Safe Custody and Laughing Bacchante

by Dornford Yates

“The rest come on.”

  With a sinking heart I listened to the tramp of the feet . . .

  That the man beside us was Harris, I had no doubt. Confounded though he was for the moment by my attack, he would never have allowed Father Herman to have his way with his prize. Besides, he would have been the first to recover his wits. He knew of course, that I was within the room. Had he not guessed it before, Hubert’s words had told him that I was there.

  The weight of the bench I was holding was beginning to make itself felt. Besides, I was not holding it square. I had picked it tip to carry, but not to hold. Sooner or later I should have to set it down on the floor. And when I did, Harris would fire at the sound. And Olivia’s fingers were always about my wrist . . .

  I dared not tell her to leave me. Could I have found her ear, I do not think my whisper would have been heard. But, even if she obeyed me, Harris might hear her movement and think it mine. He had no desire, of course, to fire upon her, but I had to be put out of action, and the lady must take her chance.

  There was nothing to be done but to stand still and wait upon Harris and to pray that he would move before I could bear no longer the weight of the bench. But the strain upon the nerves were dreadful, and, but for the touch of Olivia, whose hand was as steady as when we were being wed, I do not believe I could have stood it, but must have launched myself at where I thought Harris stood. Instead, I tried to think of the duels that used to be fought in darkened rooms and how, as I have heard tell, the victory always went to him that could the longer possess his soul.

  Perhaps two minutes went by, but none of us moved.

  My shoulders and arms and fingers were aching cruelly beneath the weight of the bench. Hold it much longer I could not, whatever befell. My tired muscles were yielding; very soon the dead weight would beat them and slip from my frantic fingers and crash to the floor.

  It occurred to me that the dice were loaded against us. Had I not been so encumbered I could have stood like a statue for half an hour. Or, had Harris entered a moment sooner, or later—

  Olivia’s fingers tightened, and I strained my eyes and ears as never before.

  Harris was moving—I could hear him. I judged him four paces away. He was stealing very slowly towards us. Unless he changed his direction he would almost certainly touch us before thirty seconds were out.

  For an instant my brain zigzagged. Then, very slowly, I swung my bench to the left. When I could swing it no further I paused—for a moment of time. Then I brought it round like a scythe, waist-high, with all my might.

  I struck the man’s hand, or his pistol—I know not which, but, certain it is that the weapon fell to the ground. As it fell it went off and at once I dropped my bench and flung myself at his throat.

  Till that moment I never knew that Harris was down on the ground, for the sound of his fall had been masked by the pistol’s roar, so my hands encountered nothing, but I stumbled over his body and fell myself.

  The door was open, and Olivia was shrieking ‘Hubert!’ and crying orders in German which I could not understand. Harris was cursing and his torch was sweeping the floor. As its beam fell upon his pistol I caught his legs and brought him down with a crash, but though his torch went flying he kicked me off and, before I could draw, he was up and had leaped for the door. Men were running in the passage and my cousin was shouting to Olivia, and she was still calling his name. Harris met someone in the doorway and knocked him down, but the shock of the encounter checked him and I caught the hem of his coat. And then the coat was dangling, and I heard his foot on the stair down which I had come.

  Olivia tried to stop me, but I flung myself in pursuit.

  As I tore up the stair behind him, I heard Olivia shrieking “The stair on the left!” and I knew that my cousin was behind me with some of our men. Remembering Stiven’s mistake, I did not fire, but I made up my mind to catch Harris before he could gain the archway at the head of the principal stairs.

  As we ran, I heard firing ahead and then Palin’s voice shouting German, as I thought, demanding the truth, but Harris never faltered, but ran like the wind. An instant later I saw the thin bar of light which was lying beneath the curtains which gave to the landing beyond. As Harris dived between these I grasped his shirt, but he dragged me on to the landing, do what I would. Then, in a flash, he turned and struck at my chin, but I jerked my head to one side and he missed his aim. As I seized him he swung me about and plunged for the stairs.

