“I give it you,” returned Sir Daniel. “Upon my word of honour, upon the eternal welfare of my spirit, and as I shall answer for my deeds hereafter, I had no hand nor portion in your father’s death.”
He extended his hand, and Dick took it eagerly. Neither of them observed the priest, who, at the pronunciation of that solemn and false oath, had half arisen from his seat in an agony of horror and remorse.
“Ah,” cried Dick, “ye must find it in your great-heartedness to pardon me! I was a churl, indeed, to doubt of you. But ye have my hand upon it; I will doubt no more.”
“Nay, Dick,” replied Sir Daniel, “y’ are forgiven. Ye know not the world and its calumnious nature.”
“I was the more to blame,” added Dick, “in that the rogues pointed, not directly at yourself, but at Sir Oliver.”
As he spoke, he turned towards the priest, and paused in the middle of the last word. This tall, ruddy, corpulent, high-stepping man had fallen, you might say, to pieces; his colour was gone, his limbs were relaxed, his lips stammered prayers; and now, when Dick’s eyes were fixed upon him suddenly, he cried out aloud, like some wild animal, and buried his face in his hands.
Sir Daniel was by him in two strides, and shook him fiercely by the shoulder. At the same moment Dick’s suspicions reawakened.
“Nay,” he said, “Sir Oliver may swear also. ’Twas him they accused.”
“He shall swear,” said the knight.
Sir Oliver speechlessly waved his arms.
“Ay, by the mass! but ye shall swear,” cried Sir Daniel, beside himself with fury. “Here, upon this book, ye shall swear,” he continued, picking up the breviary, which had fallen to the ground. “What! Ye make me doubt you! Swear, I say; swear!”
But the priest was still incapable of speech. His terror of Sir Daniel, his terror of perjury, risen to about an equal height, strangled him.
And just then, through the high, stained-glass window of the hall, a black arrow crashed, and struck, and stuck quivering, in the midst of the long table.
Sir Oliver, with a loud scream, fell fainting on the rushes; while the knight, followed by Dick, dashed into the court and up the nearest corkscrew stair to the battlements. The sentries were all on the alert. The sun shone quietly on green lawns dotted with trees, and on the wooded hills of the forest which enclosed the view. There was no sign of a besieger.
“Whence came that shot?” asked the knight.
“From yonder clump, Sir Daniel,” returned a sentinel.
The knight stood a little, musing. Then he turned to Dick. “Dick,” he said, “keep me an eye upon these men; I leave you in charge here. As for the priest, he shall clear himself, or I will know the reason why. I do almost begin to share in your suspicions. He shall swear, trust me, or we shall prove him guilty.”
Dick answered somewhat coldly, and the knight, giving him a piercing glance, hurriedly returned to the hall. His first glance was for the arrow. It was the first of these missiles he had seen, and as he turned it to and fro, the dark hue of it touched him with some fear. Again there was some writing: one word — “Earthed.”
“Ay,” he broke out, “they know I am home, then. Earthed! Ay, but there is not a dog among them fit to dig me out.”
Sir Oliver had come to himself, and now scrambled to his feet.
“Alack, Sir Daniel!” he moaned, “y’ ’ave sworn a dread oath; y’ are doomed to the end of time.”
“Ay,” returned the knight, “I have sworn an oath, indeed, thou chucklehead; but thyself shalt swear a greater. It shall be on the blessed cross of Holywood. Look to it; get the words ready. It shall be sworn to-night.”
“Now, may Heaven lighten you!” replied the priest; “may Heaven incline your heart from this iniquity!”
“Look you, my good father,” said Sir Daniel, “if y’ are for piety, I say no more; ye begin late, that is all. But if y’ are in any sense bent upon wisdom, hear me. This lad beginneth to irk me like a wasp. I have a need for him, for I would sell his marriage. But I tell you, in all plainness, if that he continue to weary me, he shall go join his father. I give orders now to change him to the chamber above the chapel. If that ye can swear your innocency with a good, solid oath and an assured countenance, it is well; the lad will be at peace a little, and I will spare him. If that ye stammer or blench, or anyways boggle at the swearing, he will not believe you; and by the mass, he shall die. There is for your thinking on.”
