Cutlass and Cudgel Part 23

"Don't cry," he said. "I was obliged to come. It was by accident I came into this room. I was trying to find out about the smugglers."

"And--and--you have not found out anything?" came in quick, frightened tones.

Archy was silent.

"Why don't you speak, sir?"

"What am I to say? I am on duty. Yes, I have found out all I wanted to know."

"Ah!" came again out of the darkness, in a low wailing tone.

"I wish you would believe me, that I am in as great trouble about it as you are."

"But your men. They are close here, then, and they frightened these people away."

"I suppose so. I don't know," said Archy.

"Don't they know that you are here?"

"No."

"But you will go and tell all you have found out?"

"Yes," said Archy, slowly as he strained his eyes to try and make out the speaker.

"That my father, Sir Risdon Graeme, has smuggled goods here?"

"What else can I do?" replied Archy sadly.

There was a sound of breath being drawn sharply through the teeth, and then the voice seemed changed as the next words came,--

"Do you know what this means?"

Archy was silent.

"They will put him in prison, and--and--"

There was a low burst of sobbing, and the young midshipman felt his own breast swell.

Suddenly the sobbing ceased, and the girl said slowly,--

"You shall not tell. It is not my father's doing. He could not help it. He hates the smugglers. You shall not tell. Pray, pray, say you will not!"

Archy was silent.

"Do you not hear me?" came in imperious tones.

"Yes, I hear you," he replied; "but it is my duty, and--"

"Yes--yes--speak!"

"I must."

"Oh!"

The interjection came as if it were the outcome of sudden pa.s.sion.

There was a quick, rustling sound, and before the boy could realise what was to come, the door was closed, the lock shot into its socket, and he heard the grinding sound of bolts, top and bottom.

Then, as Archy stood in the dark, literally aghast with astonishment, he heard the faint rustling once more, and again all was silent.

"Well!" he exclaimed; "and I felt sorry for her as one might for one's sister at home, and hung back from getting her people into trouble. Of all the fierce little tartars! Oh, it's beyond anything! Why, she has locked me up!"

He laughed, but it was a curious kind of laugh, full of vexation, injured _amour propre_, as the French call our love of our own dignity, of which Archibald Raystoke, in the full flush of his young belief in his importance as a British officer, had a pretty good stock.

"I never did!" he exclaimed, after standing listening for a few minutes to see if the girl would repent and return. "It all comes of dressing up in this stupid way, like a rough fisher-lad. If I had been in uniform, she would not have dared."

Cold water came on this idea directly, as he recalled the fact that the darkness was intense, and Celia could not have seen him.

"And I meant to save them from trouble if I could, out of respect for them all, and did not believe that such people could stoop to be mixed up with rogues and smugglers. But, all right! I've got my duty to do, and I'll do it. I'll soon show them that I am not going to be played with. Looked such a nice, lady-like girl, and all the time she's a female smuggler, and must have been sitting up to let them in, and lock up after the rascals had done."

Rather hard measure, by the way, to deal out to the anxious girl, who could not rest while Shackle's gang were busy about the place, and had come stealthily down to open the little corner room window, and watch from time to time until they had gone.

"Well," said Archy, as there was no further sound heard, "I'm not going to put up with this. I'll soon rattle some one up;" and he went sharply to the door, felt for the handle, tried it, and was about to shake it and bang at the panels, when discretion got the better of valour.

For it suddenly occurred to him that he was not only a prisoner, but a prisoner in the power of a very reckless set of people, who would stop at nothing. They had a valuable cargo hidden in the cellar beneath where he stood, and themselves to save, and naturally they would not hesitate to deal hardly with him, when quite a young, apparently gentle girl treated him as she had done.

"No," he thought to himself, "I don't believe they would kill me, but they would knock me about."

On the whole, he decided that it would not be pleasant to be knocked about. The kick he had received was a foretaste of what he might expect, and after a little consideration he came to the conclusion that his duty was to escape, and get back to the cutter as quickly as he could.

To do this he must scheme, lie hid till morning, then make for the nearest point, and signal for help, unless a boat's crew were already searching for him.

How to escape?

The door was, he well knew, fast. The window was barred, but he went to it, and tried the bars one by one, to find them all solidly fitted into the stone sill.

Perhaps there was another way out, and to prove that he went softly round to feel the oak panelling which covered the walls, to come upon a door directly. His hopes began to rise, but they fell directly, for he found it was a closet.

Next moment, as he felt his way about, his hand touched an old-fashioned marble mantelpiece.

Fireplace--chimney! Yes, if other ways failed, he could escape up the chimney.

No, that was too bad. He could not do that. And if he did, it would only be to reach the roof of the house, and perhaps find no way down.

He went on, and found a closet to match the first on the other side of the fireplace. Then all round the room. Panels everywhere, but no means of escape, and he went again to stand at the window, to bemoan his stupidity for allowing a weak girl to make a prisoner of him in so absurd a way.

Sympathy and pity for the dwellers in the Hoze were completely gone now, and he set his teeth fast, and mentally called himself a weak idiot for ever thinking about such people. For the first few minutes he had felt something uncommonly like alarm, and had dwelt upon the consequences to himself if the smugglers found the spy upon their proceedings; but that dread had pa.s.sed away in the idea that he had to do his duty, and before he could do that he must escape.

A chair or two. Then an easy-chair. A narrow table against the wall in two places. An awkwardly-shaped high-backed chair with elbows and cushions. A thick carpet in the centre. Nothing else in the room, as far as he could make out in the darkness, and if those wretched bars had only been away, how soon he could have escaped!