Begumbagh Part 21

For a full hour he laboured on, wondering at times, but for the most part feeling completely stunned by the novelty of his position. He filled baskets with the clay and bricks, and by degrees cleared away the heap before him, after which he had to give place to the man who had been injured, but who now crept by both the occupants of the pa.s.sage, a feat only to be accomplished after they had both lain down upon their faces.

Then the prisoner's task was changed to that of pa.s.sing bricks and pails of cement, sometimes being forced to hold the light while the man deftly fitted in bricks, and made up what had been a fall, and beyond which the pa.s.sage seemed to continue ten or a dozen feet.

At intervals the gang broke off work to crawl backwards out of the pa.s.sage to partake of meals which were spread for them in the library.

These meals were good, and washed down with plenty of spirits and water, the two servant-like women and the so-called Adela waiting on the party, everything being a matter of wonder to the prisoner, who stared wildly at the well-dressed, lady-like, girlish creature who busied herself in supplying the wants of the gang of four bricklayer-like men.

At the first meal, Mr Barclay refused food. He said that he could not eat; but he drank heartily from the gla.s.s placed at his side-water which seemed to him to be flavoured with peculiar coa.r.s.e brandy. But he was troubled with a devouring thirst, consequent upon his exertions, and that of which he had partaken seemed to increase the peculiar dreamy nature of the scene. Whether it was laudanum or some other drug, we could none of us ever say for certain; but Mr Barclay was convinced that, nearly all the time, he was kept under the influence of some narcotic, and that, in a confused dreamy way, he toiled on in that narrow culvert.

He could keep no account of time, for he never once saw the light of day, and though there were intervals for food and rest, they seemed to be at various times; and from the rarity with which he heard the faint rattle of some pa.s.sing vehicle, he often thought that the greater part of the work must be done by night.

At first he felt a keen sense of trouble connected with what he looked upon as his disgrace and the way he had lowered himself; but at last he worked on like some machine, obedient as a slave, but hour by hour growing more stupefied, even to the extent of stopping short at times and kneeling before his half-filled basket motionless, till a rude thrust or a blow from a brickbat pitched at him roused him to continue his task.

The drug worked well for his taskmasters, and the making of the mine progressed rapidly, for every one connected therewith seemed in a state of feverish anxiety now to get it done.

And so day succeeded day, and night gave place to night. The two servant-like women went busily on with their work, and fetched provisions for the household consumption, no tradespeople save milkman and baker being allowed to call, and they remarked that they never once found the area gate unlocked. And while these two women, prim and self-contained, went on with the cooking and housework and kept the doorstep clean, the so-called Miss Adela Mimpriss went on with the woolwork flowers at the dining-room window, where she could get most light, and the world outside had no suspicion of anything being wrong in the staid, old-fas.h.i.+oned house opposite Sir John Drinkwater's. Even the neighbours on either side heard no sound.

"What does it all mean?" Mr Barclay used to ask himself, and at other times, "When shall I wake?" for he often persuaded himself that this was the troubled dream of a bad attack of fever, from which he would awaken some day quite in his right mind. Meanwhile, growing every hour more machine-like, he worked on and on always as if in a dream.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

CONCLUSION.

I stood watching Sir John, who seemed nearly mad with grief and rage, and a dozen times over my lips opened to speak, but without a sound being heard. At last he looked up at me and saw what I wanted to do, but which respect kept back.

"Well," he said, "what do you propose doing?"

I remained silent for a moment, and then, feeling that even if he was offended, I was doing right, I said to him what was in my heart.

"Sir John, I never married, and I never had a son. It's all a mystery to me."

"Man, you are saved from a curse!" he cried fiercely.

"No, dear master, no," I said, as I laid my hand upon his arm. "You don't believe that. I only wanted to say that if I had had a boy--a fine, handsome, brave lad like Mr Barclay--"

"Fine!--brave!" he says contemptuously.

"Who had never done a thing wrong, or been disobedient in any way till he fell into temptation that was too strong for him--"

"Bah! I could have forgiven that. But for him to have turned thief!"

I was silent, for his words seemed to take away my breath.

"Man, man!" he cried, "how could you be such an idiot as to write that doc.u.ment and leave it where it could be found?"

"I did it for the best, sir," I said humbly.

"Best? The worst," he cried. "No, no; I cannot forgive. Disgrace or no disgrace, I must have in the police."