“The chamber above the chapel!” gasped the priest.
“That same,” replied the knight. “So if ye desire to save him, save him; and if ye desire not, prithee, go to, and let me be at peace! For an I had been a hasty man, I would already have put my sword through you, for your intolerable cowardice and folly. Have ye chosen? Say!”
“I have chosen,” said the priest. “Heaven pardon me, I will do evil for good. I will swear for the lad’s sake.”
“So is it best!” said Sir Daniel. “Send for him, then, speedily. Ye shall see him alone. Yet I shall have an eye on you. I shall be here in the panel room.”
The knight raised the arras and let it fall again behind him. There was the sound of a spring opening; then followed the creaking of trod stairs.
Sir Oliver, left alone, cast a timorous glance upward at the arras-covered wall, and crossed himself with every appearance of terror and contrition.
“Nay, if he is in the chapel room,” the priest murmured, “were it at my soul’s cost, I must save him.”
Three minutes later, Dick, who had been summoned by another messenger, found Sir Oliver standing by the hall table, resolute and pale.
“Richard Shelton,” he said, “ye have required an oath from me. I might complain, I might deny you; but my heart is moved toward you for the past, and I will even content you as ye choose. By the true cross of Holywood, I did not slay your father.”
“Sir Oliver,” returned Dick, “when first we read John Amend-All’s paper, I was convinced of so much. But suffer me to put two questions. Ye did not slay him; granted. But had ye no hand in it?”
“None,” said Sir Oliver. And at the same time he began to contort his face, and signal with his mouth and eyebrows, like one who desired to convey a warning, yet dared not utter a sound.
Dick regarded him in wonder; then he turned and looked all about him at the empty hall.
“What make ye?” he inquired.
“Why, naught,” returned the priest, hastily smoothing his countenance. “I make naught; I do but suffer; I am sick. I — I — prithee, Dick, I must begone. On the true cross of Holywood, I am clean innocent alike of violence or treachery. Content ye, good lad. Farewell!”
And he made his escape from the apartment with unusual alacrity.
Dick remained rooted to the spot, his eyes wandering about the room, his face a changing picture of various emotions, wonder, doubt, suspicion, and amusement. Gradually, as his mind grew clearer, suspicion took the upper hand, and was succeeded by certainty of the worst. He raised his head, and, as he did so, violently started. High upon the wall there was the figure of a savage hunter woven in the tapestry. With one hand he held a horn to his mouth; in the other he brandished a stout spear. His face was dark, for he was meant to represent an African.
Now, here was what had startled Richard Shelton. The sun had moved away from the hall windows, and at the same time the fire had blazed up high on the wide hearth, and shed a changeful glow upon the roof and hangings. In this light the figure of the black hunter had winked at him with a white eyelid.
He continued staring at the eye. The light shone upon it like a gem; it was liquid, it was alive. Again the white eyelid closed upon it for a fraction of a second, and the next moment it was gone.
There could be no mistake. The live eye that had been watching him through a hole in the tapestry was gone. The firelight no longer shone on a reflecting surface.
And instantly Dick awoke to the terrors of his position. Hatch’s warning, the mute signals of the priest, this ey
e that had observed him from the wall, ran together in his mind. He saw he had been put upon his trial, that he had once more betrayed his suspicions, and that, short of some miracle, he was lost.
“If I cannot get me forth out of this house,” he thought, “I am a dead man! And this poor Matcham, too — to what a cockatrice’s nest have I not led him!”
He was still so thinking, when there came one in haste, to bid him help in changing his arms, his clothing, and his two or three books, to a new chamber.
“A new chamber?” he repeated. “Wherefore so? What chamber?”
“’Tis one above the chapel,” answered the messenger.
“It hath stood long empty,” said Dick, musing. “What manner of room is it?”
“Nay, a brave room,” returned the man. “But yet” — lowering his voice — “they call it haunted.”
