'If they are!'
'It's better than the death they would have lived to die.'
'But only one of them was a wilful murderer! Oh, Mr. Cole - Mr. Cole - go and see what has happened; come back and tell me! I dare not come. I will stay here and pray for strength to bear whatever news you may bring me. Go quickly. I will - wait - and pray!'
So I left the poor child on her knees in that vile cellar, white face and straining hands uplifted to the foul ceiling, sweet lips quivering with prayer, eyelids reverently lowered, and the swift tears flowing from beneath them, all in the yellow light of the lantern that stood burning by her side. How different a picture from that which awaited me overhead!
CHAPTER XIX
MY GREAT HOUR
The library doors were shut, and I closed the secret one behind me before opening the other and peering out through a wrack of bluish smoke; and there lay Captain Harris, sure enough, breathing his last in the arms of one constable, while another was seated on the table with a very wry face, twisting a tourniquet round his arm, from which the blood was dripping like raindrops from the eaves. A third officer stood in the porch, issuing directions to his men without.
'He's over the wall, I tell you! I saw him run up our ladder. After him every man of you - and spread!'
I looked in vain for Rattray and the rest; yet it seemed as if only one of them had escaped. I was still looking when the man in the porch wheeled back into the hall, and instantly caught sight of me at my door.
'Hillo! here's another of them,' cried he. 'Out you come, young fellow! Your mates are all dead men.'
'They're not my mates.'
'Never mind; come you out and let's have a look at you.'
I did so, and was confronted by a short, thickset man, who recognized me with a smile, but whom I failed to recognize.
'I might have guessed it was Mr. Cole,' said he. 'I knew you were here somewhere, but I couldn't make head or tail of you through the smoke.'
'I'm surprised that you can make head or tail of me at all,' said I.
'Then you've quite forgotten the inquisitive parson you met out fishing? You see I found out your name for myself!'
'So it was a detective!'
'It was and is,' said the little man, nodding. 'Detective or Inspector Royds, if you're any the wiser.
'What has happened? Who has escaped?' 'Your friend Rattray; but he won't get far.'
'What of the Portuguese and the nigger?'
I forgot that I had crippled Jose, but remembered with my words, and wondered the more where he was.
'I'll show you,' said Royds. 'It was the nigger let us in. We heard him groaning round at the back - who smashed his leg? One of our men was at that cellar grating; there was some of them down there; we wanted to find our way down and corner them, but the fat got in the fire too soon. Can you stand something strong? Then come this way.'
He led me out into the garden, and to a tangled heap lying in the moonlight, on the edge of the long grass. The slave had fallen on top of his master; one leg lay swathed and twisted; one black hand had but partially relaxed upon the haft of a knife (the knife) that stood up hilt-deep in a blacker heart. And in the hand of Santos was still the revolver (my Deane and Adams) which had sent its last ball through the nigger's body.
'They slipped out behind us, all but the one inside,' said Royds, ruefully; 'I'm hanged if I know yet how it happened - but we were on them next second. Before that the nigger had made us hide him in the grass, but the old devil ran straight into him, and the one fired as the other struck. It's the worst bit of luck in the whole business, and I'm rather disappointed on the whole. I've been nursing the job all this week; had my last look round this very evening, with one of these officers, and only rode back for more to make sure of taking our gentlemen alive. And we've lost three out of four of 'em, and have still to lay hands on the gold! I suppose you didn't know there was any aboard ?' he asked abruptly.
'Not before to-night.'
'Nor did we till the Devoren came in with letters last week, a hundred and thirty days out. She should have been in a month before you, but she got amongst the ice around the Horn. There was a letter of advice about the gold, saying it would probably go in the Lady Jermyn; and another about Rattray and his schooner, which had just sailed; the young gentleman was known to the police out there.'
'Do you know where the schooner is ?'
'Bless you, no, we've had no time to think about her; the man had been seen about town, and we've done well to lay hands on him in the time.'
'You will do better still when you do lay hands on him,' said I, wresting my eyes from the yellow dead face of the foreign scoundrel. The moon shone full upon his high forehead, his shrivelled lips, dank in their death agony, and on the bauble with the sacred device that he wore always in his tie. I recovered my property from the shrunken fingers, and so turned away with a harder heart than I ever had before or since for any creature of Almighty God.
Harris had expired in our absence.
'Never spoke, sir,' said the constable in whose arms we had left him.
