Commodore Junk Part 75

"You need not ask," she said feebly. "He missed before--the blow was true this time."

"The fiend! The devil!" groaned Humphrey, as the sword quivered in his grasp. "Well, we shall want a slave to open the gates of death. His shall be the task!"

She clung to him with failing strength, and drew herself up by him till she could once more rest upon his breast, with her arms tightly clasped about his neck.

"You told me at last you loved me," she panted. "You said the words I have so hungered to hear--words I thought that I should have died and never heard pa.s.s your lips. Now that I know it, and that it is true, do not embitter my last moments by showing me that I have tried in vain."

"I could not live without you now!" he cried pa.s.sionately, as he held her to him more tightly still.

"They are coming. It is too late for me. Let me die in peace, knowing that you are saved."

He raised her in his arms and bore her to the great stone, and, as he laid her gently down, the noise of the coming gang could be heard.

There was not a moment to lose, and any slip in his instructions would have resulted in destruction; but as he pressed against the stone it easily revolved, and he stooped once more and raised the fainting woman in his arms, to bear her down into the tomb-like structure and place her at the foot of the broad stone stairs which led into the vault.

As he loosened her arms from about his neck and pa.s.sed quickly up again, there were heavy steps in the long corridor, and lights flashed through the openings of the great curtain. So close were the men that Humphrey saw their faces as he stood on the upper step, and dragged at the slab by two great hollows underneath, made, apparently, by the olden masons for the mover's hands.

For the moment Humphrey, as he bent down there beneath the place on which he had so often slept or lain to think, felt certain that he must have been seen; but the m.u.f.fled voices came close up, the steps trampled here and there, sounding dull and hollow, and there was no seizing of the great stone, no smiting upon its sides.

He held his breath as he stood bending down and listening for some indication of danger; but it seemed as if the men had coursed all over the place, searching in all directions, and were about to go, when, all at once, there was a shout close to the place where he had raised Mary from the altar.

The shout was followed by a m.u.f.fled sound of many voices, and he listened, wondering what it meant. Some discovery had evidently been made, but what?

He shuddered, and a chill of horror shot through him, for he knew directly after.

It was blood.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

IN THE VAULT.

With the deathly silence which ensued as the heavy echoing steps of the searchers pa.s.sed away, the men being completely at fault as to why certain drops of blood should be lying near the couch, Humphrey descended the steps once more.

"They are gone," he whispered, but there was no reply; and, feeling softly about, his hand came in contact with Mary's arm, to find that she lay back in a corner of the vault, with a kerchief pressed tightly against her breast.

He hastily bandaged the wound, firmly binding the handkerchief which she held there with his own and the broad scarf he wore, and, after placing her in a more comfortable position, began to search in the darkness for the food and water which were there.

The water was soon found--a deep, cool cistern in the middle of the floor.

The food lay close at hand, and with it one of the silver cups he had had in use above. With this he bore some of the cool refres.h.i.+ng liquid to the wounded woman, holding some to her lips and bathing her brow, till she uttered a sigh and returned to consciousness, her first act being to stretch out her hand and lay it upon Humphrey's shoulder to draw him nearer to her.

"Don't leave me!" she said feebly. "It is very dark!"

"But we are safe," he whispered. "They are gone."

"Yes," she sighed; "I heard them. How long is it to day?"

"It cannot be long now," he said, as he took her hand.

She sighed as she felt the unwonted tenderness and rested her head against his shoulder.

"No," she said, softly, "it cannot be long now. It will come too soon!"

There was so much meaning in her voice that he felt a cold chill, as if the hand of death had pa.s.sed between to separate these two so strangely brought together.

"Are you in pain!" he said.

"Pain! No. Happy--so happy!" she whispered. "For you do love me!"

"Love you!" he cried.

"And she--at home?"

"That was not love," he said, wildly. "But now tell me about this place--shall we see the day when it comes?"

"You will," she said, softly. "I shall--perhaps."

"Perhaps! No, you shall!" he whispered, as he pressed his arm gently around her, forgetting everything now of the past, save that this woman loved him, and that there was a future before them of hope and joy.

"Tell me what I can do--to help you."

"Hold me like that," she whispered, with a sigh of content. "It is better so. It could never have been--only my wild dream--a woman's thirst for the love of one in whom she could believe. A woman's love!"

Little more than an hour could have pa.s.sed, during which Humphrey had twice heard sounds of voices, and once a heavy step overhead--this last making him steal his right hand softly toward the sword that lay by his side--when a faint light seemed to gleam on the surface of the water in the centre of the vault; and soon after he found that this served to shed a softened dawn through the place--a dawn which grow stronger, but was never more than a subdued twilight. It was enough, though, to show him the proportions of the place, its quaint carving, and the fact that beside the long shaft which opened out far above his head there was what seemed to be a stone grille, beyond which was the tangled growth of the forest, much of which, in root and long, p.r.i.c.kly shoot, penetrated nearly to where they sat.

As the light grew stronger he saw that his companion seemed to have lost the old masculine look given by her attire; for coat and vest had been cast aside, and the loose s.h.i.+rt, open at the neck, had more the aspect of a robe. Her dark hair curled closely about her temples; and as Humphrey Armstrong gazed down at the face, with its parted lips and long lashes lying upon the creamy dark cheeks, his heart throbbed, for he felt that he had won the love of as handsome a woman as any upon whom his eyes had ever lit.

He forgot the wound, the bandaging kerchief seeming in the semi-darkness like some scarf; and as he sat and gazed he bent down lower and softly touched the moist forehead with his lips.

Mary awoke up with a frightened start and gazed at him wildly, but as consciousness came her look softened and she nestled to him.

"I did not mean to wake you," he said.

She started again and looked at him wildly, as if she fancied she had detected a chilliness in his manner; but his eyes undeceived her, and as he raised her hand to his lips, she let it rest there for a few moments, and then stole it round his neck.

"Tell me," he said gently, "your wound?"

She shook her head softly.

"No," she whispered; "let it rest. Talk of yourself. You will wait here two days, and then steal out at night and make your way down to the sh.o.r.e. You know the way!"

"If I do not you will guide me," he said.

She looked at him keenly to see if he meant what he said, and then, reading the sincerity of his words in his frank eyes, she shook her head again.

"No," she whispered. "You asked me of my wound. It is home. Humphrey Armstrong, this is to be my tomb!"

"What!" he cried. "Oh, no! no! no! You must live to bless me with your love!"