“We expected this,” said the latter, “and we hardened our hearts before you ever came in. You’re both worn out, and you’ve got to go to bed for twelve hours. Twenty-four would be better, but we don’t want to twist your tails. And so we’ll call you this evening at seven o’clock: and after dinner we’ll go and collect the baubles according to the book of the rules. You see, there’s no sort of hurry—you’ve spiked the enemy’s guns. Personally, I think you’ve done more. Though he doesn’t know it yet, I believe you’ve broken his heart: and that when he finds out that his labour of love has been lost, he’ll go mad and throw in his hand. But that’s by the way. The point is we’ve won the game. The vestments are yours for the taking, and to-night we’ll open the chamber and have a look at their shape. And though, as I say, we might wait, I’m bound to admit that it is appropriate that you should take what is yours, while those who have come to steal it are standing in some impatience without your gates. That most artistic effect will be due to you, for I haven’t a doubt in the world that they’ll come to-night. And rich as is Harris’ vocabulary, I cannot help feeling that to-night it is going to be strained. But I do hope Father Herman won’t forget himself . . . ”
Olivia rose, laughing, and fairly drove us to bed.
Some thirteen hours had gone by, and I was sitting in the library, listening to the talk of Olivia and thinking how lovely she looked.
Her dress was of dark blue cloth, and its skirt was flared: at her neck and wrists were little bands of fair linen, and these and a white leather belt lent to the dress that freshness which she herself always gave off. She was sitting on the high fender which fenced the hearth, with her small hands laid upon the leather on either side: her slim legs were crossed beneath her, and the toe of one little black slipper was planted upon the rug. Above her, two lamps were burning, and her soft, brown hair was reflecting the light they threw: her face was aglow with beauty—no feature was finer than its fellows, but all were superb. She used no artifice, except to redden her lips—and that was a work of supererogation, for they were redness itself. Her mouth was exquisite—I could hardly believe that I had dared kiss its pride: the jewellery of her eyes beggared description. She was eager, natural and royal: and these three qualities, each of them rare enough, made up a grace that would have taxed Shakespeare’s pen.
“The code-word was Nebuchadnezzar. Years ago Uncle Herman had a monkey—I think it was the only living being he ever liked. Nobody else liked it—no ordinary person could have liked such a brute. It was always cruel and spiteful in all it did. It used to torment the dogs till they nearly went mad, and one day one of them got it and broke its neck. Uncle Herman had the dog shot: if he could have found someone to do it, I think he’d have had it flayed. Well, the monkey was called Nebuchadnezzar: my mother gave it the name. That was thirteen years ago: and I’d forgotten the monkey—I was only eight when it died. I can’t think what made me remember, but the moment I did, I was sure that we’d done the sum. And so we had. We had to juggle a little, and then all at once the cipher began to come out.”
“When was this?” said I.
“About this time yesterday evening—when you were at the head of the sand-pit, watching the sun go down.”
I smiled ruefully.
“It makes our show look small. For all the good we’ve done, Hubert and Stiven and I might have never gone out.”
“Rot, my dear,” said Olivia. “You’ve saved the farm, and you’ve set the enemy back. You may have done more—much more. You can’t possibly tell. By the way, I think Sarem should know.”
“Yes,” said I, “and he ought to be in at the death. But nobody else.”
Olivia nodded.
“Why do you look at me so?”
With a shock I realized that I had been gazing upon her as though upon some work of art.
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking down. “But you—you’re very good to look at, and I’m glad to be with you again.”
“I’m glad you’re back, too,” said Olivia. “You’re reckless enough when you’re with me,” she added, gravely enough. And then, “Besides, you’re very refreshing. Simplicity always is.”
“You’re laughing at me,” I said.
“I mean what I say,” said Olivia, “I wouldn’t have you different for worlds. And when the time comes, I shall miss you. You’ve been a wonderful squire.”
The word stuck in my gizzard, and I think I went red. “Honours are even,” I said. “You’ve been a wonderful wife.”
I saw her delicate fingers tighten on the edge of the kerb.
“You passed your word,” said Olivia.
I got to my feet.
“God knows I’ve kept it,” said I.
Olivia raised her eyebrows.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” she said. “Five times you’ve kissed my hand.”
“I don’t think that—”
“And once—my lips.”
I could hardly believe my ears.
“But you gave me them, Olivia,” I cried. “You—”
“What?”
She was up on her feet, and her eyes were ablaze with wrath.
As I lowered my gaze, all my world seemed to crumble beneath my feet.
“I’m sorry,” I heard myself saying. “I thought that you meant me to kiss you. I thought you were giving me leave.”
“Do I look that kind of girl?”
“No,” I said helplessly. “Of course not.” I put a hand to my head. “But I misunderstood your gesture. I thought you meant to give me a privilege I couldn’t take.”
“Why should I give it to you? Any more than to Hubert, or Andrew?”
“I don’t know. I just thought you did. I—I’m very sorry,” I finished miserably.
Olivia sat down on the fender and crossed her legs.” I wish,” she said, “I wish you’d tell me the truth. You thought that I meant you to kiss me. Why did you think that I meant you to do such a—such a curious thing?”
