*CHAPTER XXVII*
*THE NIGHT'S WORK*
The fourteen long hours dragged themselves by. They seemedinterminable, but somehow they passed and the appointed time drew near.Ste. Marie spent the greater part of the afternoon reading, but twice helay down upon the bed and tried to sleep, and once he actually dozed offfor a brief space. The old Michel brought his meals. He had thought itpossible that Coira might manage to bring the dinner-tray, as she hadalready done on several occasions, and so make an opportunity forinforming him as to young Arthur's state of mind. But she did not comeand no word came from her. So evening drew on and the dusk gathered anddeepened into darkness.
Ste. Marie walked his floor and prayed for the hours to pass. He hadcandles and matches, and there was even a lamp in the room so that hecould have read if he chose, but he knew that the words would have beenmeaningless to him, that he was incapable of abstracting his thoughtfrom the night's stern work. He began to be anxious over not havingheard from Mlle. O'Hara. She had said that she would talk with ArthurBenham during the afternoon, and then slip a note under Ste. Marie'sdoor. Yet no word had come from her, and, to the man pacing his floorin the darkness, the fact took on proportions tremendous and fantastic.Something had happened. The boy had broken his promise, burst out uponO'Hara, or more probably upon his uncle, and the house was by the ears.Coira was watched--even locked in her room. Stewart had fled! A scoreof such terrible possibilities rushed through Ste. Marie's brain andtortured him. He was in a state of nervous tension that was almostunendurable, and the little noises of the night outside, a wind-stirredrustle of leaves, a bird's flutter among the branches, the sound of acracking twig, made him start violently and catch his breath.
Then at his utmost need came reassurance and something like ease ofmind. He heard a sound of voices at the front of the house, and sprangto his balconied window to listen. Captain Stewart and O'Hara werewalking upon the brick-paved terrace and chatting calmly over theircigars. The man above, prone upon the floor, his head pressed againstthe ivy-masked grille of the balcony, listened, and though he could heartheir words only at intervals when they passed beneath him, he knew thatthey spoke of trivial matters in voices free of strain or concern.
He drew back with a breath of relief, and at that moment a sound acrossthe room arrested him: a soft scraping sound such as a mouse might make.He went where it was, and a little square of paper gleamed white throughthe darkness just within the door. Ste. Marie caught it up and took itto the far side of the room away from the window. He struck a match,opened the folded paper, and a single line of writing was there--
"He will go with you. Wait by the door in the wall."
The man nearly cried out with joy.
He struck another match and looked at his watch. It was a quarter toten. Four hours left out of the fourteen.
Once more he lay down upon the bed and closed his eyes. He knew that hecould not sleep, but he was tired from long tramping up and down theroom and from the strain of over-tried nerves. From hour to hour helooked at his watch by match-light, but he did not leave the bed untilhalf-past one. Then he rose and took a long breath, and the time was athand.
He stood a little while gazing out into the night. An old moon was highoverhead in a cloudless sky, and that would make the night's work botheasier and more difficult, but, on the whole, he was glad of it. Helooked to the east towards that wall where was the little wooden door,and the way was under cover of trees and shrubbery for the wholedistance save a little space beside the house. He listened and thenight was very still--no sound from the house below him--no soundanywhere save the barking of a dog from far away, and, after an instant,the whistle of a distant train.
Ste. Marie turned back into the room and pulled the sheets from his bed.He rolled them, corner-wise, into a sort of rope and knotted themtogether securely. Then he went to one of the east windows. There wasno balcony there, but, as in all French upper windows, a wood and ironbar fixed into the stone casing at both ends, with a little grille belowit. It crossed the window-space a third of the distance from bottom totop. He bent one end of the improvised rope to this, made it fast, andlet the other end hang out. The east side of the house was in shadow,and the rolled sheet, a vague white line, disappeared into the darknessbelow, but Ste. Marie knew that it must reach nearly to the ground. Hehad made use of it because he was afraid there would be too much noiseif he tried to climb down the ivy. The room directly underneath was thedrawing-room, and he knew that it was closed and shuttered andunoccupied both by day and by night. The only danger, he decided, wasfrom the sleeping-room behind his own, with its windows opening closeby; but though he did not know it he was safe there also, for the roomwas Coira O'Hara's.
