Prisoners of Hope Part 32

"I heard," was the smooth reply.

"I am sorry for it," said Landless grimly, and stood with a sternly thoughtful countenance.

There was a silence in the tobacco house broken by Havisham.

"And now--for time pa.s.ses and the overseer may come and find us not at our tasks--tell me the day upon which we are to rise, and the place to which all are to resort."

"Both are close at hand," said Landless slowly. "The day is--" he broke off and leaned forward, staring through the dusk.

"What is it?" cried Havisham.

"My eyes met other eyes. There, behind that great crack between the logs!"

The Muggletonian rushed to the door, flung it open, and vanished; the branded man followed. The remaining occupants of the tobacco house started to their feet, and Havisham picked from the floor a pole and broke from it a stout cudgel. G.o.dfrey Landless strode forward into the broad shaft of suns.h.i.+ne that entered through the opened door and met the eavesdropper face to face, as, with either arm in the rude grasp of the fanatics, she crossed the threshold.

The conspirators, recognizing the lady of the manor, were stricken dumb.

In the three minutes of dead silence which ensued they saw their plans defeated, their hopes ruined, their cause vanquished, their lives lost.

The graceful figure with white scorn in the beautiful face was death come upon them. The shadow fell heavy and cold upon their souls, the very air seemed to darken and grow chill around them The figure of the woman in their midst gathered up the suns.h.i.+ne, became ethereal, transplendent, a triumphant white and gold Spirit of Evil.

Landless was the first to speak. "Unhand her!" he said in a suppressed voice.

The men obeyed, but the Muggletonian placed himself between his prisoner and the door. She saw the movement and said scornfully, "You need not fear; I shall not run away." Upon her bare, white arms, where they had been clasped too rudely, were fast darkening marks. She glanced from them to the scarred face of the Muggletonian. "_They_ will wear out,"

she said.

"Madam," said Landless hoa.r.s.ely, "how long were you in that place?"

She flashed upon him a look that was like a blow. "Liar! be silent!" she said, then turned to the row of faces that frowned upon her from out the shadow. "To you others I address myself. Traitors, rebellious servants, base plotters! I hold your lives in my hand."

"And your own?" said Trail.

"Cursed daughter of the mother of evil!" cried the Muggletonian, a baleful light burning in his eyes. "Scarlet woman, whose vain apparel, whose uncovered hair and bared bosom, whose light songs and laughter have long been an offense and a stumbling-block to the righteous--thy cup of iniquity is full, thy life is forfeit, thy hour is come!" He drew a knife from his bosom and with an unearthly cry flourished it above his head, then rushed upon her, to be met by Landless, who hurled himself upon the would-be murderer with a force that sent them both staggering against the wall. A struggle ensued, which ended in Landless securing the knife. With it in his hand he sprang to the side of the girl, who stood unflinching, a pride that was superb in her still white face and steadfast eyes.

"Who touches her dies," he said between his teeth.

Havisham came to his aid. "Men, are you mad? You cannot murder a defenseless woman! Moreover such a deed would prove our utter ruin."

"If her body were found, yes!" cried the hectic youth. "But the water is near, and who is to know that the devil sent her hither?"

"It is her death or ours," cried the branded man.

The Muggletonian tossed his arms into the air.

"The cause! the cause! Cursed be he that putteth his hand to the plough and finisheth not the furrow! Ride on! Ride on! though it were over the bodies of a thousand painted Jezebels such as this!"

"Time presses!" cried the branded man. "Woodson may come!"

They closed in upon the three who stood at bay. In their dark faces were a pa.s.sion and an exaltation--they saw in the woman fallen into their hands, a sacrifice bound to the altar. Trail alone looked uneasy and held back, muttering between his teeth.

Landless stepped in front of Patricia and faced them with a still and deadly eye, and with the hand that held the knife drawn back against his breast. Knowing them, he saw no use in any appeal; also he saw that it was indeed her life or theirs. On the one hand, the downfall of all their hopes, the death or perpetual enslavement of many, and for himself surely the gibbet and the rope; on the other--

He made a gesture of command. "Thou shalt do no murder!" he cried.