“Haunted?” repeated Dick, with a chill. “I have not heard of it. Nay, then, and by whom?”
The messenger looked about him; and then, in a low whisper, “By the sacrist of St. John’s,” he said. “They had him there to sleep one night, and in the morning — whew! — he was gone. The devil had taken him, they said; the more betoken, he had drunk late the night before.”
Dick followed the man with black forebodings.
CHAPTER III — THE ROOM OVER THE CHAPEL
From the battlements nothing further was observed. The sun journeyed westward, and at last went down; but, to the eyes of all these eager sentinels, no living thing appeared in the neighbourhood of Tunstall House.
When the night was at length fairly come, Throgmorton was led to a room overlooking an angle of the moat. Thence he was lowered with every precaution; the ripple of his swimming was audible for a brief period; then a black figure was observed to land by the branches of a willow and crawl away among the grass. For some half hour Sir Daniel and Hatch stood eagerly giving ear; but all remained quiet. The messenger had got away in safety.
Sir Daniel’s brow grew clearer. He turned to Hatch.
“Bennet,” he said, “this John Amend-All is no more than a man, ye see. He sleepeth. We will make a good end of him, go to!”
All the afternoon and evening, Dick had been ordered hither and thither, one command following another, till he was bewildered with the number and the hurry of commissions. All that time he had seen no more of Sir Oliver, and nothing of Matcham; and yet both the priest and the young lad ran continually in his mind. It was now his chief purpose to escape from Tunstall Moat House as speedily as might be; and yet, before he went, he desired a word with both of these.
At length, with a lamp in one hand, he mounted to his new apartment. It was large, low, and somewhat dark. The window looked upon the moat, and although it was so high up, it was heavily barred. The bed was luxurious, with one pillow of down and one of lavender, and a red coverlet worked in a pattern of roses. All about the walls were cupboards, locked and padlocked, and concealed from view by hangings of dark-coloured arras. Dick made the round, lifting the arras, sounding the panels, seeking vainly to open the cupboards. He assured himself that the door was strong and the bolt solid; then he set down his lamp upon a bracket, and once more looked all around.
For what reason had he been given this chamber? It was larger and finer than his own. Could it conceal a snare? Was there a secret entrance? Was it, indeed, haunted? His blood ran a little chilly in his veins.
Immediately over him the heavy foot of a sentry trod the leads. Below him, he knew, was the arched roof of the chapel; and next to the chapel was the hall. Certainly there was a secret passage in the hall; the eye that had watched him from the arras gave him proof of that. Was it not more than probable that the passage extended to the chapel, and, if so, that it had an opening in his room?
To sleep in such a place, he felt, would be foolhardy. He made his weapons ready, and took his position in a corner of the room behind the door. If ill was intended, he would sell his life dear.
The sound of many feet, the challenge, and the password, sounded overhead along the battlements; the watch was being changed.
And just then there came a scratching at the door of the chamber; it grew a little louder; then a whisper:
“Dick, Dick, it is I!”
Dick ran to the door, drew the bolt, and admitted Matcham. He was very pale, and carried a lamp in one hand and a drawn dagger in the other.
“Shut me the door,” he whispered. “Swift, Dick! This house is full of spies; I hear their feet follow me in the corridors; I hear them breathe behind the arras.”
“Well, content you,” returned Dick, “it is closed. We are safe for this while, if there be safety anywhere within these walls. But my heart is glad to see you. By the mass, lad, I thought ye were sped! Where hid ye?”
“It matters not,” returned Matcham. “Since we be met, it matters not. But, Dick, are your eyes open? Have they told you of to-morrow’s doings?”
“Not they,” replied Dick. “What make they to-morrow?”
“To-morrow, or to-night, I know not,” said the other, “but one time or other, Dick, they do intend upon your life. I had the proof of it; I have heard them whisper; nay, they as good as told me.”
“Ay,” returned Dick, “is it so? I had thought as much.”
And he told him the day’s occurrences at length.
When it was done, Matcham arose and began, in turn, to examine the apartment.
