Starvecrow Farm Part 58

"The mistress is just overhead," she said. "So you'll not make much noise, if you please."

"We'll make none," said Bishop. "We've learned what we want." And he turned to go out.

All had not entered. Those who had, nodded, turned with gloomy faces, and followed him out. The dog, lurking at the back of its kennel, was still growling.

"I'd be afeared to sleep here without him," Bess volunteered.

"Ay, ay."

"He's better 'n two men."

"Ay?"

They looked at the dog, and some one bade her good-day. And one by one the little troop turned and trailed despondently from the house, Clyne with his chin sunk on his breast, Bishop in a brown study, the other men staring blankly before them. Half-way up the ascent to the road Clyne stopped and looked back. His face was troubled.

"I thought----" he began. And then he stopped and listened, frowning.

"What?"

"I don't know." He looked up. "You didn't hear anything?"

Bishop and the men said that they had not heard anything. They listened. They all listened. And all said that they heard nothing.

"It was fancy, I suppose," Clyne muttered, pa.s.sing his hand over his eyes. And he shook his head as if to shake off some painful impression.

But before he reached the road he paused once again and listened. And his face was haggard and lined with trouble.

It occurred to no one that Bess had been too civil. To no one. For shrewd Mrs. Gilson was not with them.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE SMUGGLERS' OVEN

Henrietta crouched beside the lamp, lulling the child from time to time with a murmured word. She held the boy, whom she had come to save, tight in her arms; and the thought that she held him was bliss to her, though poisoned bliss. Whatever happened he would learn that she had reached the child. He would know--even if the worst came--what she had done for him. But the worst must not come. Were she once in the open under the stars, how quickly could she flee down the road with this light burden in her arms--down the road until she saw the star-sprinkled lake spread below her! In twenty minutes, were she outside, she might be safe. In twenty minutes, only twenty minutes, she might place the child in his arms, she might read the joy in his eyes, and hear words--ah, so unlike those which she had heard from him!

There were only two doors between herself and freedom. Her heart beat at the thought. In twenty minutes how different it might be with her--in twenty minutes, were she at liberty!

She must wait until the child was sound asleep. Then when she could lay him down she would examine the place. The purity of the air proved that there was either a secret inlet for the purpose of ventilation, or that the door which shut off their prison from the well-head fitted ill and loosely. In the latter case it was possible that her strength might avail to force the door and make escape possible. They might not have given her credit for the vigour which she felt that she had it in her to show if the opportunity offered itself.

In the meantime she scrutinised, as she sat, every foot of the walls, without discovering anything to encourage hope or point to a second exit. The light of the dim lamp revealed only smooth courses of bricks, so near her eyes, so low upon her head, so bewildering in their regularity and number, that they appalled her the more the longer she gazed on them. It was to seek relief that she rose at last, and laying the sleeping child aside, went to the door and examined it.

Alas! it presented to the eye only solid wood, overlapping the aperture which it covered, and revealing in consequence neither hinges nor fastening. She set her shoulder against it, and thrust with all her might. But it neither bent nor moved, and in despair she left it, and stooping low worked her way round the walls. Her closest scrutiny revealed nothing; not a slit as wide as her slenderest finger, not a peg, nor a boss, nor anything that promised exit. She returned to the door, and made another and more desperate attempt to burst it. But her strength was unequal to the task, and to avoid a return of the old panic, which threatened to overcome her, she dropped down beside the child, and took him again in her arms, feeling that in the appeal which the boy's helplessness made to her she had her best shield against such terrors.

The next moment, with a flicker or two, the light went out. She was in complete darkness.

She fought with herself and with the impulse to shriek; and she conquered. She drew a deep breath as she sat, and with the unconscious child in her arms, stared motionless before her.

"They will come back," she murmured steadfastly; "they will come back!

They will come back! And in the meantime I must be brave for the child's sake. I have only to wait! And they will come back!"

Nevertheless, it was hard to wait. It was hard not to let her thoughts run on the things which might prevent their return. They might be put to flight, they might be discovered and killed, they might be taken and refuse to say where she was. And then? Then?

But for the child's sake she must not, she would not, think of that.

She must dwell, instead, on the shortness of the time that had elapsed since they left her. She could not guess what the hour was, but she judged that it was something after midnight now, and that half of the dark hours were gone. Even so, she had long to wait before she could expect to be visited. She must have patience, therefore. Above all, she must not think of the mountain of earth above her, of the two thick doors that shut her off from the living world, of the vault that almost touched her head as she sat. For when she did the air seemed to fail her, and the grip of frenzied terror came near to raising her to her feet. Once on her feet and in that terror's grasp, she knew that she would rave and shriek, and beat on the walls--and go mad!

But she would not think of these things. She would sit quite still and hold the child more tightly to her, and be sensible. And be sensible!

Above all, be sensible!

She thought of many things as she sat holding herself as it were; of her old home and her old life, the home and the life that seemed so far away, though no more than a few weeks divided her from them. But more particularly she thought of her folly and of the events of the last month; and of the child and of the child's father, and--with a shudder--of Walterson. How silly, how unutterably silly, she had been!

And what stuff, what fustian she had mistaken for heroism; while, through all, the quiet restraint of the true master of men had been under her eyes.

Not that all the fault had been hers. She was sure of that even now.

Captain Clyne had known her as little as she had known him, and had misjudged her as largely. That he might know her better was her main desire now; and that he might know it, whatever the issue, she had an inspiration. She took from her neck the gold clasp which had aroused old Hinkson's greed, and she fastened it securely inside the child's dress. If the child were rescued, the presence of the brooch would prove that she had succeeded in her quest, and been with the boy.