I took a deep breath.
“I thought you liked me,” I said.
“So I do,” said Olivia. “I’ve said so. As a squire—”
“More than that,” I said quietly. “You see, I know nothing of women. Nothing at all. But I’ve always heard that they play an indirect game, and—and—”
With her hands to her face, Olivia was laughing helplessly.
Half relieved, half indignant, I regarded her.
Presently she stood up, put her hands behind her, tilted her chin and looked me full in the eyes.
“John,” she said, “you’re forgiven—because you’re too good to be true.”
With that, she lowered her gaze.
For all my recent chastisement, I could not take my eyes from the bow of her beautiful mouth. The faintest of smiles hung about it, and, but for our late conversation . . .
Here the door was opened, and Sarem came into the room.
With the gravest of bows, he announced that dinner was served.
At ten o’clock that evening all was in train.
One sentry was pacing the ramparts, while another kept the courtyard: a third had been posted in one of the gate-house towers. Whatever they saw or heard, they were not to sound the alarm, but were to come and tell Sarem who would be, if not in the kitchen, at the foot of the dungeon steps.
The old fellow was as excited as any child. I think that he loved the castle, as a dean his cathedral church, and so was all agog to see the holy of holies of which, high priest though he was, he never had dreamed.
Hammers and chisels and crowbars had been laid in the torture-chamber, ready to hand, and coats were piled on a chair at the head of the stairs. But first, of course, we had to let down the shutter, to cut off the flow of the water that made the dungeon fall.
We had trodden the little stairway a hundred times—and might have trod it a million and never dreamed that one of its treads would move: but here, of course, Time was against us, for though the whole of the castle was very clean, the du
st of ages had sealed what cracks had been there. What was more, it had clogged the tread: and though, after twenty minutes, we could see that it was not fixed, we could not draw it forward or so much as make it budge. As we stood about my cousin, who was working with knife and sponge, I began to wonder whether, before some earthquake, the building at some time or other had settled down and whether because of its movement the tread had been jammed.
For over an hour we worked to loosen that tread, for we dared use no violence for fear of dislocating the engagement by which the shutter was held. And then at last it yielded and moved an eighth of an inch.
Beneath my cousin’s wheedling, the tread came slowly forward, till a gap appeared between it and the second rise. At once we heard the water racing below: we could not hear it before because of the steady rush of the castle fall, for this was washing the wall in which the stairway was built.
And here I should say we had raised the flap in the kitchen before we had set to work, and Sarem was there with a lantern, waiting to come and tell us the instant the water failed.
Now, though the tread was drawn forward, the rise below did not fall, but stayed where it was.
“That’s jammed, too,” said Palin. “Never mind. Go on with the tread.”
I had not expected that this would come right away: but it did, as the lid. of a box, and Hubert and Stiven between them lifted it into the passage and laid it against the wall.
Examining it, we saw a long, clean-cut groove, and when we returned to the rise, there was the flange cut to fit this when once the tread was in place. I cannot conceive a more simple locking device, for once they were home, the length of the rise was locked into the length of the tread, and, each compelling the other, the two made up one step as steady as any rock.
There was now before us a hole, some two feet long by eight or nine inches wide, and when we had put in the lamp, the position was plain.
Let fall the rise or shutter, and the water foaming beneath us must turn to its right. There was a second conduit, wet only with spray: and this would conduct the water back to the castle fall. But the shutter was stiff in its runners. After all, it had not been lowered for more than four hundred years.”
“The mallet,” said Hubert. . . .
Very gently he tapped the front and the back of the rise: then he struck it a short, sharp blow in the midst of its edge.
The rise fell down like a stone and passed out of view. The water seethed for an instant and then flung down the conduit which ran to its right.
As Olivia’s hand slid into mine, Sarem came running from the kitchen to say that the water had failed.
It was past midnight before I drove a chisel into the dungeon’s wall.
Before we could open the chamber, we had to erect a rough stage, for we could not set up a ladder because of the well in the floor. We had meant to board this over, but once the planks had been brought, we saw that to work from a stage would be half as easy again, so Stiven ran for some trestles and we laid the ladder as a grating across the mouth of the well. Some such fence was needful, for the slime thereabouts was like grease, and since all the pavement was sloping towards the well, if someone had lost his footing, he might very well have gone down into the depths.
The wall itself over which the water had flowed, was jacketed thick with slime, and Stiven had to go for a trowel before I could discover the joints of the stonework I was to attack. But when at last this was revealed, we saw before us a wall such as Hubert and I had sought. The stones had been carefully cut and lay four to a course, but between and above and below them the mortar lay half an inch thick.
Now whether the cement was poor, or whether the damp had gradually sapped its virtue I cannot pretend to say, but the fact remains that it crumbled before my chisel, and in less than ten minutes’ time I had the first stone in my hands.
After that, the work was nothing, and in less than another ten minutes I had opened a decent window some two feet square.
Then they gave me the lamp, and Palin lifted Olivia on to the stage.
The chamber looked very clean.