He felt in his pocket for the pistol and it was ready to hand. Then hebuttoned his coat round him and swung himself out of the window. Heheld his body away from the wall with one knee, and went down, handunder hand. It was so quietly done that it did not even rouse the birdsin the near-by trees. Before he realised that he had come to the lowerwindows his feet touched the earth and he was free.
He stood for a moment where he was, and then slipped rapidly across theopen moonlit space into the inky gloom of the trees. He made ahalf-circle round before the house and looked up at it. It lay grey andblack and still in the night. Where the moonlight was upon it it wasgrey, where there was shadow black as black velvet, and the windows werelike open dead eyes. He looked towards Arthur Benham's room, and therewas no light, but he knew that the boy was awake and waiting there,shivering probably in the dark. He wondered where Coira O'Hara was, andhe pictured her lying in her bed fronting the gloom with sleepless openeyes looking into those to-morrows which she had said she saw so well.He wondered bitterly what the to-morrows were to bring her, but hecaught himself up with a stern determination and put her out of hismind. He did not dare think of her in that hour.
He turned and began to make his way silently under the trees towards theappointed meeting place. Once he thought of the old Michel, andwondered where that gnarled and withered watch-dog had betaken himself.Somewhere, within or without the house, he was asleep, or pretended tosleep, and Ste. Marie knew that he could be trusted. The man's cupidityand his hatred of Captain Stewart together would make him faithful--orfaithless, as one chose to look upon it.
He came to that place where a row of lilac shrubs stood against the walland a half-dead cedar stretched gnarled branches above. He was a littlebefore his time, and he settled himself to listen and wait, his sharpears keenly on the alert, his eyes turned towards the dark and quiethouse.
The little noises of the night broke upon him with exaggerated clamour.A crackling twig was a thunderous crash, a bird's sleepy stir was thesound of pursuit and disaster. A hundred times he heard the cautiousapproach of Richard Hartley's motor-car without the wall, and he fellinto a panic of fear lest that machine prove unruly, break down,puncture a tyre, or burst into a series of ear-splitting explosions.But at last--it seemed to him that he had waited untold hours and thatthe dawn must be nigh--there came an unmistakable rustling from overheadand the sound of hard-drawn breath. The top of the wall, just at thatpoint, was in moonlight, and a man's head appeared over it, then an armand then a leg. Hartley called down to him in a whisper, and Ste.Marie, from the gloom beneath, whispered a reply. He said--
"The boy has promised to come with us. We shan't have to fight for it."Richard Hartley said--
"Thank God!" He spoke to some one outside and then, turning about, lethimself down to arm's length and dropped to the ground.
"Thank God!" he said again. "The two men who were to have come with medidn't show up. I waited as long as I dared, and then came on with onlythe chauffeur. He's waiting outside by the car ready to crank up when Igive the word. The car's just a few yards away headed out for the road.How are we to get back over the wall?"
Ste. Marie explained that Arthur Benham was to com
e out to join them atthe wooden door, and doubtless would bring a key. If not, the three ofthem could scale fifteen feet easily enough in the way soldiers andfiremen are trained to do it. He told his friend all that was necessaryfor the time, and they went together along the wall to the more openspace beside the little door.
They waited there in silence for five minutes, and once Hartley, withhis back towards the house, struck a match under his sheltering coat,looked to see what time it was, and it was three minutes past two.
"He ought to be here!" the man growled. "I don't like waiting. GoodLord, you don't think he's funked it, do you? Eh?" Ste. Marie did notanswer, but he was breathing very fast and he could not keep his handsstill.
The dog which he had heard from his window began barking again very faraway in the night, and kept it up incessantly. Perhaps he was barkingat the moon.
"I'm going a little way towards the house," said Ste. Marie at last."We can't see the terrace from here." But before he had started theyheard the sound of hurrying feet, and Richard Hartley began to curseunder his breath. He said--
"Does the young idiot want to rouse the whole place? Why can't he comequietly?"
