XXVII
THE NIGHT'S WORK
The fourteen long hours dragged themselves by. They seemed interminable,but somehow they passed and the appointed time drew near. Ste. Mariespent the greater part of the afternoon reading, but twice he lay downupon the bed and tried to sleep, and once he actually dozed off for abrief space. The old Michel brought his meals. He had thought itpossible that Coira might manage to bring the dinner-tray, as she hadalready done on several occasions, and so make an opportunity forinforming him as to young Arthur's state of mind. But she did not come,and no word came from her. So evening drew on and the dusk gathered anddeepened to darkness.
Ste. Marie walked his floor and prayed for the hours to pass. He hadcandles and matches, and there was even a lamp in the room, so that hecould have read if he chose, but he knew that the words would have beenmeaningless to him, that he was incapable of abstracting his thoughtfrom the night's stern work. He began to be anxious over not havingheard from Mlle. O'Hara. She had said that she would talk with ArthurBenham during the afternoon, and then slip a note under Ste. Marie'sdoor. Yet no word had come from her, and to the man pacing his floor inthe darkness the fact took on proportions tremendous and fantastic.Something had happened. The boy had broken his promise, burst out uponO'Hara, or more probably upon his uncle, and the house was by the ears.Coira was watched--even locked in her room. Stewart had fled. A score ofsuch terrible possibilities rushed through Ste. Marie's brain andtortured him. He was in a state of nervous tension that was almostunendurable, and the little noises of the night outside, a wind-stirredrustle of leaves, a bird's flutter among the branches, the sound of acracking twig, made him start violently and catch his breath.
Then at his utmost need came reassurance and something like ease ofmind. He heard a sound of voices at the front of the house, and sprangto his balconied window to listen. Captain Stewart and O'Hara werewalking upon the brick-paved terrace and chatting calmly over theircigars. The man above, prone upon the floor, his head pressed againstthe ivy-masked grille of the balcony, listened, and though he could heartheir words only at intervals when they passed beneath him he knew thatthey spoke of trivial matters in voices free of strain or concern.
He drew back with a breath of relief, and at that moment a sound acrossthe room arrested him, a soft scraping sound such as a mouse might make.He went where it was, and a little square of paper gleamed white throughthe darkness just within the door. Ste. Marie caught it up and took itto the far side of the room away from the window. He struck a match,opened the folded paper, and a single line of writing was there:
"He will go with you. Wait by the door in the wall."
The man nearly cried out with joy.
He struck another match and looked at his watch. It was a quarter toten. Four hours left out of the fourteen.
Once more he lay down upon the bed and closed his eyes. He knew that hecould not sleep, but he was tired from long tramping up and down theroom and from the strain of over-tried nerves. From hour to hour helooked at his watch by match-light, but he did not leave the bed untilhalf-past one. Then he rose and took a long breath, and the time was athand.
He stood a little while gazing out into the night. An old moon was highoverhead in a cloudless sky, and that would make the night's work botheasier and more difficult, but on the whole he was glad of it. He lookedto the east, toward that wall where was the little wooden door, and theway was under cover of trees and shrubbery for the whole distance save alittle space beside the house. He listened, and the night was verystill--no sound from the house below him, no sound anywhere save thebarking of a dog from far away, and after an instant the whistle of adistant train.
Ste. Marie turned back into the room and pulled the sheets from his bed.He rolled them, corner-wise, into a sort of rope, and knotted themtogether securely. Then he went to one of the east windows. There was nobalcony there, but, as in all French upper windows, a wood and iron barfixed, into the stone casing at both ends, with a little grille belowit. It crossed the window space a third of the distance from bottom totop. He bent one end of the improvised rope to this, made it fast, andlet the other end hang out. The east side of the house was in shadow,and the rolled sheet, a vague white line, disappeared into the darknessbelow, but Ste. Marie knew that it must reach nearly to the ground. Hehad made use of it because he was afraid there would be too much noiseif he tried to climb down the ivy. The room directly underneath was thedrawing-room, and he knew that it was closed and shuttered andunoccupied both by day and by night. The only danger, he decided, wasfrom the sleeping-room behind his own, with its windows opening closeby; but, though he did not know it, he was safe there also, for the roomwas Coira O'Hara's.