  Had I not bent my head forward I must have broken my neck, for we crashed down the flight together, and his body was full upon mine. As it was, I was no more than bruised and was just as fit as before to tackle my man.

  The hall was yet in darkness, and since the stair-carpet was thick, the noise which we were making might have been that of one man that had missed his footing and taken a headlong fall.

  Palin’s challenge rang out.

  “Who’s that? Speak, or I fire.”

  “John,” I yelled. “I’ve got Harris.”

  From that moment all was confusion.

  Men were all about us. Somebody tore me from Harris and struck me across the mouth. The great light in the hall was switched on, but I saw Punter fire at the lantern and put it out. A torch was flashed on and off, and people were treading the steps. Then Palin roared some order in German, caught me in the hug of a bear and crushed me against the wall.

  “Stop!” I yelled. “Andrew, it’s me!”

  “God in heaven!” howled Palin, and let me go. “Where’s Harris?”

  I did not wait to answer, but darted out of the castle and down the steps. A flash came out of the darkness, and a bullet struck the ground at my feet, but all my thoughts were of Harris and how to prevent his escape. I ran across the courtyard and down past the coach-house doors, and, as I pulled out my pistol, I brushed against a rope-ladder which was hanging against the wall . . .

  In a flash I saw that if this ladder were gone we should have the enemy trapped as beasts in a pound, and, since I could not pull it down, I began to go up its rungs as fast as I could.

  If my purpose was good I made one bad mistake. I should have taken with me the bottom rung. In that way I should have drawn up the ladder as fast as I went myself and, before I was ten feet high, my object would have been won. As it was, I set out to gain the ridge-pole and then pull the ladder up, but I might have known that before I had time to do this one or more of the rogues would have begun to ascend.

  And so it fell out.

  As I reached the slates the ladder tightened beneath me and someone began to climb up as fast as he could.

  There was only one thing to be done.

  I scrambled the last few feet, flung myself over the ridge-pole and, drawing my pistol, fired at the place at which the man’s head would appear.

  As though by magic the convulsions of the ladder stopped dead. I kneeled up and lifted my voice.

  “Hubert,” I roared, “we’ve got them. Call upon them to surrender. And if they don’t, open fire on”

  And that was as far as I got, for there I received such a blow on the side of my head as fairly sent me flying on to the slates, down which I half rolled and half slid towards the mountain side.

  Of course I let go my pistol in the hope of saving myself, but I could obtain no handhold, and my fingers and my body went slipping where my rubber soles would have held. Indeed, in that moment I gave myself up for lost, for the eaves hung fifteen feet from the ground below and there were here no bushes to break my fall.

  It was the gutter that saved me, though how I contrived to cling there I do not know, for I had, of course, no chance to dispose my limbs, but, when it checked me, I turned the check into a lodgment and lay there afraid to breathe. I had come to rest on my face at full length on the narrow ledge, with one arm bracing my body away from the brink and my left knee strained against some object which I presently guessed to be my pistol, which had come to the gutter first.

  And whilst I lay there, sweating and wondering
whether the gutter would stand the strain, I had the mortification of hearing the rogues escape.

  My assailant, I learned, was Bugle, for I heard him tell Harris how he had struck me down.

  “He’s made no sound,” he said. “As like as not, he’s broken his — neck.”

  “Please God he hasn’t,” said Harris. “I want to do that myself.”

  With that, he let out a flood of the foulest abuse, calling me every name to which he could lay his tongue, for while, he made out, Father Herman had ‘let him down,’ I had ‘run between his legs’ and upset him when he was upon the point of saving the game.

  “I had the — ,” he spouted. “We hadn’t been in one minute when I had her tight in my arms. And if I hadn’t trusted that black-gutted son of slush, we’d have been a mile off by now—and her with us . . . and them still searching the castle and calling her — name.”

  This horrid apodosis made my blood run cold and seemed to me to warrant the curious apprehension I had felt for Olivia Haydn before she became my wife. As for Harris, I never shall understand how so far-seeing a blackguard could have made so bad a mistake, for had he withdrawn with Olivia when she had run into his arms, the game was his.