It was plainly hewn out of the rock and was larger than we had expected: it must have been twenty feet square by some seven high. There was no sign of dampness, but the air was faint and musty, as though we had opened the closet of Age himself. The floor was sloping upward from where we stood, and right at the end of the chamber lay three small bales.
Each was the size of two pillows, laid face to face, and they seemed to be done up in canvas or stuff like that. They were neither hooped nor corded, which I found strange, but Olivia said that the canvas was probably stitched.
Then I lifted Olivia down, and Hubert and Palin came up and looked their fill: then I gave them back the lamp, and Stiven came up and helped me to cut out the rest of the stones.
Twenty more minutes sufficed to open the doorway itself. Then Stiven produced a towel and wiped the lintel and jambs, and while he was so engaged, Sarem came up to view the chamber before we laid hands on the bales.
The old fellow gazed and gazed.
Then he turned to Olivia.
“It is like a fable, my lady—some fable of Æsop himself: and then again there is something sacred about it, and it has the look of a parable such as the Gospels tell.”
I cannot better his description. The three old bales, lying there in the rock-hewn chamber, seemed as well to belong to some legend as to be conveying some moral we could not read.
There was a hook in the ceiling, from which no doubt a lantern was meant to be hung, and when Sarem was gone and Olivia was up in his place, I entered and hung up our lamp, so twisting it that the reflector flung the light full on the bales.
Then I gave my hand to Olivia, and Hubert and Palin and Stiven followed her in.
For some reason the moment was solemn, and none of us spoke. The bales before us seemed relics, and we about to shatter a tradition more rare, more virgin and more venerable than any we had dreamed could exist. I had a ridiculous feeling that, now that we had seen them, we ought to wall up the chamber and leave the bales where they were . . .
We had brought three sheets with us, because it seemed more than likely that, as soon as we touched them the bales would crumble away. And as Palin and Stiven spread one of these sheets on the floor, Hubert and I between us took hold of one of the bales.
To our relief, neither stuff nor stitches gave way before our touch: so we raised the bale very gently and laid it down on the sheet. And that seemed to break the spell, for I know that I felt more lighthearted, and Hubert opened his mouth.
“I should say there were vestments there. Of course, the jewels are within, but vestments are wrapped about them, to colour the lie.”
“I think you’re right,” said I, watching Stiven swaddle the bale with infinite care. “There’s certainly some stiff fabric.”
“ ‘The king’s daughter,’ ” said Palin, “ ‘is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.’ ”
I saw Olivia smiling, and I smiled back.
Then—
“I’ve four guns here,” said Harris. “Don’t anyone move.”
The man was standing in shadow, for, as I have said, I had turned the lamp’s reflector away from the doorway, the better to illumine the bales. So half of the chamber was dark, but the half in which we were standing was brilliantly lit.
Resistance was not to be thought of, if only because of this, for although we all turned about, we could not at first see the speaker because of the light in our eyes. Add to this that we had not a pistol between us and that even the hammers and chisels had been left without on the stage.
Because, I suppose, we were peering—
“It’s me all right,” said Harris. “Put up your hands.” There was nothing to do but obey. “And if anyone wants to die, he’s only to open his mouth.”
I could see the man now. He was standing within the chamber, with a pistol in either hand. On his right stood a cassocked figure which I
knew for that of the priest, and on his left stood either Bunch or Bugle—I thought it was Bunch.
“Ferrers,” said Harris sharply, “back to the wall.”
I stood my ground.
“John,” said Olivia quietly, “do as he says.”
Feeling strangely weary, I backed till I came to the wall.
One by one the others joined me, as Harris spoke their names. Then he called to Punter and told him to bring up ‘that cord.’
I have tried to set down dispassionately exactly what took place, but when I say I felt weary, that feeling succeeded a string of such dreadful emotions as I doubt that a man can suffer and be the same. Stupefaction, horror, despair came down and swept me in turn, as some monstrous wave will sweep the deck of a ship; and before each onslaught my mind seemed to quake and stagger, as a ship will quake and stagger beneath the flail of the sea.
And this, I think, was natural.
Harris had struck us down, and we had a long way to fall—in a word, from the pinnacle of triumph into the depths of something lower than failure and far more depressing than defeat.
I was at first too much confounded to reason. I accepted Harris’ presence because it could not be denied. By rights he should have been waiting on the road of approach, close to the gate-house, waiting for his sluice to go down and the castle fall to be stopped: why he was not there, fuming, how he had avoided our sentries were questions I could not answer—could scarcely frame.
Then the fellow stepped into the light, and I saw his state.
And the moment I saw it, the truth leaped into my mind, and again my wits seemed to stagger before their realization of the awful mistake we had made.
We had only made one mistake. With one exception, all our assumptions were right. This was the night the rogues had chosen: Bugle and the chauffeur had been dispatched to the sluice: and Harris and the priest and the others had stood waiting without the castle—waiting for the water to stop. But they had been waiting not at the mouth of the conduit, but at the mouth of the waste-pipe—not where the water entered, but where the water came out . . . somewhere below the castle, down in the woods. And the water had stopped . . . we had stopped it . . . by letting the shutter down. And then they had come up the waste-pipe and made their way out of the well.
Safe Custody and Laughing Bacchante Page 23