vesselwith a startled jolt that betrayed his fright.
"God be aboot us! Coont, ye near gied me a stroke there."
"Oh, I demand pardon!" said Count Victor ironically. "I forgot that a
man of your age should not be taken by surprise."
"My age!" repeated Mungo, with a tone of annoyance. "No' sae awfu'auld either. At my age my grandfaither was a sergeant i' the airmy, andmarried for the fourth time."
"Only half his valour seems to run in the blood," said Count Victor.Then, more sternly, "What did you mean by locking me up there?"
Mungo took up the kettle and placed it to the front of him, with someintuition that a shield must be extemporised against the sword that theFrenchman had menacing in his hand. The action was so droll and futilethat, in spite of his indignation, Count Victor had to smile; and thisassured the little domestic, though he felt chagrin at the ridiculeimplied.
"Jist a bit plan o' my ain, Coont, to keep ye oot o' trouble, and I'mshair ye'll excuse the leeberty. A bonny-like thing it wad be if themaister cam' hame and foun' the Macfarlanes wer oot on the ran-dan andhad picked ye oot o' Doom like a wulk oot o' its shell. It wisna like asif ye were ane o' the ordinar garrison, ye ken; ye were jist a kin' o'veesitor--"
"And it was I they were after," said Count Victor, "which surely gave mesome natural interest in the defence."
"Ye were safer to bide whaur ye were; and hoo ye got oot o't 's mairthan I can jalouse. We hae scalded aff the rogues wi' het water, and ifthey're to be keepit aff, I'll hae to be unco gleg wi' the kettle."
As he said these words he saw, apparently for the first time, witha full understanding of its significance, the lamp in Count Victor'shands. His jaw fell; he put down the kettle again helplessly, and, intrembling tones, "Whaur did ye get the lamp?" said he.
"_Ah, mon vieux!_" cried Count Victor, enjoying his bewilderment. "Youshould have locked the lady's door as well as mine. 'Art a poor wardernot to think of the possibilities in two cells so close to each other."
"Cells!" cried Mungo, very much disturbed. "Cells! quo' he," lookingchapfallen up the stairway, as if for something there behind his escapedprisoner.
"And now you will give me the opportunity of paying my respects to yourno doubt adorable lady."
"Eh!" cried Mungo, incredulous. A glow came to his face. He showed theghost of a mischievous smile. "Is't that way the lan' lies? Man, ye'rea dour birkie!" said he; "but a wilf u' man maun hae his way, and, ifnaething less'll dae ye, jist gang up to yer ain chaumer, and ye'll findher giein' the Macfarlanes het punch wi' nae sugar till't."
The statement was largely an enigma to Count Victor, but he understoodenough to send him up the stairs with an alacrity that drove Mungo, inhis rear, into silent laughter. Yet the nearer he came to his door theslower grew his ascent. At first he had thought but of the charminglady, the vocalist, and the recluse. The Baron's share in the dangerousmystery of Doom made him less scrupulous than he might otherwise havebeen as to the punctilio of a domestic's introduction to one apparentlykept out of his way for reasons best known to his host; and he advancedto the encounter in the mood of the adventurer, Mungo in his rearbeholding it in his jaunty step, in the fingers that pulled and peakedthe moustachio, and drew forth a somewhat pleasing curl that looked wellacross a temple. But a more sober mood overcame him before he had gotto the top of the stair. The shouts of the besieging party outsidehad declined and finally died away; the immediate excitement of theadventure, which with Mungo and the unknown lady he was prepared toshare, was gone. He began to realise that there was something ludicrousin the incident that had kept him from making her acquaintance halfan hour ago, and reflected that she might well have some doubt ofhis courage and his chivalry. Even more perturbing was the suddenrecollection of the amused laughter that had greeted his barefootedapproach to Doom through two or three inches of water, and at the opendoor he hung back dubious.
"Step in; it's your ain room," cried Mungo, struggling with hiskettle; "and for the Lord's sake mind your mainners and gie her a guidimpression."
It was the very counsel to make a Montaiglon bold.
He entered; a woman was busy at the open window; he stared in amazementand chagrin.