He felt in his pocket for the pistol, and it was ready to hand. Then hebuttoned his coat round him and swung himself out of the window. He heldhis body away from the wall with one knee and went down hand under hand.It was so quietly done that it did not even rouse the birds in thenear-by trees. Before he realized that he had come to the lower windowshis feet touched the earth and he was free.
He stood for a moment where he was, and then slipped rapidly across theopen, moonlit space into the inky gloom of the trees. He made ahalf-circle round before the house and looked up at it. It lay gray andblack and still in the night. Where the moonlight was upon it, it wasgray; where there was shadow, black as black velvet, and the windowswere like open, dead eyes. He looked toward Arthur Benham's room, andthere was no light, but he knew that the boy was awake and waitingthere, shivering probably in the dark. He wondered where Coira O'Harawas, and he pictured her lying in her bed fronting the gloom withsleepless, open eyes, looking into those to-morrows which she had saidshe saw so well. He wondered bitterly what the to-morrows were to bringher, but he caught himself up with a stern determination and put her outof his mind. He did not dare think of her in that hour.
He turned and began to make his way silently under the trees toward theappointed meeting-place. Once he thought of the old Michel and wonderedwhere that gnarled and withered watch-dog had betaken himself.Somewhere, within or without the house, he was asleep or pretending tosleep, and Ste. Marie knew that he could be trusted. The man's cupidityand his hatred of Captain Stewart together would make him faithful, orfaithless, as one chose to look upon it.
He came to that place where a row of lilac shrubs stood against the walland a half-dead cedar stretched gnarled branches above. He was a littlebefore his time, and he settled himself to listen and wait, his sharpears keenly on the alert, his eyes turned toward the dark and quiethouse.
The little noises of the night broke upon him with exaggerated clamor. Acrackling twig was a thunderous crash, a bird's sleepy stir was thesound of pursuit and disaster. A hundred times he heard the cautiousapproach of Richard Hartley's motor-car without the wall, and he fellinto a panic of fear lest that machine prove unruly, break down,puncture a tire, or burst into a series of ear-splitting explosions. Butat last--it seemed to him that he had waited untold hours and that thedawn must be nigh--there came an unmistakable rustling from overhead andthe sound of a hard-drawn breath. The top of the wall, just at thatpoint, was in moonlight, and a man's head appeared over it, then an armand then a leg. Hartley called down to him in a whisper, and Ste. Marie,from the gloom beneath, whispered a reply. He said:
"The boy has promised to come with us. We sha'n't have to fight for it."
Richard Hartley said, "Thank God!" He spoke to some one outside, andthen turning about let himself down to arm's-length and dropped to theground. "Thank God!" he said again. "The two men who were to have comewith me didn't show up. I waited as long as I dared, and then came onwith only the chauffeur. He's waiting outside by the car ready to crankup when I give the word. The car's just a few yards away, headed out forthe road. How are we to get back over the wall?"
Ste. Marie explained that Arthur Benham was to come out to join them atthe wooden door, and doubtless would bring a key. If not, the three ofthem could scale fifteen feet easily enough in t
he way soldiers andfiremen are trained to do it. He told his friend all that was necessaryfor the time, and they went together along the wall to the more openspace beside the little door.
They waited there in silence for five minutes, and once Hartley, withhis back toward the house, struck a match under his sheltering coat,looked to see what time it was, and found it was three minutes past two.
"He ought to be here," the man growled. "I don't like waiting. GoodLord, you don't think he's funked it, do you? Eh?"
Ste. Marie did not answer, but he was breathing very fast and he couldnot keep his hands still.
The dog which he had heard from his window began barking again very faraway in the night, and kept it up incessantly. Perhaps he was barking atthe moon.
"I'm going a little way toward the house," said Ste. Marie, at last. "Wecan't see the terrace from here."
But before he had started they heard the sound of hurrying feet, andRichard Hartley began to curse under his breath. He said:
"Does the young idiot want to rouse the whole place? Why can't he comequietly?"
