by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XIX -- REVELATION
Doom, astounded, threw the dagger from him with an exclamation. Hiseyes, large and burning yet with passion, were wholly for Count Victor,though his daughter Olivia stood there at his side holding the lightthat had revealed the furies to each other, her hair in dark browncataracts on her shoulders, and eddying in bewitching curls upon herears and temples, that gleamed below like the foam of mountain pools.
"Father! father! what does this mean?" she cried. "There is some fearfulmistake here."
"That is not to exaggerate the position, at all events," thought CountVictor, breathing hard, putting the knife unobserved behind him.He smiled to this vision and shrugged his shoulders. He left theelucidation of the mystery to the other gentleman, this counsellor offorgiveness and peace, clad head to foot in the garb he contemned, andcapable of some excellent practice with daggers in the darkness.
"I'll never be able to say how much I regret this, Count Victor," saidDoom. "Good God! your hands were going, and in a second or two more--"
"For so hurried a farce," said Count Victor, "the lowered light wassomething of a mistake, _n'est ce pas?_ I--I--I just missed the pointof the joke," and he glanced at the dagger glittering sinister in thecorner of the stair.
"I have known your mistake all along," cried Olivia. "Oh! it is astupid thing this. I will tell you! It is my father should have told youbefore."
The clangour of the outer door closing recalled that there was dangerstill below. Olivia put a frightened hand on her father's arm. "Athousand pardons, Montaiglon," cried he; "but here's a task to finish."And without a word more of excuse or explanation he plunged downstairs.
Count Victor looked dubiously after him, and made no move to follow.
"Surely you will not be leaving him alone there," said Olivia. "Oh! youhave not your sword. I will get your sword." And before he could replyshe had flown to his room. She returned with the weapon. Her hand wasall trembling as she held it out to him. He took it slowly; there seemedno need for haste below now, for all was silent except the voices ofDoom and Mungo.
"It is very good of you, Mademoiselle Olivia," said he. "I thank you,but--but--you find me in a quandary. Am I to consider M. le Baron asally or--or--or--" He hesitated to put the brutal alternative to thedaughter.
Olivia stamped her foot impetuously, her visage disturbed by emotions ofanxiety, vexation, and shame.
"Oh, go! go!" she cried. "You will not, surely, be taking my father fora traitor to his own house--for a murderer."
"I desire to make the least of a pleasantry I am incapable ofcomprehending, yet his dagger was uncomfortably close to my ribs aminute or two ago," sard Count Victor reflectively.
"Oh!" she cried. "Is not this a coil? I must even go myself," and shemade to descend.
"Nay, nay," said Count Victor softly, holding her back. "Nay, nay; Iwill go if your whole ancestry were ranked at the foot."
"It is the most stupid thing," she cried, as he left her; "I willexplain when you come up. My father is a Highland gentleman."
"So, by the way, was Drimdarroch," said Montaiglon, but that was tohimself. He smiled back into the illumination of the lady's candle,then descended into the darkness with a brow tense and frowning, and hisweapon prepared for anything.
The stair was vacant, so was the corridor. The outer door was open; thesound of the sea came in faint murmurs, the mingled odours of pine andwrack borne with it. Out in the heavens a moon swung among her starsmost queenly and sedate, careless altogether of this mortal world ofstrife and terrors; the sea had a golden roadway. A lantern light bobbedon the outer edge of the rock, shining through Olivia's bower like awill-o'-the-wisp, and he could hear in low tones the voices of Doom andhis servant. Out at sea, but invisible, for beyond the moon's influence,a boat was being rowed fast: the beat of the oars on the thole-pins camedistinctly. And in the wood behind, now cut off from them by the ridingwaves, owls called incessantly.
It was like a night in a dream, like some vast wheeling chimera offever--that plangent sea before, those terrors fleeing, and behind, amaiden left with her duenna in a castle demoniac.
Doom and Mungo came back from the rock edge, silently almost, broodingover a mystery, and the three looked at each other.
"Well, they are gone," said the Baron at last, showing the way to hisguest.
"What, gone!" said Montaiglon, incapable of restraining his irony. "Notall of them?"
