Crown and Sceptre Part 97

"Safe enough, I suppose, sir," groaned the poor fellow.

"Well, let me lay your legs here, and I can slide you down."

"But I aren't dead yet, dear lad. Don't hurry it so fast as that."

"What do you mean?"

"Going to bury me, aren't you, sir?"

"What nonsense, man! There's a long pa.s.sage there leading to a vault."

"Yes, sir; that's what I thought. Don't do it till I'm quite gone."

In spite of hunger, misery, anxiety, and pain, Scarlett Markham could not refrain from laughing at Nat's perplexed countenance, with so rea.s.suring an effect that the poor fellow smiled feebly in return, took heart, and allowed himself to be slid down through the opening, the task being so well managed that Nat sank on the stone floor, and when Scarlett loosened his hands, he subsided gently against the wall.

Then, after removing a few of the tracks of his pa.s.sage, the elasticity of the undergrowth and its springing up helping the concealment, Scarlett descended to his henchman's side, and after a pause helped him along the pa.s.sage right to the vault, where, as soon as he had got rid of his burthen, the lad found his father sleeping calmly.

"Aren't it a bit dark, Master Scar, or be it my eyes?" said Nat, feebly.

"Dark, Nat, quite dark. But you will, I hope, be safe here till we can escape."

"Right, sir. I'll do what you tell me, for I feel just like a big babby now with no legs, and my head all of a wobble, 'cause there's no bone in the neck. Yes, sir, thank ye, sir. Ease my head down gently. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. Ah!" the poor fellow kept on repeating to himself, and ended with a low sigh of relief; and when spoken to again there was no reply.

Scarlett's heart seemed to cease beating, and then it gave a leap.

Had he done wrong in getting the poor fellow down there, exhausted as he was? How did he know but that he might have caused the wounds to bleed again?

There was consolation directly after, for he could hear Nat's calm, regular breathing, and, satisfied and relieved, Scarlett stepped now to his father's side to touch him, but found that he too was still sleeping calmly, while for the present it seemed that his duty was to keep guard.

He seated himself on the stone floor, with his back in one of the angles, and listened for a time to the regular breathing; then his ravenous hunger made itself known to such an extent that, after comforting himself with the promise that he would get food that night, he took out and broke a piece off the bread cake, put it back, thought that those by him might require it, and determined to fight down his hunger.

Hunger won the day.

Scarlett made a brave fight, but he was weak; and, try how he would, his hand kept on going to the pocket wallet, and at last he did what was quite necessary under the circ.u.mstances--he ate heartily and well; and then, with a guilty feeling; troubling him, he yielded to a second kindly enemy.

The breathing of his two patients was as regular as clockwork, and the silence and darkness seemed to increase, with the result that they acted in a strangely lulling way, and with such potency that, after a time, Scarlett started up, and stared about him at the dense blackness around.

"Have I been to sleep?" he muttered, as he drew himself up a little more tightly, and prepared to keep his black watch firmly and well to the end--that is to say, till the time when he would start at dusk for the Manor.

The next instant he was on his way there, creeping cautiously through the undergrowth, listening to the crackling of the wood he pressed with his feet, and finally making his way to the old house, where he was able to embrace his mother and sister, feeling his cheek wet with their tears, while Mistress Forrester made him up a basket of dainties, such as would invite the appet.i.te of a wounded man.

How delightful it all was! only he had to start back so soon, and as he hurried away, his mother called him back. "Scarlett! Scarlett!" How the words rang in his ears, as he looked back through the darkness--

Scarlett leaped to his feet, with a feeling of shame and contrition.

"I must have been asleep," he exclaimed; and he listened to the breathing once more. "And what a vivid dream that was! How real it seemed!" he added. "I'll go along to the opening, and look out. That will keep me from going to sleep again."

He started down the steps, and climbed out, wondering whether he had slept a minute, an hour, or a day, and to his delight he found and took back with him the provision lately placed there by Fred and Samson.

"Well, we shall not starve," said Scarlett, thankfully, as he began thinking of his dream; but all the same, the voice which had broken in upon him calling his name sounded wonderfully real.

CHAPTER FORTY SIX.

SAMSON DISOBEYS ORDERS.

"Ho! Scar!"

No answer.

"Hoi! Scar Markham!"

The second call was louder, and this time Fred Forrester had thrust his head down the hole, so that his voice went echoing along the pa.s.sage, and died away in a whisper; but the only effect it had was to produce a low chuckling sound from Samson.

"What are you laughing at, sir?" cried Fred, angrily.

"Only at you, Master Fred, sir."

"How dare--"

"No, no; don't be cross with me, sir. I only felt as you'd have felt if you'd been me, and I'd been you."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, it seemed so rum for us to have slipped down here again, pretending to fish, so as to be laughed at because we hadn't caught any, and for you to turn yourself upside down, with your head in the hole, and your legs up in the air, shouting like that!"

"Don't be a donkey, Samson."

"No, Master Fred; I'll promise you that, faithful like; but it do seem rum. 'Tarn't likely, you know, sir, 'tarn't likely."

"What isn't likely?"

"Why, that aren't, sir. Even if Master Scar is hiding there."

"If? He must be. n.o.body else knows of the existence of the place."

"Wouldn't our Nat, sir?"

"No. How could he?"

"Well, sir, I can't say how he could; but he always was a nasty hunting-up-things sort of boy. So sure as I hid anything in my box at home, or anywhere else, he'd never rest till he found it; and as he was hiding away here, he may have hunted out this hole, and took possession like a badger."

"It might be so," said Fred, thoughtfully; and he approached the hole once more.

"'Tarn't no good, Master Fred," said Samson, chuckling. "You might just as well go to a rabbit's hole, and shout down that, 'Hoi! bunny, bunny, come out and have your neck broken.'"

"Don't talk so," said Fred, angrily.

"No, sir, not a word; but you forget that we're enemies now, and that it's of no use to call to Master Scarlett or our Nat to come, because they won't do it. There's two ways, sir, and that's all I can make out, after no end of thinking."