The Inn at the Red Oak Part 27

Suddenly she drew her hand from his, and he could hear her moving swiftly about. "All is as it used to be?" she asked.

"Precisely," he answered; "nothing has been changed."

"Here is the cabinet," she said, from across the room. "I can feel the lion's head. It is opposite to the window and the moonlight will stream in when the cas.e.m.e.nt is opened, but if I crouch low I shall not be seen.

_Bien_! And you, _mon ami_? Tell me, is the old _escritoire_ still to the left of the door?" Now she was back at his side once again.

"The _escritoire_?" he repeated.

"The little table where one writes. Ah! yes, it is here. See, behind this, _mon ami_, shall you hide yourself. The moonlight will not reach here--and it is so arranged that you will see plainly any one that appears at the window. When the cas.e.m.e.nt is opened, you will shoot, will you not, and shoot to kill?"

"Yes, I will shoot," said Dan, his voice trembling.

"You promise me?" she cried in a tense whisper, as she grasped his arm and held it tight in her grip.

"I tell you, yes."

"You must not fail."

"No. Shall I shoot at any one who opens?"

"Any one?--it will be Bonhomme,--no other."

Suddenly there came, from the front and the rear of the Inn, at the same instant it seemed, the sharp staccato of a fusilade of pistol shots, and the lumbering blows as of beams being thrust at distant doors.

"They are come!" she whispered, "hide." Dan could hear the swish of her garments as she rapidly glided across the room to the old cabinet, then he turned and crouched low behind the writing desk that she had chosen for his place of concealment. He knelt there motionless, a c.o.c.ked pistol clenched in his right hand. His breath seemed to have stopped, but his heart was pounding as though it must burst through his breast. How could he shoot down in cold blood a fellow man? The horror of it crowded out all other impressions, sensations fears. He could fight, risk his life, but to pull the trigger of that pistol when the cas.e.m.e.nt should open seemed to him an impossibility. He would wait, grapple with him, fight as men should.

Suddenly a ray of moonlight fell across the dark floor. Dan, looking up, seemed frozen by horror. The shutters had opened, the cas.e.m.e.nt swung back noiselessly, and there in the opening, sharply outlined against the moonlight-flooded night, was the great black hulk of Captain Bonhomme.

For a moment he stood there irresolute, listening intently. Dan was fascinated, motionless, held as in a vice by the horror of the thing.

Suddenly Bonhomme moved his head to one side as if to listen more acutely. As he did so, the ray of moonlight fell upon the cabinet, fell upon Claire de la Fontaine, upon something that she held in an outstretched hand that gleamed.

"_Nom de Dieu_!" There was the flash and crack of a pistol, a sharp cry, and the great figure fell back and sank out of sight.

With that Dan sprang forward, reckless of danger, and ran to the window.

He heard without the confused sounds as of persons scurrying to cover, saw their forms dash across the moonlit courtyard, into the shadows of the trees and outhouses. Beneath him on the floor of the gallery was something horrible and still.

Almost instantly Claire de la Fontaine was by his side, and as regardless of danger as he, she was calling sharply, calling men by their names. Her hair had been loosened and fell over her shoulders in black waves, her dark eyes flashed with excitement and pa.s.sion, and her face, strangely pale, in the silver moonlight, was set in stern harsh lines.

Even then this vision of her tragic beauty thrilled the man at her side.

But she was as unconscious of him as she was of her danger. With hand uplifted she called by name the desperados, who had taken shelter in the darkness and to those who now came running from front and rear where their attacks had been unsuccessful.

Appalled, spell-bound by the vision, even as Dan was, they stopped, and stood listening mutely to the torrent of words that she poured forth,--vehement French of which Dan had no understanding.

At last, ending the frightful tension of the scene, two of the men came forward, crept up to the lifeless body of Bonhomme, and grasping it by head and feet, carried it away, across the courtyard, into the darkness of the avenue of maples. One by one, still mysteriously silent, the others of the gang followed, till at length the last one had disappeared into the gloom. Weird silence fell once more upon the Inn.

It was only then that Madame de la Fontaine turned to Dan. "They will come no more," she said in a strained unnatural voice. "We are saved, safe.... I have proved, is it not so?--my honour, my love."

With the words she sank at his feet, just as Tom, candle in hand, appeared in the doorway.

CHAPTER XXI

THE TREASURE

Owing doubtless to the death of Bonhomme and to the orders given in no uncertain tones by Madame de la Fontaine, the bandits from the schooner in the cove did not make a further effort to attack the Inn that night.

