Tried for Her Life Part 21

Sybil could not answer. Indeed, though she heard the voice, she scarcely comprehended the question.

"What! you won't speak to me, eh? Well, that's natural too, but precious hard, seeing as I risked my life to save your'n; and mean you so well into the bargain," continued the ruffian, as he strode onward to a place where several horses were tied.

He selected the strongest of the group, mounted and lifted the helpless form of the lady into a seat before him, and set off at full speed, clattering through the rugged mountain pa.s.s with a recklessness of life and limb, that at another time would have frightened his companion half out of her senses.

But now, in her despair of life, there was even a hope in this mad career--the hope of a sudden death.

But the gigantic ruffian knew himself, his horse, and his road, and so he carried his victim through that fearful pa.s.s in perfect safety.

They reached a deep, narrow, secluded valley, in the midst of which stood an old red sandstone house, closely surrounded by trees, and only dimly to be seen in the clouded night sky.

Here the robber rider slackened his pace.

The deep silence that prevailed, the thick growth of leafless weeds and briars through which their horse had to wade, all showed that this house had been long uninhabited and the grounds long uncultivated.

Yet there was some one on guard; for when Moloch rode up to the door and dismounted, and holding Sybil tightly clasped in his left arm, rapped three times three, with his right hand, the door was cautiously opened by a decrepit old man, who held a lighted taper in his withered fingers.

"Ho, Pluto! who is here?" inquired Moloch, striding into the hall, and bearing Sybil in his arms.

"No one, sir, but the girls and the woman; and they have just come,"

answered the old man.

"No one but the girls and the woman! and they have just come! And no fire made, and no supper ready? And this h--ll of an old house colder and damper than the cavern! Won't the captain be leaping mad, that's all! Come, bestir yourself, bestir yourself, and make a fire first of all. This lady is as cold as death! Where is Iska?"

"In this room, sir," answered the old man, pus.h.i.+ng open an old worm-eaten door that admitted them into a large old-fas.h.i.+oned oak-pannelled parlor, with a wide fireplace and a high corner cupboard, but without other furniture.

On the hearth knelt Gentiliska, trying to coax a little smouldering fire of green wood into a blaze.

"What the d----l is the use of puffing away at that? You'd just as well try to set fire to a wet sponge," impatiently exclaimed Moloch.

And he went to one of the windows, wrenched off a dry mouldering shutter, broke it to pieces with his bare hand, and piled it in among the green logs. Then from his pocket he took a flask of whiskey, poured a portion of it on the weak, red embers, and in an instant had the whole ma.s.s of fuel in a roaring blaze.

Meanwhile Sybil, unable to stand, had sunk down upon the floor, where she remained only until Gentiliska saw her by the blaze of the fire.

"You are as cold as ice!" said the kind-hearted girl taking Sybil's hands in her own, and trying to warm them. "Come to the fire," she continued, a.s.sisting the lady to rise, and drawing her towards the chimney. "Sit here," she added, arranging her own red cloak as a seat.

"Thanks," murmured Sybil. "Thanks--you are very good to me."

"Moloch, she is nearly dead! Have you got any wine? If you have, give it to me!" was the next request of the girl.

The giant lumbered off to a heap of miscellaneous luggage that lay in one corner, and from it he rooted out a black bottle, which he brought and put in the hands of the girl, saying:

"There! ha, ha, ha! there's some of her own old port! We made a raid upon Black Hall b.u.t.tery last night, on purpose to provide for her."

"All right. Now a tin saucepan, and some sugar and spice, old Moloch!

and also, if possible, a cup or tumbler," said Gentiliska.

The giant went back to the pile in the corner, and after a little search brought forth all the articles required by the girl.

"Now, good Moloch, go and do for old Hecate what you have done for me.

Make her a fire, that she may have supper ready for the captain when he comes," coaxed Gentiliska.

"Just so, Princess," agreed the robber, who immediately confiscated another shutter, and carried it off into the adjoining back room to kindle the kitchen fire.

"You were wrong to leave us! You got into trouble immediately! You would have been in worse by this time, if we had not rescued you! Don't you know, when the laws are down on you, your only safety is with the outlaws?" inquired Gentiliska, as soon as she found herself alone with her guest.

