CHAPTER LXVIII.
MARCHDALE'S ATTEMPTED VILLANY, AND THE RESULT.
Varney the vampyre left the dungeon of Charles Holland amid the greyruins, with a perfect confidence the young man would keep his word, andnot attempt to escape from that place until the time had elapsed whichhe had dictated to him.
And well might he have that confidence, for having once given his wordthat he would remain until he heard the clock strike two from aneighbouring church, Charles Holland never dreamt for a moment ofbreaking it.
To be sure it was a weary time to wait when liberty appeared before him;but he was the soul of honour, and the least likely man in all the worldto infringe in the slightest upon the condition which he had, of his ownfree will, acceded to.
Sir Francis Varney walked rapidly until he came nearly to the outskirtsof the town, and then he slackened his pace, proceeding more cautiously,and looking carefully about him, as if he feared to meet any one whomight recognise him.
He had not proceeded far in this manner, when he became conscious of thecautious figure of a man gliding along in the opposite direction to thatwhich he was taking.
A suspicion struck him, from the general appearance, that it wasMarchdale, and if so he wondered to see him abroad at such a time. Stillhe would not be quite certain; but he hurried forward, so as to meet theadvancing figure, and then his suspicions were confirmed; and Marchdale,with some confusion in his looks and manners, accosted him.
"Ah, Sir Francis Varney," he said, "you are out late."--
"Why, you know I should be out late," said Varney, "and you likewiseknow the errand upon which I was to be out."
"Oh, I recollect; you were to release your prisoner."--
"Yes, I was."
"And have you done so?"--
"Oh, no."
"Oh, indeed. I--I am glad you have taken better thoughts of it. Goodnight--good night; we shall meet to-morrow."--
"Adieu," said Sir Francis Varney; and he watched the retreating figureof Marchdale, and then he added, in a low tone to himself,--
"I know his object well. His craven spirit shrinks at the notion, aprobable enough one, I will admit, that Charles Holland has recognisedhim, and that, if once free, he would denounce him to the Bannerworths,holding him up to scorn in his true colours, and bringing down upon hishead, perhaps, something more than detestation and contempt. Thevillain! he is going now to take the life of the man whom he considerschained to the ground. Well, well, they must fight it out together.Charles Holland is sufficiently free to take his own part, althoughMarchdale little thinks that such is the case."
Marchdale walked on for some little distance, and then he turned andlooked after Sir Francis Varney.
"Indeed!" he said; "so you have not released him to-night, but I knowwell will do so soon. I do not, for my part, admire this romanticgenerosity which sets a fox free at the moment that he's the mostdangerous. It's all very well to be generous, but it is better to bejust first, and that I consider means looking after one's self first. Ihave a poniard here which will soon put an end to the troubles of theprisoner in his dungeon--its edge is keen and sharp, and will readilyfind a way to his heart."
He walked on quite exultingly and carelessly now, for he had got intothe open country, and it was extremely unlikely that he would meetanybody on his road to the ruins.
It did not take many minutes, sharp walking now to bring him close tothe spot which he intended should become such a scene of treacherousslaughter, and just then he heard from afar off something like themuttering of thunder, as if Heaven itself was proclaiming its vengeanceagainst the man who had come out to slay one of its best and noblestcreatures.
"What is that'" said Marchdale, shrinking back a moment; "what isthat--an approaching storm? It must be so, for, now I recollect me, thesun set behind a bank of clouds of a fiery redness, and as the eveningdrew in there was every appearance in the heavens of some ensuing strifeof the elements."
He listened for a few moments, and fixed his eyes intently in thedirection of the horizon from where the muttering sounds had proceeded.
He had not long to wait before he saw a bright flash of blue lightning,which for one instant illumined the sky; then by the time he could havecounted twelve there came the thunder which the flash preceded, and hefelt terribly anxious to complete his enterprize, so that he might getback to the town and be safely housed before the storm, which wasevidently approaching, should burst upon him.
"It is sweeping on apace," he said; "why did I not come earlier?"
Even as he spoke he plunged among the recesses of the ruins, andsearching about for the old stone which covered the entrance to thedungeon, he was surprised to find it rolled from its place, and theaperture open.
"What is the meaning of this?" he said; "how negligent of Sir FrancisVarney; or perhaps, after all, he was only jesting with me, and let theprisoner go. If that should be the case, I am foiled indeed; but surelyhe could not be so full of indiscretion."
Again came a dazzling flash of lightning, which now, surrounded by theruins as he was, made him shrink back and cover his eyes for a moment;and then followed a peal of thunder with not half the duration of timebetween it and the flash which had characterized the previous electricphenomenon.
