CHAPTER VIIITELLS THE LAST OF THE TALL MAN
SOMEHOW or other, by hook and crook, and between the three of us, we gotBernard Huddlestone bundled upstairs and laid upon the bed in _My Uncle’sRoom_. During the whole process, which was rough enough, he gave no signof consciousness, and he remained, as we had thrown him, without changingthe position of a finger. His daughter opened his shirt and began to wethis head and bosom; while Northmour and I ran to the window. The weathercontinued clear; the moon, which was now about full, had risen and shed avery clear light upon the links; yet, strain our eyes as we might, wecould distinguish nothing moving. A few dark spots, more or less, on theuneven expanse were not to be identified; they might be crouching men,they might be shadows; it was impossible to be sure.
“Thank God,” said Northmour, “Aggie is not coming to-night.”
Aggie was the name of the old nurse; he had not thought of her till now;but that he should think of her at all, was a trait that surprised me inthe man.
We were again reduced to waiting. Northmour went to the fireplace andspread his hands before the red embers, as if he were cold. I followedhim mechanically with my eyes, and in so doing turned my back upon thewindow. At that moment a very faint report was audible from without, anda ball shivered a pane of glass, and buried itself in the shutter twoinches from my head. I heard Clara scream; and though I whippedinstantly out of range and into a corner, she was there, so to speak,before me, beseeching to know if I were hurt. I felt that I could standto be shot at every day and all day long, with such marks of solicitudefor a reward; and I continued to reassure her, with the tenderestcaresses and in complete forgetfulness of our situation, till the voiceof Northmour recalled me to myself.
“An air-gun,” he said. “They wish to make no noise.”
I put Clara aside, and looked at him. He was standing with his back tothe fire and his hands clasped behind him; and I knew by the black lookon his face, that passion was boiling within. I had seen just such alook before he attacked me, that March night, in the adjoining chamber;and, though I could make every allowance for his anger, I confess Itrembled for the consequences. He gazed straight before him; but hecould see us with the tail of his eye, and his temper kept rising like agale of wind. With regular battle awaiting us outside, this prospect ofan internecine strife within the walls began to daunt me.
Suddenly, as I was thus closely watching his expression and preparedagainst the worst, I saw a change, a flash, a look of relief, upon hisface. He took up the lamp which stood beside him on the table, andturned to us with an air of some excitement.
“There is one point that we must know,” said he. “Are they going tobutcher the lot of us, or only Huddlestone? Did they take you for him,or fire at you for your own _beaux yeux_?”
“They took me for him, for certain,” I replied. “I am near as tall, andmy head is fair.”
“I am going to make sure,” returned Northmour; and he stepped up to thewindow, holding the lamp above his head, and stood there, quietlyaffronting death, for half a minute.
Clara sought to rush forward and pull him from the place of danger; but Ihad the pardonable selfishness to hold her back by force.
“Yes,” said Northmour, turning coolly from the window; “it’s onlyHuddlestone they want.”
“Oh, Mr. Northmour!” cried Clara; but found no more to add; the temerityshe had just witnessed seeming beyond the reach of words.
He, on his part, looked at me, cocking his head, with a fire of triumphin his eyes; and I understood at once that he had thus hazarded his life,merely to attract Clara’s notice, and depose me from my position as thehero of the hour. He snapped his fingers.
“The fire is only beginning,” said he. “When they warm up to their work,they won’t be so particular.”
A voice was now heard hailing us from the entrance. From the window wecould see the figure of a man in the moonlight; he stood motionless, hisface uplifted to ours, and a rag of something white on his extended arm;and as we looked right down upon him, though he was a good many yardsdistant on the links, we could see the moonlight glitter on his eyes.
He opened his lips again, and spoke for some minutes on end, in a key soloud that he might have been heard in every corner of the pavilion, andas far away as the borders of the wood. It was the same voice that hadalready shouted “_Traditore_!” through the shutters of the dining-room;this time it made a complete and clear statement. If the traitor“Oddlestone” were given up, all others should be spared; if not, no oneshould escape to tell the tale.
“Well, Huddlestone, what do you say to that?” asked Northmour, turning tothe bed.
Up to that moment the banker had given no sign of life, and I, at least,had supposed him to be still lying in a faint; but he replied at once,and in such tones as I have never heard elsewhere, save from a deliriouspatient, adjured and besought us not to desert him. It was the mosthideous and abject performance that my imagination can conceive.
“Enough,” cried Northmour; and then he threw open the window, leaned outinto the night, and in a tone of exultation, and with a totalforgetfulness of what was due to the presence of a lady, poured out uponthe ambassador a string of the most abominable raillery both in Englishand Italian, and bade him be gone where he had come from. I believe thatnothing so delighted Northmour at that moment as the thought that we mustall infallibly perish before the night was out.
Meantime the Italian put his flag of truce into his pocket, anddisappeared, at a leisurely pace, among the sand-hills.
“They make honourable war,” said Northmour. “They are all gentlemen andsoldiers. For the credit of the thing, I wish we could change sides—youand I, Frank, and you too, Missy, my darling—and leave that being on thebed to some one else. Tut! Don’t look shocked! We are all going postto what they call eternity, and may as well be above-board while there’stime. As far as I’m concerned, if I could first strangle Huddlestone andthen get Clara in my arms, I could die with some pride and satisfaction.And as it is, by God, I’ll have a kiss!”
