'Nay, but mistress,' said Loveday, whispering: 'I know those that would give more than you will ever get from my Lady if they found her safe here.'
'Of course there are, or she would not be here now,' said Mrs. Darke, with a horrid grin; 'but that won't do, my lass. A lady that's afraid of exposure will pay you, if she pawns her last diamond, but a gentleman-why, he gets sick of his fancy, and snaps his fingers at them that helped him!' Then, looking keenly at Loveday, 'You've not been playing me false, eh?'
'O no, no,' hastily exclaimed Loveday, cowering at the malignant look.
'If so be you have, Grace Loveday, two can play at that game,' said Mrs. Darke composedly. 'There, I have left her enough to turn back. What hair it is! Feel the weight of it! There's not another head of the mouse-colour to match your Lady's in the kingdom,' she added, smoothing out the severed tresses with the satisfaction of a connoisseur. 'No wonder madame could not let this be wasted on the plantations, when you and I and M. le Griseur know her own hair is getting thinner than she would wish a certain Colonel to guess. There! the pretty dear, what a baby she looks! I will tie her on a cowl, lest she should take cold on the river. See these rings. Did you Lady give no charge about them?'
'I had forgot!' said the waiting-woman, confused; 'she charged me to bring them back, old family jewels, she said, that must not be carried off to foreign parts; but I cannot, cannot do it. To rob that pretty creature in her sleep.'
'Never fear. She'll soon have a store much finer than these! You fool, I tell you she will not wake these six or eight hours. Afraid? There, I'll do it! Ho! A ruby? A love-token, I wager; and what's this? A carved Cupid. I could turn a pretty penny by that, when your lady finds it convenient, and her luck at play goes against her. Eh! is this a wedding-ring? Best take that off; Mr. Van Draagen might not understand it, you see. Here they are. Have you a patch- box handy for them in your pocket? Why what ails the woman? You may thank your stars there's some one here with her wits about her! None of your whimpering, I say, her comes Captain Karen.'
Two seafaring men here came up the garden path, the foremost small and dapper, with a ready address and astute countenance. 'All right, Mother Darkness, is our consignment ready? Aye, aye! And the freight?'
'This lady has it,' said Mrs. Darke, pointing to Loveday; 'I have been telling her she need have no fears for her young kinswoman in your hands, Captain.'
He swore a round oath to that effect, and looking at the sleeping maiden, again swore that she was the choicest piece of goods ever confided to him, and that he knew better than let such an article arrive damaged. Mr. Van Draagen ought to come down handsomely for such an extra fine sample; but in the meantime he accepted the rouleau of guineas that Loveday handed to him, the proceeds, as she told Mrs. Darke, of my Lady's winnings last night at loo.
All was ready. Poor Aurelia was swathed from head to foot in a large mantle, like the chrysalis whose name she bore, the two sailors took her up between them, carried her to their boat, and laid her along in the stern. Then they pushed off and rowed down the river. Loveday looked up and looked down, then sank on the steps, convulsed with grief, sobbing bitterly. 'She said He could deliver her from the mouth of lions! And He has not,' she murmured under her breath, in utter misery and hopelessness.
CHAPTER XXXIV. DOWN THE RIVER.
The lioness, ye may move her
To give o'er her prey,
But ye'll ne'er stop a lover,
He will find out the way.
Elizabeth Delavie and her little brother were standing in the bay window of their hotel, gazing eagerly along the street in hopes of seeing the Major return, when Sir Amyas was seen riding hastily up on his charger, in full accoutrements, with a soldier following. In another moment he had dashed up stairs, and saying, 'Sister, read that!' put into Betty's hand a slip of paper on which was written in pencil-
'If Sir A. B. would not have his true love kidnapped to the plantations, he had best keep watch on the river gate of Mistress Darke's garden at Greenwich. No time to lose.'
'Who brought you this?' demanded Betty, as well as she could speak for horror.
'My mother's little negro boy, Syphax. He says Mrs. Loveday, her waiting-woman, gave it to him privately on the stairs, as she was about to get into a sedan, telling him I would give him a crown if he gave it me as I came off parade.'
'Noon! Is there time?'
'Barely, but there shall be time. There is no time to seek your father.'
'No, but I must come with you.'
'The water is the quickest way. There are stairs near. I'll send my fellow to secure a boat.'
'I will be ready instantly, while you tell your uncle. It might be better if he came.'
Sir Amyas flew to his uncle's door, but found him gone out, and, in too great haste to inquire further, came down again to find Betty in cloak and hood. He gave her his arm, and, Eugene trotting after them, they hurried to the nearest stairs, remembering in dire confirmation what Betty had heard from the school-girl. Both had heard reports that young women were sometimes thus deported to become wives to the planters in the southern colonies or the West Indies, but that such a destiny should be intended for their own Aurelia, and by Lady Belamour, was scarcely credible. Doubts rushed over Betty, but she remembered what the school-girl had said of the captive being sent beyond seas; and at any rate, she must risk the expedition being futile when such issues hung upon it. And if they failed to meet her father, she felt that her presence might prevail when the undefined rights of so mere a lad as her companion might be disregarded.
His soldier servant had secured a boat, and they rapidly descended to the river; Sir Amyas silent between suspense, dismay and shame for his mother, and Betty trying to keep Eugene quiet by hurried answers to his eager questions about all he saw. They had to get out at London Bridge, and take a fresh boat on the other side, a much larger one, with two oarsmen, and a grizzled old coxswain, with a pleasant honest countenance, who presently relieved Betty of all necessity of attending to, or answering, Eugene's chatter.
'Do you know where this garden is?' said she, leaning across to Sir Amyas, who had engaged the boat to go to Greenwich.
He started as if it were a new and sudden thought, and turning to the steersman demanded whether he knew Mrs. Darke's garden.
The old man gave a kind of grunt, and eyed the trio interrogatively, the young officer with his fresh, innocent, boyish face and brilliant undisguised uniform, the handsome child, the lady neither young, gay, nor beautiful, but unmistakeably a decorous gentlewoman.
'Do you know Mrs. Darke's?' repeated Sir Amyas.
'Aye, do I? Mayhap I know more about the place than you do.'
There was that about his face that moved Betty and the young man to look at one another, and the former said, 'She has had to do with- evil doings?'
'You may say that, ma'am.'
'Then,' they cried in one breath, 'you will help us!' And in a very few words Betty explained their fears for her young sister, and asked whether he thought the warning possible.
'I've heard tell of such things!' said the old man between his teeth, 'and Mother Darkness is one to do 'em. Help you to bring back the poor young lass? That we will, if we have to break down the door with our fists. And who is this young spark? Her brother or her sweetheart?'
'Her husband!' said Sir Amyas. 'Her husband from whom she has been cruelly spirited away. Aid me to bring her back, my good fellow, and nothing would be too much to reward you.'
'Aye, aye, captain, Jem Green's not the man to see an English girl handed over to they slave-driving, outlandish chaps. But I say, I wish you'd got a cloak or summat to put over that scarlet and gold of yourn. It's a regular flag to put the old witch on her guard.'