"It is not murder; it is sacrifice."

"There must be another way!" cried Havisham.

"Find it!"

Havisham turned to the prisoner. "Madam, will you swear to be silent concerning what you have heard?"

The Muggletonian laughed wildly. "Who trusts a woman's oath!"

"You shall have no need," said the lady of the manor calmly. She paused and her eyes went to the door in an intent and listening gaze, then came back to the faces about her with a strange light in their depths. "Rebel servants," she said in a clear, low voice, "I defy you! And you, false slave, stand from before me. I need not your hateful aid." In the moment of ominous silence that followed, she swayed towards the door, her hand at her throat, her soul in her eyes. Suddenly she cried out, "My father!

Charles! help!"

From without came an answering cry, followed by a rush of men through the door, and in an instant the room was filled with struggling forms as the two parties threw themselves upon each other. The newcomers were half a dozen blacks, the two overseers and Sir Charles Carew. The overseers had pistols and Sir Charles his sword. With it he met the rush of the youth with the hectic cheek, who came towards him in long, hound-like leaps, brandis.h.i.+ng a piece of wood above his head, and drove the blade deep into the chest of the fanatic. The wretched man staggered and fell, then rose to his knees. Flinging his arms above his head, he turned his worn face towards the flood of suns.h.i.+ne pouring in through the door, and cried in a loud voice, "I see!" A stream of blood gushed from his lips, his arms dropped, and without a groan he fell back, dead.

Landless, wrestling with the slave Regulus, at length succeeded in hurling the powerful figure to the ground, where it lay stunned, and turned to find himself confronted by Woodson's pistol and the point of Sir Charles's rapier. A glance showed him the remaining conspirators, overpowered, and in the act of being bound with the ropes that had lain, coiled for use in packing, in the corners of the tobacco house. The hectic youth lay, a ghastly spectacle, in a pool of blood across the doorway. At his feet was the branded man, a bullet through his brain, and near him the groaning figure of Havisham's mortally wounded companion. The woman who had brought all this to pa.s.s stood unharmed, white, with tragic, exultant eyes.

Sir Charles, serene and debonair, lowered his point. "Your hand is played," he said with a fine smile. Landless's stern, despairing gaze pa.s.sed him and went on to the overseer. "I surrender to you," he said briefly.

Woodson chuckled grimly and stuck his pistol in his belt. He was in high good humor, visions of reward and thanks from the a.s.sembly dancing before his eyes. "I've had my eye on you for some time, young man," he said almost genially. "I've suspected that you were up to something, but Lord! to think that a woman's wit should have trapped you at last!

Haines, bring that rope over here."

Sir Charles went over to Patricia and offered her his arm. "Dearest and bravest of women!" he said in a caressing whisper. "Come with me from this place, which must be dreadful to you."

She did not answer him at once, but stood looking past him at the picture of laughing water and waving forest framed in the doorway.

"I thought I should never see the suns.h.i.+ne again," she said dreamily.

"Did Margery give _you_ the message?"

"Yes, she met me under the mulberries. I would not wait to rouse your father, but calling the overseers and the blacks from the fields, came at once."

"I owe you my life," she said. "You and--"

Her eyes left the summer outside and came back to the shadowy forms within the tobacco house. "I will go with you directly, cousin," she said quietly, "but first I wish to speak to that man."

He shot a swift glance at her face, but drew back with a bow, and she walked with a steady step up to Landless. "Fall back a little," she said with an imperious wave of her hand to the men about him. They obeyed her. Landless, left standing before her, his arms bound to his sides, raised his head and looked her in the face. She met his eyes. "You lied to me," she said in a low, even voice.

"Once, madam, and to save others," he said proudly,

"Not once, but twice. Do you think that now I believe that tale you told me that night, that fairy tale of persecuted innocence? When I think that I ever believed it I hate myself."

"Nevertheless, it is true, madam."

"It is false! Yesterday I thought of you as a gallant gentleman, greatly wronged ... and I pitied you. To-day I am wiser."

He held her eyes with his own for a moment, then let them go. "Some day you will know," he said.