The Continental Dragoon Part 16

"What's that?" cried the officer with the candle, standing still.

"Tis the scampering of the rats, of course," said the other.

Harry had apprehended, by this time, that the supposed wooden part.i.tion was in reality a door in the cellar wall. He now pushed it shut with his foot, remaining outside of it, then rose, and, feeling about him, discovered that his present place was in a narrow arched pa.s.sage that ran, from the door in the cellar wall, he knew not how far. Recalling the b.u.mping of his head, he inferred now that the iron something was a bolt, and that his blow had forced it from its too large socket in the stone wall.

He proceeded onward in the dark pa.s.sage for some distance, then stopped to listen. No sound coming from the door he had closed, he decided that the officers were satisfied the noise had been of the rats' making. He sheathed his broken sword, having retained that and his stick in his fall, and went forward, hoping to find a habitable place of waiting. Soon the pa.s.sage widened into a kind of subterranean room, one side of which admitted light. Going to this side, Harry stopped short at the verge of a well, on whose circ.u.mference the subterranean chamber ab.u.t.ted. The light came from the well's top, which was about ten feet above the low roof of the underground room, the pa.s.sage from the cellar being on a descent. In this artificial cave were wooden chests, casks, and covered earthen vessels, these contents proclaiming the place a secret storage-room designed for use in siege or in military occupation.

Harry waited here a while that seemed half a day, then returned through the pa.s.sage to the door, intending to return to the cellar. He listened at the door, found all quiet beyond, and made to push open the door. It would not move. From the feel of the resistance, he perceived that the bolt had been pushed home again--as indeed it had, by the steward, who had noticed it while tapping the barrel, and had imputed its being drawn to some former carelessness of his own.

Peyton, finding himself thus barred into the subterranean regions, was in a quandary. Any alarm he might attempt, by shouting or pounding, might not be heard, or, if heard, might reach some tarrying British.

In due time, Elizabeth would doubtless have him looked for in the closet and then in the cellar, but, on his not being found there, would suppose he had left the cellar by one of the other stairways.

Thus he could little hope to be sought for in his prison. Williams might at any time have occasion to visit the secret storeroom, but, on the other hand, he might not have such occasion for weeks. Harry groped back to the cave, and sought some way of escape by the well, but found none.

He then examined the cave more closely, and came finally on another pa.s.sage than that by which he had entered. He followed this for what seemed an interminable length. At last, it closed up in front of him.

He tested the barrier of raw earth with his hands, felt a great round stone projecting therefrom, pushed this stone in vain, then clasped it with both arms and pulled. It gave, and presently fell to the ground at his feet, leaving an aperture two feet across, which let in light.

He crawled the short length of this, and breathed the open air in a small thicket on the sloping bank of the Hudson.[8] He crept to the thicket's edge, and saw, in the sunset light, the river before him; on the river, a British war-vessel; on the vessel, some naval officers, one of whom was looking, with languid preoccupation, straight at the thicket from which Harry gazed.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CONFESSION.

"What d'ye spy, Tom?" called out another officer on the deck, to the one whose att.i.tude most interested Harry.

"I thought I made out some kind of craft steering through the bushes yonder," was the answer.

"I see nothing."

"Neither do I, now. 'Twasn't human craft, anyhow, so it doesn't signify," and the officers looked elsewhere.

Harry lay low in the thicket, awaiting the departure of the vessel or the arrival of darkness. On the deck there was no sign of weighing anchor. As night came, the vessel's lights were slung. The sky was partly clear in the west, and stars appeared in that direction, but the east was overcast, so that the rising moon was hid. The atmosphere grew colder.

When Harry could make out nothing of the vessel on the dark water, save the lights that glowed like low-placed stars, he crawled from the bushes and up the bank to the terrace. He then rose and proceeded, with the aid of his stick, aching from having so long maintained a cramped position, and from the suddenly increased cold. Before him, as he continued to ascend, rose the house, darkness outlined against darkness. No sound came from it, no window was lighted. This meant that the British officers had left, for their presence would have been marked by plenitude of light and by noise of merriment. Harry stopped on the terrace, and stood in doubt how to proceed. What had been thought of his disappearance? Where would he be supposed to have gone?