After that she dozed off, and presently, strange to say, she slept.

Fortunately, the child also was worn out; and the two slept as soundly in the grim silence of the buried vault, with the load of earth above them and the water trickling from the well-hole beside them, as in the softest bed. They slept long, yet when Henrietta at last awoke it was happily to immediate consciousness of the position and of the need of coolness. The boy had been first to rouse himself and was crying for a light, and for something to quench his thirst. A little milk remained in the can, and with infinite precaution she groped for the vessel and found it. The milk was sour, but the boy lapped it eagerly, and Henrietta wetted her own lips, for she, too, was parched with thirst.

She could have drunk ten times as much with pleasure, but she denied herself, and set the rest in a safe place. She did not know how long she had slept, and the fear that they might be left to meet a dreadful death would lift its head, hard as she strove to trample on it.

She gave the child a few spoonfuls of porridge and encouraged him to crawl about in the darkness. But after some restless, querulous moanings he slept again, and Henrietta was left to her thoughts, which continually grew more uneasy. She was hungry; and that seemed to prove that the morning was come and gone. If this were so were they to remain there all day? And if all day, all night? And all next day? And if so, if they were not discovered by next day, why not--forever?

Again she had to struggle against the hysterical terror that gripped and choked her. And resist it without action she could not. She rose, and in the dark felt her way to the hatchway by which she had entered. Again she pa.s.sed her fingers down the smooth edges where it met the brickwork. She sought something, some bolt, some peg, some hinge--anything that, if it did not lead to freedom, might hold her thoughts and give her occupation. But there was nothing! And when she had set her ear against the thick wood, still there was nothing. She turned from it, and went slowly and doggedly round the prison on her knees, feeling the brickwork here and there, and in very dearth of hope, searching with her fingers for that which had baffled her eyes.

Round, and round again; with just a pause to listen and a stifled sob.

But in vain. All, as she might have known, was toil in vain. All was futile, hopeless. And then the child awoke, and she had to take him up and soothe him and give him the last of the milk and the porridge. He seemed a little stronger and better. But she--she was growing frightened--horribly frightened. She must have been hours in that place; and she was very near to that breakdown, which she had kept at bay so long.

For she had no more food. And, worse, with the sound of water almost in her ears, with the knowledge that it ran no more than a few feet from her in a clear and limpid stream, she had nothing more with which she could quench the boy's thirst or her own. And she had no light.

That frantic struggle to free herself, that strength of despair which might, however improbably, have availed her, were and must be futile for her, fettered and maimed by a darkness that could be felt. She drew the child nearer and hugged him to her. He was her talisman, her all, the tie that bound her to sanity, the being outside herself for whom she was bound to think and plan and be cool.

She succeeded--for the moment. But as she sat, dozing a little at intervals, with the child pressed closely to her, she fell from time to time into fits of trembling. And she prayed for light--only for light! And then again for some sound, some change in the cold, dead stillness that made her seem like a thing apart, aloof, removed from other things. And she was very thirsty. She knew that presently the child would grow thirsty again. And she would have nothing to give him.

The thought was torture, and she seemed to have borne it an age already; supported by the fear of rousing the boy and hastening the moment she dreaded. She would have broken down, she must have broken down, but for one thought; that, long as the hours seemed to her, and far distant as the moment of her entrance appeared, she might be a great way out in her reckoning of time. She might not have been shut up there so very long. The wretches who had put her there might not have fled. They might not have abandoned her. If she knew all she might be rid in an instant of her fears. All the time she might be torturing herself for nothing.

She clung pa.s.sionately to that thought and to the child. But the prolonged uncertainty, the suspense, the waiting, tried her to the utmost of her endurance. Her ears ached with the pain of listening; her senses hungered for the sound of the footstep on which all depended. Would that sound never come? Once or twice she fancied that she heard it; and mocked by hope she stilled the very beating of her heart, that she might hear more keenly. But nothing followed, nothing.

Nothing happened, and her heart sickened.

"Presently," she thought, "I shall begin to see things. I shall grow weak and fancy things. The horror of being buried alive will master me, and I shall shriek and shout and go mad. But that shall not be until the child's trouble is over--G.o.d helping me!"

And then, dazzling her with its brightness, a sudden thought flashed through her brain. Fool! Fool! She had succ.u.mbed in despair when a cry might release her! She had laid herself down to die, when she had but to lift up her voice, and the odds were that she would be heard. Ay, and be freed! For had not the girl threatened her with the man's coa.r.s.e gallantries if she screamed? And to what purpose, if she were buried so deep that her complaints could not be heard?

The thought lifted a weight from her. It revived her hopes, almost her confidence. Immediately a current of vigour and courage coursed through her veins. But she did not shout at once. The child was asleep; she would await his awakening, and in the meantime she would listen diligently. For if she could be heard by those who approached the place, it was possible that she could hear them.

She had barely conceived the thought, when the thing for which she had waited so long happened. The silence was broken. A sound struck her ear. A grating noise followed. Then a shaft of light, so faint that only eyes long used to utter darkness could detect it, darted in and lay across the brickwork of the vault. In a twinkling she was on her knees and scrambling with the child in her arms towards the hatch. She had reached it and was touching it, when the bolts that held up the door slid clear, and with a sharp report the hatch fell. A burst of light poured in and blinded her. But what was sight to her? She, who had borne up against fear so bravely had now only one thought, only one idea in her mind--to escape from the vault. She tumbled out recklessly, fell against something, and only through the support of an unseen hand kept on her feet as she alighted in the well-head.

A man whom her haste had pushed aside, slapped her on the shoulder.

"Lord, you're in a hurry!" he said. "You've had enough of bed for once!"