“No,” he said, “there is no entrance visible. Yet ’tis a pure certainty there is one. Dick, I will stay by you. An y’ are to die, I will die with you. And I can help — look! I have stolen a dagger — I will do my best! And meanwhile, an ye know of any issue, any sally-port we could get opened, or any window that we might descend by, I will most joyfully face any jeopardy to flee with you.”
“Jack,” said Dick, “by the mass, Jack, y’ are the best soul, and the truest, and the bravest in all England! Give me your hand, Jack.”
And he grasped the other’s hand in silence.
“I will tell you,” he resumed. “There is a window, out of which the messenger descended; the rope should still be in the chamber. ’Tis a hope.”
“Hist!” said Matcham.
Both gave ear. There was a sound below the floor; then it paused, and then began again.
“Some one walketh in the room below,” whispered Matcham.
“Nay,” returned Dick, “there is no room below; we are above the chapel. It is my murderer in the secret passage. Well, let him come; it shall go hard with him;” and he ground his teeth.
“Blow me the lights out,” said the other. “Perchance he will betray himself.”
They blew out both the lamps and lay still as death. The footfalls underneath were very soft, but they were clearly audible. Several times they came and went; and then there was a loud jar of a key turning in a lock, followed by a considerable silence.
Presently the steps began again, and then, all of a sudden, a chink of light appeared in the planking of the room in a far corner. It widened; a trap-door was being opened, letting in a gush of light. They could see the strong hand pushing it up; and Dick raised his cross-bow, waiting for the head to follow.
But now there came an interruption. From a distant corner of the Moat House shouts began to be heard, and first one voice, and then several, crying aloud upon a name. This noise had plainly disconcerted the murderer, for the trap-door was silently lowered to its place, and the steps hurriedly returned, passed once more close below the lads, and died away in the distance.
Here was a moment’s respite. Dick breathed deep, and then, and not till then, he gave ear to the disturbance which had interrupted the attack, and which was now rather increasing than diminishing. All about the Moat House feet were running, doors were opening and slamming, and still the voice of Sir Daniel towered above all this bustle, shouting for “Joanna.”
“Joanna!” repeated Dick. “Why, who the murrain should this be? Here is no Joanna, nor ever hath been. What meaneth it?”
“Jack,” said Dick, “I wot not where ye were all day. Saw ye this Joanna?”
“Nay,” returned Matcham, “I saw her not.”
“Nor heard tell of her?” he pursued.
The steps drew nearer. Sir Daniel was still roaring the name of Joanna from the courtyard.
“Did ye hear of her?” repeated Dick.
“I heard of her,” said Matcham.
“How your voice twitters! What aileth you?” said Dick. “’Tis a most excellent good fortune, this Joanna; it will take their minds from us.”
“Dick,” cried Matcham, “I am lost; we are both lost. Let us flee if there be yet time. They will not rest till they have found me. Or, see! let me go forth; when they have found me, ye may flee. Let me forth, Dick — good Dick, let me away!”
She was groping for the bolt, when Dick at last comprehended.
“By the mass!” he cried, “y’ are no Jack; y’ are Joanna Sedley; y’ are the maid that would not marry me!”
The girl paused, and stood silent and motionless. Dick, too, was silent for a little; then he spoke again.
“Joanna,” he said, “y’ ’ave saved my life, and I have saved yours; and we have seen blood flow, and been friends and enemies — ay, and I took my belt to thrash you; and all that time I thought ye were a boy. But now death has me, and my time’s out, and before I die I must say this: Y’ are the best maid and the bravest under heaven, and, if only I could live, I would marry you blithely; and, live or die, I love you.”
She answered nothing.
“Come,” he said, “speak up, Jack. Come, be a good maid, and say ye love me!”
“Why, Dick,” she cried, “would I be here?”
“Well, see ye here,” continued Dick, “an we but escape whole we’ll marry; and an we’re to die, we die, and there’s an end on’t. But now that I think, how found ye my chamber?”
The Black Arrow Page 9