Ste. Marie began to run forward, slipping the pistol out of his pocketand holding it ready in his hand, for his quick ears told him that therewas more than one pair of feet coming through the night. He went towhere he could command the approach from the house and halted there, butall at once he gave a low cry and started forward again, for he saw thatArthur Benham and Coira O'Hara were running together, and that they werein desperate haste. He called out to them and the girl cried--
"Go to the door in the wall! The door in the wall! Oh, be quick!" Hefell into step beside her, and, as they ran, he said--
"You're going with him? You're coming with us?" The girl answeredhim--
"No! no!" and she sprang to the little low door and began to fit theiron key into the lock. The three men stood about her, and young ArthurBenham drew his breath in great shivering gasps that were like sobs.
"They heard us!" he cried in a whisper. "They're after us. They heardus on the stairs. I--stumbled and fell. For God's sake, Coira, bequick!"
The girl fumbled desperately with the clumsy key, and dropped upon herknees to see the better. Once she said in a whisper: "I can't turn it.It won't turn," and at that Richard Hartley pushed her out of the wayand lent his greater strength to the task.
"The girl fumbled desperately with the clumsy key."]
A sudden loud cry came from the house, a hoarse screeching cry in avoice which might have been either man's or woman's, but was as mad andas desperate and as horrible in that still night as the screech of atortured animal--or of a maniac. It came again and again and it wasnearer.
"Oh, hurry! hurry!" said the girl. "Can't you be quick? They'recoming." And, as she spoke, the little group about the wall heard theengine of the motor-car outside start up with a staccato roar, and knewthat the faithful chauffeur was ready for them.
"I'm getting it, I think!" said Richard Hartley between his teeth. "I'mgetting it. Turn, you beast! Turn!"
There was a sound of hurrying feet, and Ste. Marie spun about. Hecried--
"Don't wait for me! Jump into the car and go! Don't wait anywhere.Come back after you've left Benham at home!" He began to run forwardtoward those running feet, and he did not know that the girl followedafter him. A short distance away there was a little open space ofmoonlight, and in its midst, at full career, he met the Irishman O'Hara,a gaunt and grotesque figure in his sleeping suit, barefooted, withempty hands. Beyond him still, some one else ran stumbling, and sobbedand uttered mad cries.
Ste. Marie dropped his pistol to the ground and sprang upon theIrishman. He caught him about the body and arms, and the two swayed andstaggered under the tremendous impact. At just that moment, frombehind, came the crash of the opened door and triumphant shouts. Ste.Marie gave a little gasp of triumph too, and clung the harder to the manwith whom he fought. He drove his head into the Irishman's shoulder,and set his muscles with a grip which was like iron. He knew that itcould not endure long, for the Irishman was stronger than he; but thegrip of a nervous man who is keyed up to a high tension is incrediblypowerful for a little while. Trained strength is nothing beside it.
It seemed to Ste. Marie in this desperate moment--it cannot have beenmore than a minute or two at the most--that a strange and uncannymiracle befel him. It was as if he became two. Soul and body, spiritand straining flesh, seemed to him to separate, to stand apart each fromthe other. There was a thing of iron flesh and thews which had lockeditself about an enemy, and clung there madly with but one purpose, onesingle thought--to grip and grip and never loosen until flesh should betorn from bones. But apart, the spirit looked on with a completedetachment. It looked beyond--he must have raised his head to glanceover O'Hara's shoulder--saw a mad figure staggering forward in themoonlight, and knew the figure for Captain Stewart. It saw an upraisedarm and was not afraid, for the work was almost done now. It listenedand was glad, hearing the motor-car without the walls leap forward intothe night, and its puffing grow fainter and fainter with distance. Itknew that the thing of strained sinews received a crashing blow uponback-flung head, and that the iron muscles were slipping away from theirgrip, but it was still glad, for the work was done.
Only at the last, before red and whirling lights had obscured the view,before consciousness was dissolved in unconsciousness, came horror andagony, for the eyes saw Captain Stewart back away and raise the thing hehad struck with, a large revolver, saw Coira O'Hara, a swift andflashing figure in the moonlight, throw herself upon him, before hecould fire, heard together a woman's scream and the roar of the pistol'sexplosion, and so knew no more.
The Quest: A Romance Page 27