"O Lord! but this is the nicht!" cried the little servant who carriedthe lantern. "I micht hae bided a' my days in Fife and never kent whatwar was. The only thing that daunts me is that I should hae missed mychance o' a whup at them, for they had me trussed like a cock before Iput my feet below me when they pu'd me oot."
He drew the bars with nervous fingers, and seemed to dread his masteras much as he had done the enemy. Olivia had come down to the corridor;aloft Annapla had renewed her lamentations; the four of them stoodclustered in the narrow passage at the stair-foot.
"What for did ye open the door, Mungo?" asked Doom,--not the Doom ofdoleful days, of melancholy evenings of study and of sour memories, notthe done man, but one alert and eager, a soldier, in the poise of hisbody, the set of his limbs, the spirit of his eye.
"Here's a new man!" thought Montaiglon, silently regarding him. "Devilryappears to have a marvellous power of stimulation."
"I opened the door," said Mungo, much perturbed.
"For what?" said Doom shortly.
"There was a knock."
"I heard it. The knock was obvious; it dirled the very roof of thehouse. But it was not necessary to open at a knock at this timeof morning; ye must have had a reason. Hospitality like that tohalf-a-dozen rogues from Arroquhar, who had already made a warm nightfor ye, was surely stretched a little too far. What did ye open for?"
Mungo seemed to range his mind for a reply. He looked to Montaiglon,but got no answer in the Frenchman's face; he looked over Montaiglon'sshoulder at Olivia, standing yet in the tremour of her fears, and hiseye lingered. It was no wonder, thought Count Victor, that it lingeredthere.
"Come, come, I'm waiting my answer!" cried Doom, in a voice that mighthave stirred a corps in the battlefield.
"I thought there wasna mair than ane," said Mungo.
"But even one! At this time of morning! And is it your custom to open toa summons of that kind without finding out who calls?"
"I thought I kent the voice," said Mungo, furtively looking again atOlivia.
"And whose was it, this voice that could command so ready and foolish anacquiescence on the part of my honest sentinel Mungo Boyd?" asked Doomincredulously.
"Ye can ask that!" replied the servant desperately; "it's mair than Ican tell. All I ken is that I thought the voice fair-spoken, and I allooit was a daft-like thing to do, but I pu'ed the bar, I had nae soonerdune't nor I was gripped by the thrapple and kep' doon by a couple o'the blackguards that held me a' the time the ither three or four were--"
Doom caught him by the collar and shook him angrily.
"Ye lie, ye Fife cat; I see't in your face!"
"I can speak as to the single voice and its humility, and to the suddenplucking forth of this gentleman," said Count Victor quietly, at seaover this examination. But for the presence of the woman he would havecried out at the mockery of the thing.
"You must hear my explanation, Montaiglon," said Doom. "If you will cometo the hall, I will give it. Olivia, you will come too. I should havetaken your hints of yesterday morning, and the explanation of this mighthave been unnecessary."
Doom and his guest went to the _salle_; Olivia lingered a moment behind.
"Who was it, Mungo?" said she, whisperingly to the servant. "I know bythe face of you that you are keeping something from my father."
"Am I?" said he. "Humph! It's Fife very soon for Mungo Boyd, I'm tellin'ye."
"But who was it?" she persisted.
"The Arroquhar men," said he curtly; "and that's all I ken aboot it,"and he turned to leave her.
; "And that is not the truth, Mungo," said Olivia, with great dignity. "Ithink with my father that you are telling what is not the true word,"and she said no more, but followed to the _salle_.
On the stairway Count Victor had trod upon the button he had drawn fromthe skirts of his assailant; he picked it up without a word, to keepit as a souvenir. Doom preceded him into the room, lit some candleshurriedly at the smouldering fire, and turned to offer him a chair.
"Our--our friends are gone," said he. "You seem to have badly woundedone of them, for the others carried him bleeding to the water-side, aswe have seen from his blood-marks on the rock: they have gone, as theyapparently must have come, by boat. Sit down, Olivia."
His daughter had entered. She had hurriedly coiled her hair up, and thehappy carelessness of it pleased Montaiglon's eye like a picture.
