Faithful Margaret Part 39

She felt, with a m.u.f.fled and sickening heart-throb, that her enemy was holding the pistol at full c.o.c.k toward her, only waiting for the least betrayal to fire.

She raised her head and watched, in fascinated horror, for the flash which was to herald her death.

"Do you surrender?" demanded the a.s.sa.s.sin, in a voice quick and imperative.

Had Margaret possessed an atom less presence of mind, she would have answered involuntarily "No," in her scorn of the cowardly villain, but she bit her lip in time, and held her peace.

Full well she knew that her first word would be the signal of her death.

"There are two hours and a half before daylight," said the enemy. "Are you willing to have that pistol pointed at you for two hours and a half, waiting to shoot you with the first gleam of daylight, or will you give up the note-book and come to terms with me, for our mutual safety?"

Margaret would not peril her safety by a whisper.

"I don't object, even after all that has pa.s.sed, to marry you, and let you be mistress of the property, if you will only say yes."

"Heaven grant me patience to keep quiet," prayed Margaret, in her soul.

"Are you there, girl, or am I talking to an empty room?" called the man, with a bitter oath. "Have you slipped, with your confounded cleverness, out by some side door?"

Not a breath answered him; his own breathing almost filled the room as he applied his ear to the hole.

A protracted silence ensued. The man at the window waited with murder in his black soul for the faintest sound within; the hound at the door sniffed with dripping fangs, and waited too, demon-like in his imitation of his master; the lonely woman crouched in the corner, defenseless, weak, affrighted, and prayed that Heaven would keep her safe.

The hours crept slowly on, but oh! how leaden were their wings. The death-watch of these three was drawing to an end.

Margaret kept her dizzy eyes still fastened upon the black line that began to be discernible at the window, and saw a crisis approaching.

"Are you dead or living in there?" said Roland Mortlake, at the auger-hole, "If you are, you're a brave girl, and I want you for my wife. Say 'yes.'"

No answer from within, save the whine of the sleuth-hound at the door.

A distant bugle call from without, from some early huntsman.

An angry hand shook the heavy shutters. Thank heaven! the bolts were the ma.s.sive bars of the sixteenth century, made for feudal defense and not for beauty.

"If I break in the window, it won't be good for you, Margaret Walsingham," was the boastful threat, as a second shaking was administered to the shutters.

The clear, joyous notes of the bugle sounded nearer; the l.u.s.ty holloa of the sportsman to his dogs came over the Waaste and into the hole to the ear of Margaret Walsingham, and a rush of joy swept over her and gave her hopes of life.

This early huntsman was no doubt Squire Clanridge, who, she now remembered having heard from Purcell, the steward, was to take the Seven-Oak dogs out this morning to have a run with his own.

He would pa.s.s this side of Castle Brand on his way to the kennels, and the cowardly a.s.sa.s.sin would have either to fly or be seen.

An imprecation burst from him in a voice which betrayed his fury, his disappointment, his apprehension.

A wild smile quivered over Margaret's white face as she saw the arm withdrawn and heard the dismal moan of the night wind through the hole.

Hasty feet crunched on the sleet-covered balcony, and the scratching sound of a man swinging himself down by some rattling chain-ladder followed.

The quick gallop of the horses' feet shortly became audible, and she knew that the squire, with his groom, were clattering up to the court-yard of the castle.

Five minutes afterward a hissing whistle was answered by a snort from the patient blood-hound, which had watched so long at the door, his light feet scratched their way down the slippery oaken stairs, and once more Margaret was alone.

She had been saved through a night of peril such as turns the jetty locks of youth to the l.u.s.trous white; she had been saved to rush for aid and have the murderer arrested with the pistol still in his hand.

She was a free woman once more, and G.o.d had been kind to her this long dread night.

She rose from her paralyzing att.i.tude and approached her little bed to sink on her knees beside it and pour out her full heart of grat.i.tude to Heaven, but she only went a little way and fell on her face and fainted.

And the first sun-ray of another dawning smote across the weary old world, flus.h.i.+ng its icy bosom, and stole through the hole in the shutter, and touched the ceiling, thus casting a reflected beam, like a faint smile, upon the unconscious face of the orphan girl.

CHAPTER XX.

THE IMPOSTOR FOILED.

At ten o'clock of the morning Mrs. Chetwode was knocking at Miss Walsingham's bedroom door.

"Excuse me, miss, for disturbing you, but the colonel is here, and wishes most particular to see you."

"Oh, please leave me alone," answered the young lady from within, weakly and plaintively: "I am ill and can see no one."

The housekeeper returned to Colonel

Brand, who was pacing about in the gallery, under the long lines of dead Brands, among which was not the face of the latest dead, and informed him with a lugubrious face that Miss Walsingham was wild yet as she had been last night, and seemed afraid to open the door, which was one of her meagrims, poor dear, to have it locked, and her not well.

"Keep her quiet," answered the colonel, with that crafty smile of his behind his long and stealthy hand, "she is going to have a serious illness. Keep her very quiet. Poor lady, she shows signs of insanity; keep her perfectly quiet."

Then, to be on hand, in case the young lady should consent to see him, as he informed Mrs. Chetwode, he made himself at home in a quiet way at Castle Brand, sauntering, with his hands in his pockets, through the wide rooms; smoking on the front steps, eating lunch in a room which commanded a view of the stairway, with his ugly companion by his side, whose dripping fangs and blood-shot eyes were his master's admiring study, and often slapping his own chest with an angry malediction, because a certain rawness, or hoa.r.s.eness, had got into his windpipe.

No adoring lover could have expressed more anxiety concerning the lady of his heart than did the gallant colonel for Miss Walsingham. He sent up a bulletin in the shape of John the footman every hour, to listen at the young lady's door whether she was moving--not to disturb her, only to listen, and bring back word to this anxious well-wisher.

Thus pa.s.sed the morning below stairs.

How fared it with poor Margaret?

Nature had suffered a complete collapse. The horror of the night was telling upon her pale, drawn face, her bloodless lips, and nerveless hands. Utter exhaustion was weighing her down.

If her enemy had been making a bonfire of Castle Brand beneath her, profound exhaustion would have compelled her to lie there and doze, even while she perished in the flames.

She lay in bed with half-closed eyes, tossing from side to side as the piercing light from the hole in the shutter worried her; dozing heavily, often waking to murmur some feverish thought, starting up and listening--sinking back in her weakness to sleep again.

Toward the middle of the afternoon she roused herself, came to a completer sense of reality than she had done yet, and sprang from her bed. She had to sit for several minutes upon the side of it, with her hands tightly clasped upon her brow, before she could come to a decision as to what her next move could be.

"I am mad to waste the few hours of grace in sleep, instead of putting myself, under the protection of my friends!" she said.