A Fascinating Traitor Part 38

"Friends! friends!" cried Hardwicke. "The house was attacked! Where is the Professor?"

"I reckon they have carried him off!" the nasal voice of the American answered. "If they've killed him it's a great loss to science, you bet!

I'm coming down." And while the gun-room was soon filled with a motley crowd from Rozel Pier, Professor Alaric Hobbs long legs dropped dangling down his rope ladder. He gazed, open-mouthed, at the anglicized Prince Djiddin.

"Who are you--friends, also?" now demanded the astonished "Prince Djiddin" of the rescuers.

"We are friends of Simpson!" cried the nearest. "The smugglers bludgeoned him and then threw him off the cliff, but the banks were soft and wet, and his heavy coat saved him. He sent us up here to the rescue, for he crawled half a mile on his hands and knees. We've found the old Professor tied to a tree over there in the bushes. They are bringing him here. Simpson is at the 'Jersey Arms,' all safe."

"See here, stranger!" demanded the American, still standing amazed, pistol in hand, "I winged a couple of these d.a.m.ned robbers; they tried their best to get the girl away from me. I'm a pretty good shot. Now, are you a prince or a fraud? I suspicioned you from the first! If you are a fraud, then the History of Thibet is all d.a.m.ned rot! I suppose that you were just 'girl hunting.' The girl's yere sweetheart. I see it all now. Hoodwinked the old man! Who's this fellow that you've got tied up there, anyway? One of the Johnny-Bull-Jesse-James gang?"

"Why! It's Joe Smith, our friend!" chimed out a dozen friendly voices.

Then Harry Hardwicke stepped up to the s.h.i.+vering wretch who stood gazing on Alan Hawke, now propped up on a doubled-up coat, and rapidly bleeding to death. "I'll keep your secret, and save you yet, if you will disclose the whole, and keep mum!" Jack Blunt nodded, and hung his head in shame.

But, on his knees beside the dying man, Eric Murray bent down his head to listen to the final adieu of the dying wanderer, whose luck had turned at last. "Justine Delande is to have all! The drafts, and my money, at Granville. Murray, I'll tell you everything now. Ram Lal Singh murdered old Hugh Johnstone to get the jewels that Johnstone stole. The same ones that this old scoundrel, Fraser, here, is hiding." The red foam gathered thickly on Hawke's trembling lips. "Tell Major Hardwicke all! He's a good fellow! The knife that Ram Lal killed old Fraser with is in my own trunk at Granville, stored in Railroad Bureau. He got in through the window. I was in the garden, and caught him coming out. I was watching old Johnstone, for fear he would give me the slip. I didn't tell--I wanted to come over here and get the jewels myself. Hang old Ram Lal! He's a cowardly murderer! Telegraph to the Viceroy to arrest the jewel seller; he will break down and confess at once. Make him pay poor Justine Delande all my drafts--Johnstone gave him that money for me to keep me silent about the stolen crown jewels. Now--now, all grows dark!

Lift me up high--higher!" he gasped. "I played a hard game, but the luck turned--turned at last! That woman, Berthe Louison was too much--too much for me! Poor Justine! Tell her--tell her--" His voice grew fainter and fainter.

"Do you know this man, Hawke?" whispered Hardwicke, forcing Jack Blunt's face down to the dying renegade's glance.

"Never--saw him--before!" gasped Alan Hawke. "Poor Justine, tell her--"

and with a sighing gasp, his jaw dropped, and at their feet, the fool of fortune lay dead, with a last lie on his lips.

"By G.o.d! He was dead game!" muttered Jack Blunt, kneeling there, by the stiffening form of the wreck of a once brilliant Queen's officer. He dared not lift his craven eyes!

"He had the making of a gallant soldier in him!" cried Hardwicke, as he turned to the American, and motioned to the rope ladder. "We must not let Miss Johnstone see the body. Some of you run and get a ladder or some other means to aid her descent. And rouse up the nearest farm people. Get a carriage and bring the old Professor and maid here!"

While a dozen volunteers darted away to bring a conveyance, the rest hastily covered Hawke's body with their coats. The gun-room was now lit up, and in five minutes the waylaid carriage was drawn by hand to the door of the lonely tower. Within it lay the bruised and exhausted old scholar, bareheaded and ghastly, in the light of the flickering lanterns, while pretty Mattie Jones, with a shriek of terror, ran to the side of her sweetheart, his arms still bound with Prince Djiddin's sash.

Jack Blunt's "swell mob" a.s.surance stood him in good stead.