"I don't know. I don't care. It is all one to me now. I only wish to die. If it were not a sin, I would die by suicide," answered Sybil with the dreary calmness of despair.

"'Die by suicide!' Die by a fiddlestick's end! You to talk so! And you not twenty years old yet! Bos.h.!.+ cut the law that persecutes you and come with us merry outlaws who protect you. And whatever you do, don't run away from us again! You got us into awful trouble and danger and loss when you ran away the last time; did you know it?"

"No," sighed Sybil, wearily.

"Well, then, you did; and I'll tell you how it all happened: the secret of your abode at Pendleton Park was known to too many people. It couldn't possibly be kept forever by all. It is a wonder that it was kept so long, by any. They kept it only until they thought you were safe from pursuit and arrest. Then some of Captain Pendleton's people--it is not known whom--let it leak out until it got to the ears of the authorities, who set inquiries on foot; and then the whole thing was discovered, and as usual misinterpreted and misrepresented. You got the credit of voluntarily consorting with us, and of purposely blowing up the old Haunted Chapel. And the new warrants that were issued for your arrest charged you with that crime also."

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Sybil, forgetting all her indifference; "what will they not heap upon my head next? I will not rest under this imputation! I will not."

"Neither would I, if I were you--that is, if I could help it," said the girl, sarcastically.

But Sybil sat with her thin hands clasped tightly together, her deathly white face rigid as marble, and her large, dilated eyes staring into the fire heedless of the strange girl's irony.

"But now I must tell you how all this hurt us. In the first place, when your flight from the cavern was discovered, we felt sorry only on your account, because you ran into imminent danger of arrest. We had no idea then that your arrest would lead to the discovery of our retreat; but it did. When _our_ detectives brought in the news of the warrants that were out against you, they also warned us that the authorities had the clue to our caverns, and that there was no time to be lost in making our escape."

With her hands still closely clasped together, with her pallid features still set as in death, and with her staring eyes still fixed upon the fire, Sybil sat, heedless of all that she heard.

The girl continued her story.

"We let no time be lost. We gathered up the most valuable and portable of our effects, and that same night evacuated our cavern and dispersed our band; taking care to appoint a distant place of rendezvous. Satan watched the road, riding frequently to the way-side inns to try to discover the coach by which you would be brought back. He was at Upton this evening, when the stage stopped to change horses. He recognized you, and immediately mounted, put spurs to his fast horse and rode as for life and death to the rendezvous of his band, and got them into their saddles to intercept the stage-coach. He also gave orders that we should come on to this deserted house, which he had discovered in the course of his rides, and which he supposes will be a safe retreat for the present. That is all I have to tell you, and I reckon you know all the rest," concluded Gentiliska.

But still Sybil sat in the same att.i.tude of deep despair, regardless of all that was said to her.

While Gentiliska's tongue was running, her hands were also busy. She had prepared a cordial of spiced and sweetened port wine, and had set it in a saucepan over the fire to heat. And now she poured it out into a silver mug and handed it to Sybil, saying:

"Come, drink: this will warm and strengthen you. You look like death, but you must not die yet. You must drink, and live."

"Yes, I must live!" said Sybil. "I must live to throw off this horrible imputation from the fame of my father's daughter."

And she took the goblet and drank the cordial.

And soon a new expression pa.s.sed into her face; the fixed despair rose into a settled determination, a firm, active resolution.

"You look as if you were going to do something. What is it?" inquired Gentiliska.

"I am going to give myself up! I am guiltless, and I will not longer act the part of a guilty person!" said Sybil, firmly.

"Your misfortunes have turned your head. You are as mad as a March hare!" exclaimed Gentiliska, in consternation.

"No, I am not mad. On the contrary, it seems to me that I have _been_ mad, or I never could have borne the fugitive life that I have been leading for the last two months! I will bear it no longer. I will give myself up to trial, come what will of it. I would even rather die a guiltless death than lead an outlaw's life! I will give myself up!"

"After all the pains we have taken, and risks we have run, to rescue you?" exclaimed Gentiliska, in dismay.