"No, no, no!" I cried piteously. "He is your own son, Sir John, your own son; and it is that wretched woman who has driven him mad."

"Mad? Burdon, mad? No; it is something worse."

"But it is not too late," I said humbly.

"Yes, too late--too late! I disown him. He is no longer son of mine."

"And you sit there in that dining-room every night, Sir John," I said, "with all us servants gathered round, and read that half a chapter and then say, 'As we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us.' Sir John-- master--he is your own son, and I love him as if he was my own."

There wasn't a sound in that place for a minute, and then he drew his breath in a catching way that startled me, for it was as if he was going to have a fit. But his face was very calm and stern now, as he says to me gently:

"You are right, old friend;"--and my heart gave quite a bound--"old friend."

"Let's go to him and save him, master, from his sin."

"Two weak old men, Burdon, and him strong, desperate, and taken by surprise. My good fellow, what would follow then?"

"I don't know, Sir John. I can only see one thing, and that is, that we should have done our duty by the lad. Let's leave the rest to Him."

He drew a long deep breath.

"Yes," he says. "Come along."

We went back in the darkness to the cellar door and listened; but all seemed very still, and I turned the key in the patent Bramah lock without a sound. We went in, and stood there on the sawdust, with that hot smell of burnt oil seeming to get stronger, and there was a faint light in the inner cellar now, and a curious rustling, panting sound.

We crept forward, one on each side of the opening; and as we looked in, my hand went down on one of the sherry bottles in the bin by my arm, and it made a faint click, which sounded quite loud.

I forgot all about Sir John; I didn't even know that he was there, as I stared in from the darkness at the scene before me. They--I say they, for the whispering had taught me that there was more than one--had got the stone up while we had been away. It had been pushed aside on to the sawdust, and a soft yellow light shone up now out of the hole, showing me my young master, looking so strange and staring-eyed and ghastly, that I could hardly believe it was he. But it was, sure enough, though dressed in rough workman's clothes, and stained and daubed with clay.

It wasn't that, though, which took my attention, but his face; and as I looked, I thought of what had been said a little while ago in my place, and I felt it was true, and that he was mad. He had just crept up out of the hole, when he uttered a low groan and sank down on his knees, and then fell sidewise across the hole in the floor. He was not there many moments before there was a low angry whispering; he seemed to be heaved up, and, a big workman-looking fellow came struggling up till he sat on the sawdust with his legs in the hole, and spoke down to some one.

"It's all right," he said. "The chests are here; but the fool has fainted away. Quick the lamp, and then the tools."

He bent down and took a smoky oil lamp that was handed to him, and I drew a deep breath, for the sound of his voice had seemed familiar; but the light which shone on his face made me sure in spite of his rough clothes and the beard he had grown. It was Edward Gunning, our old servant, who was discharged for being too fond of drink, turned bricklayer once again.

As he took the lamp, he got up, held it above his head, looked round, and then, with a grin of satisfaction at the sight of the chests, stepped softly toward the opening into the outer cellar, where Sir John and I were watching.

It didn't take many moments, and I hardly know now how it happened, but I just saw young Mr Barclay lying helpless on the sawdust, another head appearing at the hole, and then, with the light full upon it, Edward Gunning's face being thrust out of the opening into the cellar where we were, and his eyes gleaming curiously before they seemed to shut with a snap. For, all at once--perhaps it was me being a butler and so used to wine--my hand closed upon the neck of one of those bottles, which rose up sudden-like above my head, and came down with a crash upon that of this wretched man.

There was a crash; the splash of wine; the splintering of gla.s.s; the smell of sherry--fine old sherry, yellow seal--and I stood for a moment with the bottle neck and some sawdust in my hand, startled by the yell the man gave, by the heavy fall, and the sudden darkness which had come upon us.

Then--I suppose it was all like a flash--I had rushed to the inner cellar and was dragging the slab over the hole, listening the while to a hollow rustling noise which ended as I got the slab across and sat on it to keep it down.

"Where are you, Burdon?" says Sir John.

"Here, sir!--Quick! A light!"

I heard him hurry off; and it seemed an hour before he came back, while I sat listening to a terrible moaning, and smelling the spilt sherry and the oily knocked-out lamp. Then Sir John came in, quite pale, but looking full of fight, and the first thing he did was to stoop down over Edward Gunning and take a pistol from his breast. "You take that, Burdon," he said, "and use it if we are attacked."