"It's all a mistake, my girl," bluntly said the mobs-man, feeling safe now that Alan Hawke's lips were sealed in death. While the old Professor was revived with copious draughts of "usquebaugh," Jack Blunt saw the flash below him, on the darkened seas, of a red light above a white one.

And he heaved a great sigh of relief,

"There goes the Hirondelle now, driving along out to sea with the whole gang," he murmured. "Now, by G.o.d, I am safe if this yellow masquerader only plays the man!" There was a hubbub of cackling voices, as on the night when the geese saved Rome! Above them, on the barrack room floor of the Martello tower, Harry Hardwicke was already holding Nadine Johnstone's drooping head upon his breast, while the lanky American gazed at the strange picture before him. The girl's arms were clasped around her lover's neck. "Do not leave me--not a moment!" she moaned.

Alaric Hobbs, with quick forethought, tossed his blankets down below, with a significant gesture.

"Darling! You will be mine for life, now!" cried the happy soldier, as he covered her s.h.i.+vering form with his coat. Alaric Hobbs had promptly descended and hastened the necessary preparations for departure. "d.a.m.n the explanations. Let's get the whole party out of this!" he said to Captain Murray, and then rejoined Hardwicke.

"Tell me all, quickly!" said Hardwicke. "I am a Queen's officer and shall telegraph to the Home Guards and send for General Wragge. I must report this by cable to the Indian Government. There is justice yet to be done!"

"I was taking some private star observations here," whispered Hobbs, bending down at Hardwicke's warning signal. "Storm bound, I waited for the return of my wagon at dawn. I was aroused from sleep by the sounds of a struggle below.

"Some one had dragged this young woman screaming and wailing into the tower below. She soon fainted. I heard the followers tell the leader of the gang that the coachman had just cut the traces and decamped with the horses. He then bade them gather all the gang waiting in hiding so as to carry her down to some boat below, and then closing the door, he stood on guard outside. They were, however, baffled. Some of the scoundrels had taken the alarm and fled, seeing the lights of the other party moving up from the pier. Then the desperate leader tried to lead a party to steal a horse from the nearest farmhouse. They were busied in their quarreling. I dropped my ladder down, and while they wrangled, cried softly to the imprisoned woman to mount the ladder. She knew my voice at once, as I had been a visitor at her uncle's house. With my help, she got up into the barrack room, and, you bet, I quickly pulled up my rope ladder. In ten minutes more, the door was opened. The trick was discovered. They tried a pyramid of men to reach the nine feet. But I waited till they were all good and blown with their exertions and then, shot a couple of them! You'll find those fellows lingering somewhere in the bushes. I had stowed the girl safely away in the middle of the pier, over the doorway, between two pillars. She was game enough. I let them just shoot away a bit. I kept my powder and lead to kill. I've even now four cartridges left.

"But when you came on the ground, the whole coward gang skedaddled at once, and the brave chap you killed got his dose for good, for he stood his ground like a man! The girl didn't bother me. She fainted in good shape when the close fighting began. I was a dead winner from position.

I could have stood them off for hours!"

"You are a hero!" warmly cried Harry Hardwicke.

"Let's all get out of this!" replied Alaric, modestly.

The American offered Hardwicke his c.o.c.ktail bottle. "Let's get her down.

I hear carriage wheels now. Would you just tell me your real name, now, the name you use when you are not doing your 'character' song and dance." The young officer smiled at the American's rough address.

"Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, and, this lady's future husband," confidently remarked Prince Djiddin.

"Oh, yes," grinned Alaric Hobbs, "the last part I'll take for gospel truth. Well, Major, I'm glad to know you." And he then, very practically, aided the descent of Miss Nadine Johnstone, for a dozen stout arms now held up the ponderous old ladder which had been purposely dislodged by the Coast Guardsmen. Alaric Hobbs surveyed his battle ground.

"If they had only dared to use lights, I might have had a harder fight,"

chuckled Alaric Hobbs, as he descended the very last one. "Major," said he huskily, "I've got my things corraled up there, and the instruments, and so on. Leave me a couple of men, and get your own people back now to the Folly. I'll 'hold the fort' here, till you bring the proper authorities. Our man won't run away now. He is 'permanently fixed' for a long repose from 'further anxieties.'"

But fiercely bristling up, old Andrew Fraser now loudly demanded to be allowed the ordering of all. "This is an outrage," he babbled. "You are a cheat, a fraud, an impostor, in league with the robbers." So, fiercely addressing Major Hardwicke, he tried to drag away Miss Nadine Johnstone, at whose feet the stout Mattie Jones was blubbering and wailing.