Still he said nothing; he could not trust himself to speak, facing, ashe fancied yet he did, a traitor.
"I see from your face you must still be dubious of me," said Doom.He waited for no reply, but paced up and down the room excitedly,the pleats of his kilt and the thongs of his purse swinging to hismovements: a handsome figure, as Mont-aiglon could not but confess. "Iam still shattered at the nerve to think that I had almost taken yourlife there in a fool's blunder. You must wonder to see me in this--inthis costume."
He could not even yet come to his explanation, and Olivia must help him.
"What my father would tell you, if he was not in such a trouble, CountVictor, is what I did my best to let you know last night. It is justthat he breaks the laws of George the king in this small affair of ourHighland tartan. It is a fancy of his to be wearing it in an evening,and the bats in the chapel upstairs are too blind to know what a rebelit is that must be play-acting old days and old styles among them."
A faint light came suddenly to Count Victor.
"Ah!" said he, "it is not, mademoiselle, that the bats alone are blind;here is a very blind Montaiglon. I implore your pardon, M. le Baron. Itis good to be frank, though it is sometimes unpleasant, and I must pleadguilty to an imbecile misapprehension."
Doom flushed, and took the proffered hand.
"My good Montaiglon," said he, "I'm the most shamefaced man this dayin the shire of Argyll. Need I be telling you that I have all Olivia'ssentiment and none of her honest courage?"
"My dear father!" cried Olivia fondly, looking with melting eyes ather parent; and Count Victor, too, thought this mummer no inadmirablefigure.
"It is nothing more than my indulgence in the tartan that makes yourhost look sometimes scarcely trustworthy; and my secret got its rightpunishment this night. I will not be able to wear a kilt with an easyconscience for some time to come."
"My faith! Baron, that were a penance out of all proportion!" said CountVictor, laughing. "If you nearly gave me the key of the Olympian meadowsthere, 'tis I that have brought these outlaws about your ears."
"What beats me is that they should make so much ado about a trifle."
"A trifle!" said Count Victor. "True, in a sense. The wretch but died.We must all die; we all know it, though none of us believe it."
"I am glad to say that after all you only wounded yon Macfarlane; soPetullo learned but yesterday, and I clean forgot to tell you sooner."
Montaiglon looked mightily relieved.
"So!" said he; "I shall give a score of the best candles to St. Denys--ifI remember when I get home again. You could not have told me such goodtidings a moment too soon, dear M. le Baron, though of course a smallaffair like that would naturally escape one's memory."
"He was as good as dead, by all rumour; but being a thief and anArroquhar man, he naturally recovered: and now it's the oddest thingin the world that an accident of the nature, that is all, as Black Andywell must know, in the ordinary way of business, should bring about somuch _fracas_."
"It was part of my delusion," said Count Victor, "to fancy Mungo notentirely innocent. As you observed, he opened the door with an excess ofhospitality."
"Yes, that was droll," confessed Doom, reflectively. "That was droll,indeed; but Mungo hates the very name of Arroquhar, and all that comesfrom it."
"Except our Annapla," suggested Olivia, smiling.
"Oh, except Annapla, of course!" said her father. "He's to marry her toavert her Evil Eye."
"And is she a Macfarlane?" asked Montaiglon, surprised.
"No less," replied Doom. "She's a cousin of Andy's; but there's littlelove lost between them."
"Speaking of bats!" thought Count Victor, but he did not hint at his newconclusions. "Well, I am glad," said he; "they left me but remorse lasttime; this time here's a souvenir," and he showed the button.
It was a silver chamfered lozenge, conspicuous and unforgettable.
"Stolen gear, doubtless," guessed the Baron, looking at it withindifference. "Silver buttons are not rife between here and the pass ofBalmaha."
"Let me see it, please?" said Olivia.
She took it in her hand but for a moment, turned slightly aside to lookmore closely at it in the sconce-light, paled with some emotion, andgave it back with slightly trembling fingers.
"I have a headache," she said suddenly. "I am not so brave as I thoughtI was; you will let me say good night?"
She smiled to Count Victor with a face most wan.
"My dear, you are like a ghost," said her father, and as she left theroom he looked after her affectionately.