  “Where’s Holy?” said Harris suddenly.

  “Gone down by the tree,” said Bugle. “Trust him. He’ll never get left,”

  “See he don’t hop it,” said Harris. “He’s got ideas.”

  I can only suppose that he meant that the priest must have seen, as I had, that the drawbridge was up, and so must be well aware that Harris had been playing him false, and that these ‘ideas’ might suggest to him the wisdom of withdrawing from an alliance which threatened, from his point of view, to defeat its aim.

  As Bugle followed the priest I heard the rope-ladder go slipping and sliding down, and after two or three minutes somebody moved below me by the side of the wall.

  “He’s gone,” said Bugle. “Just here it was he fell off, an’—”

  “What’s that?” snarled Harris, approaching. “Who says he’s gone?”

  “Well, he’s not here,” said Bugle. “I wiped him off of the roof and let him lie. He must have the lives of a cat if—”

  “Search round,” snapped Harris. “He’s hurt and he’s crawled away. Where’s that torch of yours, Punter?’’

  “Shot out of me ’and,” said Punter.

  This most unlikely report sent Harris half out of his mind, for it seemed they had only two torches and I had made Harris drop his. Punter was savagely rent for a lying hound and he and Bugle were sent to scour the surroundings of the scene of my fall.

  “He can’t be far,” said Harris. “Are you certain sure that he fell?”

  I knew he was looking up, peering, and I felt he must see my body outlined against the sky.

  “Every time,” said Bugle. “I tell you, I wiped—”

  “Where’s that — Holy?” cried Harris. “Don’t say you’ve let him go.”

  “You called me,” protested Bugle. “You told me—” The explosion his words provoked was truly awful. I had never conceived such blasphemies as streamed from his master’ mouth, and, of my simplicity, I never would have believed that a man could so deeply provoke his Maker, yet not be struck down. Had this not sobered me I think I must have laughed, for the scene was comic enough, and I, in a sense, was enjoying a seat in the stalls. Here were the three of them searching for something which was not there and, in their zeal, mislaying that which they had. All this in impenetrable darkness, among the great roots of trees, over which they continually stumbled and more than once fell.

  It was to the loss of ‘Holy’ that I finally owed my escape, for Harris decided forthwith that he must be overtaken before he could get to the cars, and the three set off down the mountain in about as vile a humour as can be conceived—Harris ripe for murder, because his designs had failed, Punter and Bugle smarting because Harris was venting on them a fury they had not aroused, and all of them loathing the prospect of trying to hasten by night over ground which, a week ago, they would no more have thought of essaying than boiling oil.

  As their curses faded, I heard a step on the roof . . .

  “Is that you, Hubert?” I said.

  When he heard I was safe and sound, my cousin sent word to Olivia and then sat down on the slates. When I told him how best to assist me, he lighted a cigarette. And when I protested that I had been hanging in jeopardy long enough, he observed that he was concerned less for the health of my body than for that of my soul.

  With that, he spoke of the folly of doing what I had done, of how I had embarrassed my party, for, because I was with the thieves, Palin and he had been forced to withhold their fire and, lastly, of Olivia’s anxiety on my behalf.

  “For my part,” he concluded, “you would have died unwept: when people get what they ask for it leaves me cold. But Olivia’s more forgiving, and if you’d seen the look in her eyes when I said the courtyard was empty—well, I’m pretty tough, but I know that it tore my heart.”

  Then he got to his feet and called Stiven, and the two of them dragged me up.

  Warm with the liquor which, while I was telling my story, Palin had made me drink, I stole upstairs to my room, determined not to wake Olivia, who had returned to bed.

  As I closed the door behind me—

  “Madame would speak with Monsieur,” said Gertrude’s voice.

  Then she stood to one side and held open the door which gave to Olivia’s room.

  Olivia was sitting up in bed, with a cup of tea in her hand.