Had provision been made for his possible return? Perhaps he should find a guiding light in some window on the other side of the house; perhaps a servant remained alert for his knock on the door. His only course was to investigate, unless he would undergo a night of much discomfort.

As he was about to approach the house, he was checked by a sight so vaguely outlined that it might be rather of his imagination than of reality, and which added a momentary s.h.i.+ver of a keener sort than he already underwent from the weather. A dark cloaked and hooded figure stood by the bal.u.s.trade that ran along the roof-top. As Peyton looked, his hand involuntarily clasping his sword-hilt, and the stories of the ghosts that haunted this old mansion shot through his mind, the figure seemed to descend through the very roof, as a stage ghost is lowered through a trap. He continued to stare at the spot where it had stood, but nothing reappeared against the backing of black cloud. Wondering much, Harry presently went on towards the house, turned the southwest corner, and skirted the south front as far as to the little porch in its middle. Intending to reconnoitre all sides of the house before he should try one of the doors, he was pa.s.sing on, after a glance at the south door lost in the blacker shadows of the porch, when suddenly the fan-window over the door seemed to glow dimly with a wavering light.

He placed his hand on one of the Grecian pillars of the porch, and watched. A moment later the door softly opened. A figure appeared, beyond the threshold, bearing a candle. The figure wore a cloak with a hood, but the hood was down.

"All is safe," whispered a low voice. "The officers went hours ago. I knew you must have escaped from the house, and were hiding somewhere.

I saw you a minute ago from the roof gallery."

Peyton having entered, Elizabeth swiftly closed and locked the door behind him, handed him the candle with a low "Good night," and fled silently, ghostlike, up the stairs, disappearing quickly in the darkness.

Harry made his way to his own room, as in a kind of dream. She herself had waited and watched for him! This, then, was the effect wrought in the proudest, most disdainful young creature of her s.e.x, by that feeling which he had, by telling and acting a lie, awakened in her.

The revelation set him thinking. How long might such a feeling last?

What would be its effect on her after his departure? He had read, and heard, and seen, that, when these feelings were left to pine away slowly, the people possessing them pined also. And this was the return he was about to give his most hospitable hostess, the woman who had saved his life! Yet what was to be done? His life belonged to his country, his chosen career was war; he could not alter completely his destiny to save a woman some pining. After all, she _would_ get over it; yet it would make of her another woman, embitter her, change entirely the complexion of the world to her, and her own att.i.tude towards it. He tried to comfort himself with the thought of her engagement to Colden, of which he had not learned until after the mischief had been done. But he recalled her manner towards Colden, and a remark of old Mr. Valentine's, whence he knew that the engagement was not, on her side, a love one, and was not inviolable. Yet it would be a crime to a woman of her pride, of her power of loving, to allow the deceit, his pretence of love, to go as far as marriage. A disclosure would come in time, and would bring her a bitter awakening.

The falsehood, natural if not excusable in its circ.u.mstances, and broached without thought of ultimate consequence, must be stopped at once. He must leave her presence immediately, but, before going, must declare the truth. She must not be allowed to waste another day of her life on an illusion. Aside from the effect on her heart, of the continuance of the delusion, it would doubtless affect her outward circ.u.mstances, by leading her to break her engagement with Colden. An immediate discovery of the truth, moreover, by creating such a revulsion of feeling as would make her hate him, would leave her heart in a state for speedy healing. This disclosure would be a devilishly unpleasant thing to make, but a soldier and a gentleman must meet unpleasant duties unflinchingly.

He lay a long time awake, disturbed by thoughts of the task before him. When he did sleep, it was to dream that the task was in progress, then that it was finished but had to be begun anew, then that countless obstacles arose in succession to hinder him in it. Dawn found him little refreshed in mind, but none the worse in body. He found, on arising, that he could walk without aid from the stick, and he required no help in dressing himself. Looking towards the river, he saw the British vessel heading for New York. But that sight gave him little comfort, thanks to the ordeal before him, in contemplating which he neglected to put on his sword and scabbard, and so descended to breakfast without them.

That meal offered no opportunity for the disclosure, the aunt being present throughout. Immediately after breakfast, the two ladies went for their customary walk. While they were breasting the wind, between two rows of box in the garden, Miss Sally spoke of Major Colden's intention to return for Elizabeth at the end of a week, and said, "'Twill be a week this evening since you arrived. Is he to come for you to-day or to-morrow?"

