A Perilous Secret Part 45

"Nothing of the kind. Accident. Accidents will happen in mines, and talking of luck, this mine was declared dangerous this very day."

"No, no," groaned Bartley, trembling in every limb, "it's a horrible crime; I dare not risk it."

"It is but a risk. The alternative is certain. You will be indicted for fraud by the Cliffords."

Bartley groaned.

"They'll live in your home, they'll revel in your money, while you wear a cropped head--and a convict dress--in a stone cell at Portland."

"No, never!" screamed Bartley. "Man, man; you are tempting me to my perdition!"

"I am saving you. Just consider--where is the risk? It is only an accident, and who will suspect you? Men don't ruin their own mines. Here, just let me call him."

Bartley made a faint gesture to forbid it, but Monckton pretended to take that as an a.s.sent.

"Hy, Ben," he cried, "come here."

"No, no," cried Bartley, "I'll have nothing to do with him."

"Well," said Monckton, "then don't, but hear what he has got to say; he'll tell you how easily accidents happen in a mine."

Then Burnley came in, but stood at some distance. Bartley turned his back upon them both, and edged away from them a little; but Monckton stood between the two men, determined to bring them together.

"Ben," said he, "Mr. Bartley takes you on again at my request, no thanks to Mr. Hope."

"No, curse him; I know that."

"Talking of that, Ben, how was it that you got rid of that troublesome overseer in the Welsh colliery?"

Ben started, and looked aghast for a moment, but soon recovered himself and told his tale of blood with a strange mixture of satisfaction and awe, washing his hands in the air nervously all the time.

"Well, you see, sir, we put some gun-cotton in a small canister, with a fuse cut to last fowr minutes, and hid it in one of the old workings the men had left; then they telt t' overseer they thowt t' water was coming in by quickly. He got there just in time; and what with t' explosion, fire-damp, and fallen coal, we never saw t' over-seer again."

"Dear me," said Monckton, "and Mr. Hope has gone down the mine expressly to inspect old workings. Is it not a strange coincidence? Now if such an accident was to befall Mr. Hope, it's my belief Mr. Bartley would give you five hundred pounds."

Bartley made no reply, the perspiration was pouring down his face, and he looked a picture of abject guilt and terror.

Monckton looked at him, and decided for him. He went softly, like a cat, to Ben Burnley and said, "If an accident does occur, and that man never comes up again, you are to have five hundred pounds."

"Five hundred pounds!" shouted Ben. "I do t' job. Nay, _nay_, but," said he, and his countenance fell, "they will not let me go down the mine."

The diabolical agent went cat-like to Bartley.

"Please give me a written order to let this man go to work again in the mine."

Bartley trembled and hesitated, but at last took out his pocket-book and wrote on a leaf,

"Take Burnley on again.

"R. BARTLEY."

Whilst writing it his hand shook, and when it was written he would not tear it out. He panted and quivered and was as pale as ashes, and said, "No, no, it's a death-warrant; I can not;" and his trembling hand tried to convey the note-book back to his pocket, but it fell from his shaking fingers, and Monckton took it up and quietly tore the leaf out, and took it across to Burnley, in spite of a feeble gesture the struggling wretch made to detain him. He gave Ben the paper, and whispered, "Be off before he changes his mind."

"You'll hear of an accident in the mine before the day is over," said Burnley, and he went off without a grain of remorse under the double stimulus of revenge and lucre.

"He'll do it," cried Monckton, triumphantly, "and Hope will end his days in the Bartley mine."

These words were hardly out of his lips when Grace Hope walked out of the house, pale, and with her eyes gleaming, and walked rapidly past them.

She had nothing on her head but a white handkerchief that was tied under her chin. Her appearance and her manner struck the conspirators with terror. Bartley stood aghast; but the more resolute villain seized her as she pa.s.sed him. She was not a bit frightened at that, but utterly amazed.

It was a public road.

"How dare you touch me, you villain!" she cried. "Let me go. Ah, I shall know you again, with your face like a corpse and your villainous eyes.