Ste. Marie began to run forward, slipping the pistol out of his pocketand holding it ready in his hand, for his quick ears told him that therewas more than one pair of feet coming through the night. He went towhere he could command the approach from the house and halted there, butall at once he gave a low cry and started forward again, for he saw thatArthur Benham and Coira O'Hara were running together, and that they werein desperate haste. He called out to them, and the girl cried:
"Go to the door in the wall! The door in the wall! Oh, be quick!"
He fell into step beside her, and as they ran he said,
"You're going with him? You're coming with us?"
The girl answered him, "No, no!" and she sprang to the little, low doorand began to fit the iron key into the lock.
The three men stood about her, and young Arthur Benham drew his breathin great, shivering gasps that were like sobs.
"They heard us!" he cried, in a whisper. "They're after us. They heardus on the stairs. I--stumbled and fell. For God's sake, Coira, bequick!"
The girl fumbled desperately with the clumsy key, and dropped upon herknees to see the better. Once she said, in a whisper: "I can't turn it.It won't turn." And at that Richard Hartley pushed her out of the wayand lent his greater strength to the task.
A sudden, loud cry came from the house, a hoarse, screeching cry in avoice which might have been either man's or woman's, but was as mad andas desperate and as horrible in that still night as the screech of atortured animal--or of a maniac. It came again and again, and it wasnearer.
"Oh, hurry, hurry!" said the girl. "Can't you be quick? They're coming."
And as she spoke the little group about the wall heard the engine of themotor-car outside start up with a staccato roar and knew that thefaithful chauffeur was ready for them.
"I'm getting it, I think," said Richard Hartley, between his teeth. "I'mgetting it. Turn, you beast! Turn!"
There was a sound of hurrying feet, and Ste. Marie spun about. He cried:
"Don't wait for me! Jump into the car and go! Don't wait anywhere! Comeback after you've left Benham at home!"
He began to run forward toward those running feet, and he did not knowthat the girl followed after him. A short distance away there was alittle open space of moonlight, and in its midst, at full career, he metthe Irishman O'Hara, a gaunt and grotesque figure in his sleeping-suit,barefooted, with empty hands. Beyond him still, some one else ran,stumbling, and sobbed and uttered mad cries.
Ste. Marie dropped his pistol to the ground and sprang upon theIrishman. He caught him about the body and arms, and the two swayed andstaggered under the tremendous impact. At just that moment, from behind,came the crash of the opened door and triumphant shouts. Ste. Marie gavea little gasp of triumph, too, and clung the harder to the man with whomhe fought. He drove his head into the Irishman's shoulder, and set hismuscles with a grip which was like iron. He knew that it could notendure long, for the Irishman was stronger than he, but the grip of anervous man who is keyed up to a high tension is incredibly powerful fora little while. Trained strength is nothing beside it.
It seemed to Ste. Marie in this desperate moment--it cannot have beenmore than a minute or two at the most--that a strange and uncannymiracle befell him. It was as if he became two. Soul and body, spiritand straining flesh, seemed to him to separate, to stand apart, eachfrom the other. There was a thing of iron flesh and thews which hadlocked itself about an enemy and clung there madly with but one purpose,one single thought--to grip and grip, and never loosen until fleshshould be torn from bones. But apart the spirit looked on with acomplete detachment. It looked beyond--he must have raised his head toglance over O'Hara's shoulder--saw a mad figure staggering forward inthe moonlight, and knew the figure for Captain Stewart. It saw anupraised arm and was not afraid, for the work was almost done now. Itlistened and was glad, hearing the motor-car, without the walls, leapforward into the night and its puffing grow fainter and fainter withdistance. It knew that the thing of strained sinews received a crashingblow upon backflung head, and that the iron muscles were slipping awayfrom their grip, but it was still glad, for the work was done.
Only at the last, before red and whirling lights had obscured the view,before consciousness was dissolved in unconsciousness, came horror andagony, for the eyes saw Captain Stewart back away and raise the thing hehad struck with, a large revolver, saw Coira O'Hara, a swift andflashing figure in the moonlight, throw herself upon him before he couldfire, heard together a woman's scream and the roar of the pistol'sexplosion, and then knew no more.
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Jason: A Romance Page 27