Before I could do anything to interfere, he had rudely embraced andrepeatedly kissed the resisting girl. Next moment I had pulled him awaywith fury, and flung him heavily against the wall. He laughed loud andlong, and I feared his wits had given way under the strain; for even inthe best of days he had been a sparing and a quiet laugher.
“Now, Frank,” said he, when his mirth was somewhat appeased, “it’s yourturn. Here’s my hand. Good-bye; farewell!” Then, seeing me stand rigidand indignant, and holding Clara to my side—“Man!” he broke out, “are youangry? Did you think we were going to die with all the airs and gracesof society? I took a kiss; I’m glad I had it; and now you can takeanother if you like, and square accounts.”
I turned from him with a feeling of contempt which I did not seek todissemble.
“As you please,” said he. “You’ve been a prig in life; a prig you’lldie.”
And with that he sat down in a chair, a rifle over his knee, and amusedhimself with snapping the lock; but I could see that his ebullition oflight spirits (the only one I ever knew him to display) had already cometo an end, and was succeeded by a sullen, scowling humour.
All this time our assailants might have been entering the house, and webeen none the wiser; we had in truth almost forgotten the danger that soimminently overhung our days. But just then Mr. Huddlestone uttered acry, and leaped from the bed.
I asked him what was wrong.
“Fire!” he cried. “They have set the house on fire!”
Northmour was on his feet in an instant, and he and I ran through thedoor of communication with the study. The room was illuminated by a redand angry light. Almost at the moment of our entrance, a tower of flamearose in front of the window, and, with a tingling report, a pane fellinwards on the carpet. They had set fire to the lean-to outhouse, whereNorthmour used to nurse his negatives.
“Hot work,” said Northmour. “Let us try in your old roo
m.”
We ran thither in a breath, threw up the casement, and looked forth.Along the whole back wall of the pavilion piles of fuel had been arrangedand kindled; and it is probable they had been drenched with mineral oil,for, in spite of the morning’s rain, they all burned bravely. The firehad taken a firm hold already on the outhouse, which blazed higher andhigher every moment; the back door was in the centre of a red-hotbonfire; the eaves we could see, as we looked upward, were alreadysmouldering, for the roof overhung, and was supported by considerablebeams of wood. At the same time, hot, pungent, and choking volumes ofsmoke began to fill the house. There was not a human being to be seen toright or left.
“Ah, well!” said Northmour, “here’s the end, thank God.”
And we returned to _My Uncle’s Room_. Mr. Huddlestone was putting on hisboots, still violently trembling, but with an air of determination suchas I had not hitherto observed. Clara stood close by him, with her cloakin both hands ready to throw about her shoulders, and a strange look inher eyes, as if she were half hopeful, half doubtful of her father.
“Well, boys and girls,” said Northmour, “how about a sally? The oven isheating; it is not good to stay here and be baked; and, for my part, Iwant to come to my hands with them, and be done.”
“There is nothing else left,” I replied.
And both Clara and Mr. Huddlestone, though with a very differentintonation, added, “Nothing.”
As we went downstairs the heat was excessive, and the roaring of the firefilled our ears; and we had scarce reached the passage before the stairswindow fell in, a branch of flame shot brandishing through the aperture,and the interior of the pavilion became lit up with that dreadful andfluctuating glare. At the same moment we heard the fall of somethingheavy and inelastic in the upper story. The whole pavilion, it wasplain, had gone alight like a box of matches, and now not only flamedsky-high to land and sea, but threatened with every moment to crumble andfall in about our ears.
Northmour and I cocked our revolvers. Mr. Huddlestone, who had alreadyrefused a firearm, put us behind him with a manner of command.
“Let Clara open the door,” said he. “So, if they fire a volley, she willbe protected. And in the meantime stand behind me. I am the scapegoat;my sins have found me out.”
I heard him, as I stood breathless by his shoulder, with my pistol ready,pattering off prayers in a tremulous, rapid whisper; and I confess,horrid as the thought may seem, I despised him for thinking ofsupplications in a moment so critical and thrilling. In the meantime,Clara, who was dead white but still possessed her faculties, haddisplaced the barricade from the front door. Another moment, and she hadpulled it open. Firelight and moonlight illuminated the links withconfused and changeful lustre, and far away against the sky we could seea long trail of glowing smoke.
Mr. Huddlestone, filled for the moment with a strength greater than hisown, struck Northmour and myself a back-hander in the chest; and while wewere thus for the moment incapacitated from action, lifting his armsabove his head like one about to dive, he ran straight forward out of thepavilion.
“Here am!” he cried—“Huddlestone! Kill me, and spare the others!”
His sudden appearance daunted, I suppose, our hidden enemies; forNorthmour and I had time to recover, to seize Clara between us, one byeach arm, and to rush forth to his assistance, ere anything further hadtaken place. But scarce had we passed the threshold when there came neara dozen reports and flashes from every direction among the hollows of thelinks. Mr. Huddlestone staggered, uttered a weird and freezing cry,threw up his arms over his head, and fell backward on the turf.
“_Traditore_! _Traditore_!” cried the invisible avengers.
And just then, a part of the roof of the pavilion fell in, so rapid wasthe progress of the fire. A loud, vague, and horrible noise accompaniedthe collapse, and a vast volume of flame went soaring up to heaven. Itmust have been visible at that moment from twenty miles out at sea, fromthe shore at Graden Wester, and far inland from the peak of Graystiel,the most eastern summit of the Caulder Hills. Bernard Huddlestone,although God knows what were his obsequies, had a fine pyre at the momentof his death.
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