Let me go, or I'll have you hung."

"Where are you going?" said Bartley, trembling.

"To my father."

"He is not your father; it is a conspiracy. You must come home with me."

"Never!" cried Mary, and by a sudden and violent effort she flung Monckton off.

But Bartley, mad with terror, seized her that moment, and that gave Monckton time to recover and seize her again by the arm.

"You are not of age," cried Bartley; "you are under my authority, and you shall come home with me."

"No! no!" cried Mary. "Help! help! murder! help!"

She screamed, and struggled so violently that with all their efforts they could hardly hold her. Then the devil Monckton began to cry louder still, "She's mad! she's mad! help to secure a mad woman." This terrified Grace Hope. She had read of the villainies that had been done under cover of that accusation, which indeed has too often prevented honest men from interfering with deeds of lawless violence. But she had all her wits about her, woman's wit included. She let them drag her past the cottage door. Then she cried out with delight, "Ah! here is my father." They followed the direction of her eye, and relaxed their grasp. Instantly she drew her hands vigorously downward, got clear of them, gave them each a furious push that sent them flying forward, then darted back through the open door, closed it, and bolted it inside just as Monckton, recovering himself, quickly dashed furiously against it--in vain.

The quick-witted villain saw the pressing danger in a moment. "To the back door or we are lost!" he yelled. Bartley dashed round to that door with a cry of dismay.

But Grace was before him just half a minute. She ran through the house.

Alas! the infernal door was secure. The woman had locked it when she went out. Grace came flying back to the front, and drew the bolt softly. But as she did so she heard a hammering, and found the door was fast.

Unluckily, Hope's tool-basket was on the window-ledge, and Monckton drove a heavy nail obliquely through the bottom of the door, and it was immovable. Then Mary slipped with cat-like step to the window, and had her hand on the sill to vault clean out into the road; she was perfectly capable, it being one of her calisthenic exercises. But here again her watchful enemy encountered her. He raised his hammer as if to strike her hand--though perhaps he might not have gone that length--but she was a woman, and drew back at that cruel gesture. Instantly he closed the outside shutters; he didn't trouble about the window, but these outside shutters he proceeded to nail up; and, as the trap was now complete, he took his time, and by a natural reaction from his fears, he permitted himself to exult a little.

"Thank you, Mr. Hope, for the use of your tools." (Rat-tat.) "There, my little bird, you're caged." (Rat-tat-tat.) "Did you really think--(rat-tat)--two men--(rat-tat-tat)--were to be beaten by one woman?"

The prisoner thus secured, he drew aside with justifiable pride to admire his work. This action enabled him to see the side of the cottage he had secured so cleverly in front and behind, and there was Grace Hope coming down from her bedroom window; she had tied two crimson curtains together by a useful knot, which is called at sea a fisherman's bend, fastened one end to the bed or something, and she was coming down this extemporized rope, hand over hand alternately, with as much ease and grace as if she were walking down marble steps. Monckton flung his arm and body wildly over the paling and grabbed her with his finger ends, she gave a spang with her heels against the wall, and took a bold leap away from him into a tulip-bed ten feet distant at least: he yelled to Bartley, "To the garden;" and not losing a moment, flung his leg over the paling to catch her, with Bartley's help, in this new trap. Mary dashed off without a moment's hesitation at the quick-set hedge; she did not run up to it and hesitate like a woman, for it was not to be wriggled through; she went at it with the momentum and impetus of a race-horse, and through it as if it was made of blotting-paper, leaving a wonderfully small hole, but some shreds of her dress, and across the meadow at a pace that neither Bartley nor Monckton, men past their prime, could hope to rival even if she had not got the start. They gazed aghast at one another; at the premises so suddenly emptied as if by magic; at the crimson curtain floating like a banner, and glowing beautifully amongst the green creepers; and at that flying figure, with her hair that glittered in the sun, and streamed horizontal in the wind with her velocity, flying to the mine to save William Hope, and give these baffled conspirators a life of penal servitude.

CHAPTER XX.