  “Sit down, John,” she said, smiling, and pointed to a chair by her side. “And now please tell me what happened. You went up the stair after Harris—that’s all I know.” Before I could speak, she handed Gertrude her cup. “That’ll do, Gertrude, thank you. Call me at nine.”

  When the maid had withdrawn, I told what there was to tell.

  “I’m very sorry,” I finished. “I was so mad with Harris, I didn’t stop to think. I’m afraid—Hubert said you looked worried.”

  “He looked pretty worried himself.”

  “He didn’t sound very worried. I hope you haven’t caught cold. Your hand was like ice.”

  “If I have, it’s my fault,” said Olivia. She laid back her head and smiled. “John, my dear, I can’t blame you, because I’m to blame myself. You told me to go back to bed, but that was too much to ask. I did wait for a while on the landing: then, when the lights went out, I went to the head of the stairs. The front door was open then, and Harris must have seen me, although, of course, I couldn’t see him. Though I never heard him, he must have come up the stairs, for the first I knew was that I was in his arms and his hand was upon my mouth.” She shuddered at the memory, and I felt the blood of anger come into my face. “The rest you can guess. He carried me down the stairs and the length of the passage below. Then he put me into that room and shut the door. He never addressed me once, but when Uncle Herman said something he laughed in his face.”

  “ ‘Finding’s keeping,’ he said: and that was all.

  “Of course, I was helpless. I didn’t dare cry out, for that would have brought you pelting into their net. And Harris had posted Punter outside the door. I knew when you found I was gone you’d do what you could, but I couldn’t see what you could do, for I was in ‘the power of the dog.’ And then you—got me out, John.”

  “He should never have left you,” I said. “He went on when he should have stood still. You see, he’d a winning hand. He’d picked up a queen.”

  Olivia laughed delightedly.

  “Why, John,” she said, “I thought you belonged to the Stone Age. But primitive men don’t say pretty things like that.”

  I got to my feet.

  “Primitive men,” said I, “don’t have pretty neighbours like you. I tell you truly, Olivia, I’m ready to dance and sing. The thought that you’re lying there safe . . .”

  She put out a little hand, and I took it in both of mine and went down on my knees.


  “Oh, Olivia,” I cried, “I’m so very thankful, my dear.”

  “So am I, John. When—when they told me you weren’t in the courtyard, I never thought I’d see you again.”

  Hubert’s words came into my mind.

  ‘If you’d seen the look in her eyes . . .”

  After all, it was natural enough. We were very good friends, and I had that moment saved her ‘from the power of the dog.’

  I put her hand to my lips. Then I rose and stepped to the door by which Gertrude had left.

  “I’m going to lock this,” I said, “or I shan’t be able to sleep. And please may I leave our door open—the door between our two rooms? After to-night, I feel I want you under my hand.”

  “Yes,” said Olivia, quietly. “Why were you ‘so mad with Harris?’ ”

  Her question was unexpected. When I asked myself the answer, I found that it was an answer I could not make.

  “I think,” I said slowly, “because he’d picked up my queen.”

  I knew that her eyes were upon me, although she did not reply: but my words had unleashed emotions which I was bound to restrain, and though I had looked forward to looking once more upon her before I bade her good-night, I passed instead to the doorway between our rooms.

  “Good-night, Olivia,” I said. And then, “Sleep well.”

  “You, too, John,” she said gently.

  Before I was back in my bed her light was out.

  I confess that I dreamed of her. Had I not done so I must have been of the Stone Age stony indeed I dreamed that she stooped and kissed me, and when I started up, glowing, to find it was only a dream, I fancied I could smell her perfume; such is the power of love.

  Chapter 12. And Satan Came Also

  From that time on we slept with sentries doubled, and Hubert or Stiven or I was always on guard by day, but though we were all persuaded that we had not done with the rogues, they gave us no sign of their existence either by day or by night. While this made my cousin uneasy, I could not share his alarm, for unless Harris fell from the clouds he could not now surprise us, and his words with the priest had convinced me that the way to the ‘vestments’ must be taken within our walls.