Castle Craneycrow Part 35

"Come on!" he cried, grasping her by the wrist with no gentle regard. "He's out of the way, but we have no time to lose. The others may miss you at any moment, and we must be in the wood if we hope to fool them."

"I have changed my mind--" she began, holding back as he dragged her after him down the slope.

"It is too late," he said, harshly. "You will soon be with your friends, my child. Do not lose heart, but trust to me."

"Who are you? You are not a priest. Why have you disguised yourself--"

"Not so loud, my child, not so loud! They may have guards even here.

If I am not a priest, then may heaven shut its gates on me forever.

Because I am a man and have undone one of your enemies, you should not question my calling. It is no time for prayer. When we are safe from pursuit, you will regret the doubt you have just expressed.

Trust to me, my child. But run, for G.o.d's sake, run! Don't hang back when all depends on our speed in the next half-hour."

"Where are you taking me? Answer, or I shall refuse to go another step with you!" she exclaimed, now thoroughly aroused and determined.

"My wagon is. .h.i.tched in the wood over there. In it we will go to a town up the valley, where I have the promise of help. I could have brought a big force of men with me, but don't you see what a mistake it would have been? Rather than surrender you to a force they would have killed you and secreted your body in the pa.s.sages under the castle. It is commonly known that the cellars are paved with skeletons." Here Dorothy shuddered in recollection. "Strategy was the only means of getting you out safely."

"They would not have killed me," she cried, breathlessly. They were moving rapidly along the level roadway now, and his grip on her wrist was like a clasp of iron.

"To save themselves? Of course, they would--as they would a dog!" he said.

"They are my friends, and they are the best, the truest in the world," she gasped, eager to keep the promise of protection made in the farewell note.

"You think they are, madam, but how could they treat you as they have if they are friends?" He had turned into the wood, and it was necessary to proceed more cautiously on account of the darkness. She realized that she had erred in saying they were friends, and turned cold with apprehension.

"I mean, they treated me well--for criminals," she managed to say.

"Criminals!" he snarled. "Bah! Of course they are criminals of the worst kind, but they will never be punished."

"I'm afraid they are so clever that no one will ever find out who they really are."

He stopped with a lurch, and she could feel that he was looking at her in amazement.

"I know who they are, and you know them, too," he said, slowly.

"Perhaps n.o.body else knows, but we know that my Lord and Lady Saxondale and the two Americans were your abductors. The man I dumped into the ravine was that little villain Turk."

Her heart almost stopped beating with the shock of knowing that nothing could now shield her captors from exposure.

"But--but it will be very hard to prove," she said, hoa.r.s.ely, almost defiantly.

"You have only to take oath," he said, meaningly.

"I don't know the name or face of a person in that castle," she said, deliberately. He was silent for a full minute.

"You intend to shield them?" he demanded. There was no answer to the question. Now she was positive that the man was no priest, but some one who knew the world and who had made it his business to trace her and her captors to the very gates of the castle. If he knew, then others must also be in possession of the secret.

"Who are you?" she demanded, as he drew her deeper into the wood.

There was now the wild desire to escape from her rescuer and to fly back to the kindly jailers on the hill.

"A poor priest, by the grace of G.o.d," he said, and she heard him chuckle.

"Take me back to the road, sir!" she commanded.

"I will take you to your mother," he said, "and to no one else."

"But I am afraid of you," she exclaimed, her courage going. "I don't know you--I don't know where you are taking me."

"We will not go far to-night. I know a place where you can hide until I secure help from the city."

"But you said you had a wagon."

"The horse must have strayed away, worse luck!" said he, with a raucous laugh.

She broke from his grasp suddenly, and like a frightened deer was off through the darkness knowing not whither she went or what moment she might crash against a tree. The flight was a short one. She heard him curse savagely as he leaped upon her from behind after a chase of a few rods, and then she swooned dead away.

When she regained consciousness a faint glow of light met her eyes as the lids feebly lifted themselves from their torpor. Gradually there came to her nostrils a dank, musty odor and then the smell of tobacco smoke. She was lying on her back, and her eyes at last began to take in broad rafters and cobwebby timbers not far above her head. The light was so dim that shadows and not real objects seemed to const.i.tute the surroundings. Then there grew the certainty that she was not alone in this dismal place. Turning her head slightly, she was able, with some effort, to distinguish the figure of a man seated on the opposite side of the low, square room, his back against the wall, his legs outstretched. At his elbow, on a box, burned a candle, flickering and feeble in its worthlessness. He was smoking a pipe, and there was about him an air of contentment and security.

Slowly past events crowded themselves into the path of memory, and her brain took them up as if they were parts of a dream. For many minutes she was perfectly quiet, dumbly contemplating the stranger who sat guard over her in that wretched place. In her mind there was quickly developed, as one brings the picture from the film of a negative the truth of the situation. She had escaped from one set of captors only to give herself into the clutches of others a thousand times more detestable, infinitely more evil-hearted.

"You've come back to life, have you?"

She started violently and shivered as with a mighty chill at the sound of these words. They came from the slouching smoker.

"Where am I?" she cried, sitting up, a dizzy whirling in her head.

Her bed was no more than a heavy piece of old carpet.

"In the house of your friends," laconically responded the voice, now quite familiar. Her eyes swept the room in search of the priest. His robes lay in a heap across her feet. "Where is Father Paul?" she demanded. "He is no more," said the man, in sombre tones. "I was he until an hour ago."

"And you are no priest? Ah, G.o.d help me, what have I done? What have I come to in my miserable folly?" she cried, covering her face with her hands.

"Look here, Miss Garrison," said the man, quietly. "I am no priest, but you have nothing to fear because of that fact. The truth is, I am a detective. For a month I was in the employ of Prince Ravorelli, and it was no honest business, I can tell you. What I have done to-night is straight and honest. I mean you no harm, and you have but to follow my instructions in order to find yourself safe in Brussels once more. I have been interested in a number of queer transactions but let me say this in my own defence: I was never employed in any game so detestable, so low, as the one your n.o.ble prince was playing when you were s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him. The only regret I have in taking you back to your mother comes from the fear that you may go ahead and marry that knave."

Dorothy was listening, with wide eyes and bated breath, to the words of the lounging smoker.

"I will never, never marry him," she cried, vehemently.

"Stick to that resolve, my child," said Courant, with mock benevolence. "He is a scoundrel, and I cut loose from him to do this little job down here on my own responsibility."

"Tell me, if you know, did he plan to kill Mr. Quentin? I must have the truth," she cried, eagerly.

"He did worse than that. He made the attempt, or rather his agents did. You see, Quentin was a dangerous rival because he knew too much."

"I don't understand."

"Well, he knew all about the prince when he was with the opera company in Brazil. I can't tell you much about it, but there was a murder committed over there and your prince was believed to be guilty. A woman was killed, I believe. Quentin knew all about it, it seems."

"And never told me?" she cried.

"He was not positive, I suppose. There was the danger of being mistaken, and this American friend of yours seems honest. He only told you what he knew to be a fact, I conclude."