"I don't know," said Elizabeth, shortly.

"But, my dear, you haven't prepared--"

"I sha'n't go back to-day, that is certain. If Colden comes before to-morrow, he can wait for me,--or I may send him back without me, and stay as long as I wish."

"But he will meet Captain Peyton--"

"It can be easily arranged to keep him from knowing Captain Peyton is here. I shall look to that."

Miss Sally sighed at the futility of her inquisitorial fis.h.i.+ng. Not knowing Elizabeth's reason for saving the rebel captain, she had once or twice thought that the girl, in some inscrutable whim, intended to deliver him up, after all. She had tried frequently to fathom her niece's purposes, but had never got any satisfaction.

"I suppose," she went on, desperately, "if you go back to town, you will leave the captain in Williams's charge."

"If I go back before the captain leaves," said Elizabeth, thereby das.h.i.+ng her amiable aunt's secretly cherished hope of affording the wounded officer the pleasure of her own unalloyed society.

Elizabeth really did not know what she would do. Her actions, on Colden's return, would depend on the prior actions of the captain. No one had spoken to Peyton of her intention to leave after a week's stay. She had thought such an announcement to him from her might seem to imply a hint that it was time he should resume his wooing. That he would resume it, in due course, she took for granted. Measuring his supposed feelings by her own real ones, she a.s.sumed that her loveless betrothal to another would not deter Peyton's further courts.h.i.+p. She believed he had divined the nature of that betrothal. Nor would he be hindered by the prospect of their being parted some while by the war.

Engagements were broken, wars did not last forever, those who loved each other found ways to meet. So he would surely speak, before their parting, of what, since it filled her heart, must of course fill his.

But she would show no forwardness in the matter. She therefore avoided him till dinner-time.

At the table he abruptly announced that, as duty required he should rejoin the army at the first moment possible, and as he now felt capable of making the journey, he would depart that night.

Miss Sally hid her startled emotions behind a gla.s.s of madeira, into which she coughed, chokingly. Molly, the maid, stopped short in her pa.s.sage from the kitchen door to the table, and nearly dropped the pudding she was carrying. Elizabeth concealed her feelings, and told herself that his declaration must soon be forthcoming. She left it to him to contrive the necessary private interview.

After dinner, he sat with the ladies before the fire in the east parlor, awaiting his opportunity with much hidden perturbation.

Elizabeth feigned to read. At last, habit prevailing, her aunt fell asleep. Peyton hummed and hemmed, looked into the fire, made two or three strenuous swallows of nothing, and opened his mouth to speak. At that instant old Mr. Valentine came in, newly arrived from the Hill, and "whew"-ing at the cold. Peyton felt like one for whom a brief reprieve had been sent by heaven.

All afternoon Mr. Valentine chattered of weather and news and old times. Peyton's feeling of relief was short-lasting; it was supplanted by a mighty regret that he had not been permitted to get the thing over. No second opportunity came of itself, nor could Peyton, who found his ingenuity for once quite paralyzed, force one. Supper was announced, and was partaken of by Harry, in fidgety abstraction; by Elizabeth, in expectant but outwardly placid silence; by Miss Sally, in futile smiling attempts to make something out of her last conversational chances with the handsome officer; and by Mr.

Valentine, in sedulous attention to his appet.i.te, which still had the vigor of youth.

Almost as soon as the ladies had gone from the dining-room, Peyton rose and left the octogenarian in sole possession. In the parlor Harry found no one but Molly, who was lighting the candles.

"What, Molly?" said he, feeling more and more nervous, and thinking to retain, by constant use of his voice, a good command of it for the dreaded interview. "The ladies not here? They left Mr. Valentine and me at the supper-table."

"They are walking in the garden, sir. Miss Elizabeth likes to take the air every evening."

"'Tis a chill air she takes this evening, I'm thinking," he said, standing before the fire and holding out his hands over the crackling logs.

"A chill night for your journey," replied Molly. "I should think you'd wait for day, to travel."

Peyton, un.o.bservant of the wistful sigh by which the maid's speech was accompanied, replied, "Nay, for me, 'tis safest travelling at night. I must go through dangerous country to reach our lines."

"It mayn't be as cold to-morrow night," persisted Molly.