She went on however. An invincible force drove her on till she should find her friends and Montfaucon should be freed. She hurried to the avenue of great trees, crossed the clearing of the old solitary oak, and mounted the rising ground on which rose Cocquesin tower.
More and more the solitude and the silence troubled her. The profound silence. A solitude so abnormal that Dorothy reached the point of believing herself to be no longer alone. Someone was watching. Men were following her as she went. It seemed to her that she was exposed to all menaces, that the barrels of guns were leveled at her, that she was about to fall into the trap which her enemy had laid.
The impression was so strong that Dorothy, who knew her nature and the correctness of her presentiments, reckoned it a certainty resting on irrefutable proofs. She even knew where the ambush was awaiting her. They had guessed that her instinct, her calculations, that all the circumstances of the drama, would bring her back to the tower; and there they were awaiting her.
She stopped at the entrance of the vault. On the opposite side, above the steps which descended into the immense nave of the donjon, her enemies must be posted. Let her make a few more steps and they would capture her.
She stood quite still. She no longer doubted that Maître Delarue had been taken, and that, yielding to threats, he had disclosed the fact that the second envelope was in her hands, that second envelope without which the diamonds of the Marquis de Beaugreval would never be discovered.
A minute or two passed. No single indication allowed her to believe in the actual presence of the enemies she imagined. But the mere logic of the events demanded that they should be there. She must then act as if they were there.
By one of those imperceptible movements which seemed to have no object, without letting anything in her attitude awake the suspicion in her invisible enemies that she was accomplishing a definite action, she managed to open her purse and extract the envelope. She crumpled it up and reduced it to a tiny ball.
Then, letting her arm hang down, she went some steps into the vault.
Behind her, violently, with a loud crash, something fell down. It was the old feudal portcullis, which fell from above, came grating down its grooves, and blocked the entrance with its heavy trellis-work of massive wood.
XVI
The Last Quarter of a Minute
Dorothy did not turn round. She was a prisoner.
“I made no mistake,” she thought. “They are the masters of the field of battle. But what has become of the others?”
On her right opened the entrance to the staircase which ascended the tower. Perhaps she might have fled up it and availed herself once more of the rope-ladder? But what use would it be? Did not the kidnapping of Montfaucon oblige her to fight to the end, in spite of the hopelessness of the conflict? She must throw herself into the arena, among the ferocious beasts.
She went on. Though alone and without friends, she found herself quite cool. As she went, she let the little ball of paper roll down her skirt. It rolled along the floor and was lost among the pebbles and dust which covered it.
As she came to the end of the vault, two arms shot out and two men covered her with their revolvers.
“Don’t move!”
She shrugged her shoulders.
One of them repeated harshly:
“Don’t move, or I shoot.”
She looked at them. They were two subordinates, poisonous-looking rogues, dressed as sailors. She thought she recognized in them the two individuals who had accompanied d’Estreicher to the Manor. She said to them:
“The child? What have you done with the child? It was you who carried him off, wasn’t it?”
With a sudden movement they seized her arms; and while one kept her covered with his revolver, the other set about the task of searching her. But an imperious voice checked them:
“Stop that. I’ll do it myself.”
A third personage whom Dorothy had not perceived, stepped out from the wall where enormous roots of ivy had concealed him. … D’Estreicher!
For all that he was still rigged out in his disguise of a Russian soldier, he was no longer the same man. Again she found him the d’Estreicher of Roborey and Hillocks Manor. He had resumed his arrogant air and his wicked expression, and did not try to conceal his slight limp. Now that his hair and beard were shaved off, she observed the flatness of the back of his head and the apelike development of his jaw.
He stood a long while without speaking. Was he tasting the joy of triumph? One would have said rather that he felt a certain discomfort in the presence of his victim, or at least that he was hesitating in his attack. He walked up and down, his hands behind his back, stopped, then walked up and down again.
He asked her:
“Have you any weapon?”
“None,” she declared.
He told his two henchmen to go back to their comrades; then once more he began to walk up and down.
Dorothy studied him carefully, searching his face for something human of which she might take hold. But there was nothing but vulgarity, baseness, and cunning in it. She had only herself to rely on. In the lists formed by the ruins of the great tower, surrounded by a band of scoundrels, commanded by the most implacable of chiefs, watched, coveted, helpless, she had as her unique resource, her subtle intelligence. It was infinitely little, and it was much, since already once before, within the walls of Hillocks Manor, placed in the same situation, and facing the same enemy, she had conquered. It was much because this enemy distrusted himself and so lost some of his advantages.
For the moment he believed himself sure of success; and his attitude displayed all the insolence of one who believes he