"The storm approaches fast," said Marchdale; "I must get my work donequickly, if indeed my victim be here, which I begin seriously to doubt."
He descended the intricate winding passage to the vault below, whichserved the purpose of a dungeon, and when he got very nearly into thedepth of its recesses, he called aloud, saying,--
"Ho! what ho! is there any one here?"--"Yes," said Charles Holland, whofancied it might be his former visitor returned. "Have you come torepent of your purpose?"
"Ah!" said Marchdale to himself, "Sir Francis, after all, has told methe truth--the prisoner is still here."
The light from without was not near sufficient to send the least rayinto the depths of that dungeon; so that Marchdale, when he entered theplace, could see nothing but an absolute blackness.
It was not so, however, with Charles Holland, whose eyes had been now solong accustomed to the place that he could see in it as if a dimtwilight irradiated it, and he at once, in his visitor, saw his worstfoe, and not the man who had comparatively set him free.
He saw, too, that the hand of his visitor grasped a weapon, whichMarchdale thought that, favoured by the darkness, he might carry openlyin perfect security.
"Where are you?" said Marchdale; "I cannot see you."--"Here!" saidCharles, "you may feel my grip;" and he sprung upon him in an instant.
The attack was so sudden and so utterly unexpected, that Marchdale wasthrown backwards, and the dagger wrested from his grasp, during thefirst impulse which Charles Holland had thrown into his attack.
Moreover, his head struck with such violence against the earthern floor,that it produced a temporary confusion of his faculties, so that, hadCharles Holland been so inclined, he might, with Marchdale's own weapon,have easily taken his life.
The young man did, on the impulse of the moment, raise it in his hand,but, on the impulse of another thought, he cast it from him,exclaiming--
"No, no! not that; I should be as bad as he, or nearly so. This villainhas come to murder me, but yet I will not take his life for the deed.What shall I do with him? Ha! a lucky thought--chains!"
He dragged Marchdale to the identical spot of earth on which he had lainso long; and, as Sir Francis Varney had left the key of the padlockwhich bound the chains together in it, he, in a few moments, hadsucceeded in placing the villain Marchdale in the same durance fromwhich he had himself shortly since escaped.
"Remain there," he said, "until some one comes to rescue you. I will notlet you starve to death, but I will give you a long fast; and, when Icome again, it shall be along with some of the Bannerworth family, toshow them what a viper they have fostered in their hearts."
Marchdale was just sufficiently conscious now to feel all the realitiesof his situation. In vai
n he attempted to rise from his prostrateposition. The chains did their duty, keeping down a villain with thesame means that they had held in ignominious confinement a true man.
He was in a perfect agony, inasmuch as he considered that he would beallowed to remain there to starve to death, thus achieving for himself amore horrible death than any he had ever thought of inflicting.
"Villain!" exclaimed Charles Holland, "you shall there remain; and, letyou have what mental sufferings you may, you richly deserve them."
He heeded not the cries of Marchdale--he heeded not his imprecations anymore than he did his prayers; and the arch hypocrite used both inabundance. Charles was but too happy once more to look upon the opensky, although it was then in darkness, to heed anything that Marchdale,in the agony to which he was now reduced, might feel inclined to say;and, after glancing around him for some few moments, when he was free ofthe ruins, and inhaling with exquisite delight the free air of thesurrounding meadows, he saw, by the twinkling of the lights, in whichdirection the town lay, and knowing that by taking a line in that path,and then after a time diverging a little to the right, he should come toBannerworth Hall, he walked on, never in his whole life probably feelingsuch an enjoyment of the mere fact of existence as at such a moment asthat of exquisite liberty.
Our readers may with us imagine what it is to taste the free, fresh airof heaven, after being long pent up, as he, Charles Holland, had been,in a damp, noisome dungeon, teeming with unwholesome exhalations. Theymay well suppose with what an amount of rapture he now found himselfunrestrained in his movements by those galling fetters which had hungfor so long a period upon his youthful limbs, and which, notunfrequently in the despair of his heart, he had thought he shouldsurely die in.
And last, although not least in his dear esteem, did the rapturousthought of once more looking in the sweet face of her he loved comecross him with a gush of delight.
"Yes!" he exclaimed, as he quickened his pace; "yes! I shall be able totell Flora Bannerworth how well and how truly I love her. I shall beable to tell her that, in my weary and hideous imprisonment, the thoughtalone of her has supported me."
As he neared the Hall, he quickened his pace to such an extent, thatsoon he was forced to pause altogether, as the exertion he hadundertaken pretty plainly told him that the imprisonment, scanty diet,and want of exercise, which had been his portion for some time past, hadmost materially decreased his strength.
His limbs trembled, and a profuse perspiration bedewed his brow,although the night was rather cold than otherwise.