There was no rest, however, for Madame de la Fontaine, after her heroic exploit in the Oak Parlour, had swooned completely away. They carried her to the couch in Mrs. Frost's parlour, and, awkwardly enough, did what could be done for her by men. It was over an hour before they succeeded in restoring her to consciousness, and when they did so, she awoke to delirium and fever. Distracted by anxiety and by their helplessness, at the first streak of dawn, Dan started for town to get a doctor, and Ezra Manners volunteered to go to the Red Farm and bring back Mrs. Frost, Nancy, and the maids.

About six o'clock in the morning the women folk returned to the Inn. But the briefest account of the attack was given them, though they were told in no uncertain terms of Madame de la Fontaine's heroic action in coming to warn them and of her courageous shot at the leader. Then Mrs. Frost and Nancy turned all their attention to the sick woman, caring for her as tenderly and devotedly as if she were their own. Half-an-hour later Dan returned from Monday Port with the family doctor, a grave silent old gentleman, in whose skill and discretion they trusted. After making an examination of his patient, he nodded his head encouragingly; gave a few directions to Mrs. Frost, and then left, promising to return later in the morning with medicines and supplies.

At last, utterly worn out, the four men threw themselves on their beds and slept from sheer exhaustion. The sun was high in the sky when they came down stairs again and found Nancy waiting for them, and a smoking breakfast ready on the table. After greeting them, she pointed to the window, across the fields, almost bare of snow now and gleaming in the morning sunlight, to the bright waters of the cove. "See!" she cried, "the schooner has disappeared."

They both looked. "By Jove, it has!" exclaimed Tom, rus.h.i.+ng to the other side of the room, and peering out at the s.h.i.+pless sea. "Heigho! that's a relief. Pray G.o.d we've seen the last of her. The Marquis gone, the schooner gone,--we three together once more! Perhaps we shall begin to live again. Ah!" he added more softly, glancing with sudden sympathy at Dan's white drawn face, "I forgot the poor woman across the hall."

Dan turned aside to hide his emotion, for though a load of anxiety had been lifted from his heart by the vanis.h.i.+ng of _The Southern Cross_, he was sick with fear for the issue of the illness that had stricken down the woman he loved,--the woman who had proved her love for him by so terrible and so tragic a deed.

As though aware that for the moment they were best left together alone, Nancy slipped away into the kitchen.

"You love her, Dan?" asked Tom simply.

"Yes, Tom, with all my heart and soul. I staked my honour, my life, on her sincerity. And how she has proved that we were right to trust her! It can't be--she mustn't die--I couldn't bear it!"

"She'll be all right, old fellow, don't worry; trust to your mother and Nance. It is only the shock of the terrible things she went through last night. Come on, we must take something to eat. Here is Nancy back again."

There was no doubt of the fact, _The Southern Cross_ had sailed away, vanished in the night as mysteriously as a week before she had appeared in the Strathsey and found moorings in the Cove. They did not count on the certainty of her not reappearing, however; and that night and for many nights thereafter the Inn was securely barricaded and a watch was kept, but neither then nor ever did _The Southern Cross_ spread her sails in those waters again. She and her crew disappeared from their lives as completely as from the seas that stretched around the coast of Deal.

Tom at once was for making a search in the Oak Parlour for the hidden treasure, but for the time Dan had no heart for the undertaking. He urged delay at least until Madame de la Fontaine had recovered; and as for Nancy she would not hear of it.

"I can't bear to think of it,--of the trouble, the crime, the suffering of which it has been the cause. When our poor lady recovers, she will tell us all we need to know. I dread the Oak Parlour. I would not go into that room for anything in the world. Nor, believe me, Tom, could Dan do so now. You have guessed, haven't you, that he loves Madame de la Fontaine?"

"Of course, dearest; poor fellow! he betrays his love by every word and act. But good heaven, Nance, he couldn't marry her!"

"No--I don't know. I suppose not. But Dan will do as he will. To oppose him now would only make him the more wretched."

"Does your mother know?"

"No, and it is best she should not. I don't think she has the faintest suspicion."

"Well, I suppose we had better let things rest awhile;" Tom a.s.sented, "but I swear I would like to get at the Oak Parlour and tear the secret out of it."

"We must wait a bit, Tom dear. Let's just be glad now of what we have and are."

And with that he drew her toward him and pressed for a definite answer to the question which so deeply concerned their future.

"When Madame has recovered, when we know all and the mystery is solved,"

she replied; then she added inconsequently, "I wonder if we shall ever hear of the old Marquis again."