"Captain Murray," sternly cried Major Hardwicke, "take Miss Nadine and her maid to the Folly. Leave the two gardeners on guard. Return here as soon as you can, for the Professor and myself. I will come over with him. Have a horse at once saddled and bring a man to take my dispatches to General Wragge and for London. Bring me some writing materials. This must be reported at once."

"Go now, dearest Nadine," her lover implored. "I will join you at once.

Trust to me, all in all. I will never leave you again," and then and there, before her astounded guardian, Nadine Johnstone threw her ams around her lover in a fond embrace. "You will come?"

"At once," cried the Major, as he cried out hastily, "Drive on!"

Old Andrew Fraser writhed in vain in Hardwicke's grasp. "Be quiet, you d.a.m.ned old fool!" pithily said Alaric Hobbs. "They saved your life for you!"

"You shall never darken my doors," raged Andrew Fraser.

"I will go there to-night, and at once remove my property," coldly answered Hardwicke. "After that I care not to visit you, save to lead your niece to the altar. But I will have a reckoning with you! Don't fear!"

"You shall never marry her," the old pedant cried. "You shall answer to me for this whole dastardly outrage."

"All right," coolly said Hardwicke. "It's man to man, now. I will marry your niece within a month, and, with your written permission!" And not another single word would the disgusted Hardwicke utter--while old Fraser clung to Alaric Hobbs, whining in his wrath. In an hour, a motley cortege slowly left the door of the martello tower. Murray and Hardwicke walking, armed, beside the carriage, where Mr. Jack Blunt, still bound, was the sullen companion of the half-crazed Professor Fraser.

To the demands of "Joseph Smith's" friends Hardwicke replied: "He will undoubtedly be released tomorrow by the proper authorities if there is a mistake."

A smart groom was already half-way to St. Heliers, galloping on with a sealed letter to General Wragge, the commander of the Channel Island forces. "That will bring Anstruther over at once. He must act now!" said Hardwicke. "In two days Ram Lal will be in irons at Delhi, and I think that we will prepare a crus.h.i.+ng little surprise for this defiant old fool and miser, Professor Andrew Fraser." And Red Eric Murray now inwardly rejoiced to see the end of all his masquerading as the Moonshee. He received a parting salute, also. "You are no gentleman, a vile swindler, sir," raved old Andrew, as Captain Murray allowed him to descend and enter his own door. The "History of Thibet" fraud rankled in old Fraser's mind.

But the "ex-Moonshee" only smiled and politely bowed, while "Prince Djiddin" sternly marched with his prisoner, Jack Blunt, upstairs and then locked the doors of his apartments. It was an "imperium in imperio."

In the hall, he had turned and faced Andrew Fraser only to say: "I shall await here, sir, the orders of the civil and military authorities; yes, here, in my own room. The very moment that they take charge, I shall, however, leave your roof. But not until then! And for your future safety, I warn you to moderate your ignorant abuse."

There was no sleep in the house until the gray dawn at last straggled through the mists of night. And the sound of outcry and excited alarm long continued, for Professor Andrew Fraser and Janet Fairbarn were excitedly wailing over the easily detected work of the burglar, in the old pedant's study. The aged Scotsman ran up and down the hall, tearing his hair and bemoaning his lost ma.n.u.scripts and papers. For, he dared not announce the loss of the stolen crown jewels!

The family coachman had already departed for Rozel Pier, to bring home the wounded Simpson, while a doctor, summoned by the messenger from St.

Heliers, was led by Janet Fairbarn to the apartments of the heiress.

Murray and Hardwicke rejoiced in secret over the recovery of the key to the whole deadlock--from Delhi to London! The game was now won!

At ten o'clock, a staff officer of General Wragge joined Major Hardwicke and Captain Murray in their room, while one of the terrible army of twelve policemen of an island populated with "three thousand cooks"

watched over the "Banker's Folly," and another garrisoned the old martello tower, where Alan Hawke lay alone in the grim majesty of death.

The fox-eyed American professor "invited himself" to breakfast with Professor Andrew Fraser and cheered the broken old man.

"Never mind, we will finish up the 'History of Thibet' together," he cried, "when these two swashbucklers are gone, and the house will be much quieter when the girl is married off and out of the way." But old Andrew Fraser refused to be comforted. He sternly forbade all communication with his ward and bitterly bewailed a further personal loss, which he dared not explain!

"There was a suspicious French fis.h.i.+ng-boat lately seen knocking around Rozel," acutely said Alaric Hobbs. "We also found the b.l.o.o.d.y trail where they dragged their wounded away down to the beach. And so they are off on the sea, with your valuable plunder. No one knows the dead scoundrel up there."