"I am very weak," he said; "and much I wonder now that I succeeded inovercoming that villain Marchdale; who, if I had not done so, would mostassuredly have murdered me."
And it was a wonder; for Marchdale was not an old man, although he mightbe considered certainly as past the prime of life, and he was of astrong and athletic build. But it was the suddenness of his attack uponhim which had given Charles Holland the great advantage, and had causedthe defeat of the ruffian who came bent on one of the most cowardly anddastardly murders that could be committed--namely, upon an unoffendingman, whom he supposed to be loaded with chains, and incapable of makingthe least efficient resistance.
Charles soon again recovered sufficient breath and strength to proceedtowards the Hall, and now warned, by the exhaustion which had come overhim that he had not really anything like strength enough to allow him toproceed rapidly, he walked with slow and deliberate steps.
This mode of proceeding was more favourable to reflection than the wild,rapid one which he had at first adopted, and in all the glowing coloursof youthful and ingenious fancy did he depict to himself the surpriseand the pleasure that would beam in the countenance of his beloved Florawhen she should find him once again by her side.
Of course, he, Charles, could know nothing of the contrivances which hadbeen resorted to, and which the reader may lay wholly to the charge ofMarchdale, to blacken his character, and to make him appear faithless tothe love he had professed.
Had he known this, it is probable that indignation would have addedwings to his progress, and he would not have been able to proceed at theleisurely pace he felt that his state of physical weakness dictated tohim.
And now he saw the topmost portion at Bannerworth Hall pushing out fromamongst the trees with which the ancient pile was so much surrounded,and the sight of the home of his beloved revived him, and quickened thecirculation of the warm blood in his veins.
"I shall behold her now," he said--"I shall behold her how! A fewminutes more, and I shall hold her to my heart--that heart which hasbeen ever hers, and which carried her image enshrined in its deepestrecesses, even into the gloom of a dungeon!"
But let us, while Charles Holland is indulging in these delightfulanticipations--anticipations which, we regret, in consequence of thedeparture of the Bannerworths from the Hall, will not be realized sosoon as he supposes--look back upon the discomfited hypocrite andvillain, Marchdale, who occupies his place in the dungeon of the oldruins.
Until Charles Holland actually had left the strange, horrible, andcell-like place, he could scarcely make up his mind that the young manentertained a serious intention of leaving him there.
Perhaps he did not think any one could be so cruel and so wicked as hehimself; for the reader will no doubt recollect that his, Marchdale's,counsel to Varney, was to leave Charles Holland to his fate, chaineddown as he was in the dungeon, and that fate would have been thehorrible one of being starved to death in the course of a few days.
When now, however, he felt confident that he was deserted--when he heardthe sound of Charles Holland's retreating footsteps slowly dying away inthe distance, until not the faintest echo of them reached his ears, hedespaired indeed; and the horror he experienced during the succeedingten minutes, might be considered an ample atonement for some of hiscrimes. His brain was in a complete whirl; nothing of a tangible nature,but that he was there, chained down, and left to starve to death, cameacross his intellect. Then a kind of madness, for a moment or two, tookpossession of him; he made a tremendous effort to burst asunder thebands that held him.
But it was in vain. The chains--which had been placed upon CharlesHolland during the first few days of his confinement, when he had alittle recovered from the effects of the violence which had beencommitted upon him at the time when he was captured--effectuallyresisted Marchdale.
They even cut into his flesh, inflicting upon him some grievous wounds;but that was all he achieved by his great efforts to free himself, sothat, after a few moments, bleeding and in great pain, he, with a deepgroan, desisted from the fruitless efforts he had better not havecommenced.
Then he remained silent for a time, but it was not the silence ofreflection; it was that of exhaustion, and, as such, was not likely tolast long; nor did it, for, in the course of another five minutes, hecalled out loudly.
Perhaps he thought there might be a remote chance that some onetraversing the meadows would hear him; and yet, if he had dulyconsidered the matter, which he was not in a fitting frame of mind todo, he would have recollected that, in choosing a dungeon among theunderground vaults of these ruins, he had, by experiment, made certainthat no cry, however loud, from where he lay, could reach the upper air.And thus had this villain, by the very precautions which he had himselftaken to ensure the safe custody of another, been his own greatestenemy.
"Help! help! help!" he cried frantically "Varney! Charles Holland! havemercy upon me, and do not leave me here to starve! Help, oh, Heaven!Curses on all your heads--curses! Oh, mercy--mercy--mercy!"
In suchlike incoherent expressions did he pass some hours, until, whatwith exhaustion and a raging thirst that came over him, he could notutter another word, but lay the very picture of despair and discomfitedmalice and wickedness.
Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood Page 67
