Now she knew; they were going down to that dreadful underground cavern where Dick had taken her. Dick Alford knew his brother was there! She knew this long before she saw the basket, still filled with food, that stood at the bottom of the steps.
LIV
Harry had lit a candle, and, guided by this, she went down the steep circular stairway.
“He brought me that, food—the devil!” He pointed his shaking finger to the basket.
“Dick brought it?” she faltered.
He nodded.
“Poisoned,” he said. “But he didn’t catch me. Poisoned every bit of it!”
He carefully unwrapped a white napkin and showed a dainty pile of sandwiches, took one and opened it.
“You can see the crystals glittering on the meat,” he said, in so calm and matter-of-fact a tone that she almost thought she saw something glitter on the white flesh.
Then he lifted the bottle and looked at it with a smile.
“It was too childish. Nobody but a fool would have dreamt I could be deceived.” He put the bottle and sandwiches back again carefully and covered them with the napkin that had been over the basket.
“Come,” he said, and they went farther into the apartment.
She saw a big gap in the floor and a stone standing straightly up from the centre.
“I have a lamp below. I prepared this place a very long time ago against such an emergency. Light and food—and all the water you want. Will you go first?”
He was very courteous and polite, took her hand to guide her, and held the light so that she could see the stairs, and came down immediately after, stopping to swing the stone into place.
“Will you hold the candle?” he asked.
She was trembling so violently that her fingers were soon covered with hot grease, but she did not feel the smart of the boiling wax; her eyes were fixed upon the man, fascinated.
He was lighting a new storm lantern which burnt, she guessed, paraffin gas, and it took some time before a brilliant bright light illuminated the room in which she found herself. It was twice the size of the apartment above, and neither the walls nor the floor had fallen into decay. It was almost as new-looking as it had been when the Norman builders had handed it to the Black Fathers of Chelfordbury.
The first unusual things she saw were two sporting rifles that stood in a corner of the room. Following her eyes, he smiled.
“I shall not sell my life without a struggle,” he said firmly.
The furniture consisted of a very old refectory table, the top of which must have been at least four inches in thickness, a long form, and a high chair that looked like a bishop’s throne. There were no visible windows, but the ceiling did not quite reach the wall, and there seemed a space all round the room where air was admitted.
“Excuse me,” he said.
He took the thing he had been carrying, unrolled it, and to her astonishment, kissed it passionately before he carried it to a truckle-bed that she had not noticed before and tacked it to a beam which showed between the stone courses and was in truth the only wood she had seen in the building.
She looked in amazement, and knew the picture instantly. It was the head of his mother.
“How lovely!” he sighed. “How wonderful! Do you know, I feel that nothing matters now, Leslie!”
He smiled at her, and looked at that moment so happy that she could have cried.
“Richard hated her,” he went on. “He never lost an opportunity of speaking ill of her. I am told that in my absence he used to bring the servants into the library and together they would laugh and gibe at this beautiful martyr.”
“How absurd, Harry! You know Dick would do no such thing,” she said, stirred to his defence.
But he was not angry, nor did he show any resentment at her championship.
“You don’t know Dick,” he said simply. “Dick, of course, is the Black Abbot. I only found it out a week or two ago, when I went into his room and discovered the costume in a box. He had forgotten to put it away.”
She did not believe the only truth he had told her so far but she felt that it would be undiplomatic, to say the least, to argue with him.
“Harry, I can’t stay here, you know,” she said. “There is only one room, and I have a weakness for a daily bath——”
He walked across the room and pulled aside a sacking that hid one corner, and pointed dramatically.
“You will find everything you require here,” he said. “This room is yours. I shall sleep upstairs, only coming below at the first hint of danger, either to you or to me. The position calls for courage and patience, and I know that my wife-to-be has those qualities to excess.”
He was his old, smiling, genial self.
“By-the-way, there are plenty of books to read—I brought some away from the house. They were rather heavy and I had to drag them a little bit, but thank heaven I got just what I wanted.”
She noticed them now for the first time, piled at one end of the refectory table. He took up a volume and turned the leaves lovingly.
“You do not read German? I think you told me that before. It is a pity, because this is a very fascinating narrative, told by an outsider of the Chelfords of the period. You will be pleased to learn that I have located the treasure. It was not difficult. I knew all the time that it was behind the second door in the room above.”
“Have you known this place for long?”
He nodded.
“For six years,” he said. “I found it on the twenty-first anniversary of my dear mother’s death. I think I ought to say ‘murder,’ for there is no doubt that my father, who had all the worst qualities of Dick, killed her—hanged her.”
Her face contorted with horror.
“In that room?” she said, in a strained voice. “Behind the door?”
He nodded.
“The thing was hushed up. My clever father was too great a man to be put on trial for his life and the story was circulated that she had died by her own hand.”
Every word he said was a lie, as she knew, but he believed it. He explained quite rationally how the light was worked; showed her the little wash place with the stream of water running from the raw rock through a cavity into some invisible deeps; even gave her a short résumé of the history of the place. It had been built by the Black Abbot himself for his own especial purpose.
“My first idea was that there was another exit here, or rather an entrance for those peculiar friends of his, but that I have failed to discover.”
He took up one of the rifles, shot back the bolt with the air of an expert, and, going up the steps, unfastened the heavy oaken bar that kept the stone in place.
The slab pivoted round, and she had a wild idea that when it was closed she would fasten it; but he was evidently prepared for this, for she heard him drag a paving-stone to the edge of the hole and place it so that the trap could not close.
“Good-night, Leslie,” he said, peering down at her through his spectacles. “You will not mind my light? I want to read a chapter before I sleep.”
For a quarter of an hour no sound broke the silence. She sat on the bed, her hands clasped on her knees. And then she heard him move and her breath came faster, but he had only a question to ask.
“Tell me, Leslie, did Thomas leave any relations? I should like to provide for them. The man annoyed me, but I really do not regret killing him. But I should not like to feel that his relatives were suffering through my act of justice.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said, and it did not seem to be her voice.
LV
It seemed an interminable time before his light went out. Was he sleeping? Should she attempt to escape past him? From where she sat she could see his hand, which lay over the edge of the pit, and she remembered Dick telling her how light a sleeper he was. Systematically and without moving, she searched the place with her eyes, foot by foot. In one corner of the room square tins of every shape were piled. She supposed they were preserved provisions and she wondered how he got rid of the débris. She examined the wash place, cupped her hands and drank of the cool, refreshing water, afterward bathing her face. The touch of the cold spring water refreshed and invigorated her.
How long she sat there motionless, she could not tell. She was in a kind of coma, paralyzed by a sense of helplessness. It must have been hours before she heard him move and, his blanket over his arm, and rifle in hand, he crept down the steps and fastened the slab.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Don’t speak—it is he!” he whispered, and sat down by her side, his hand on her shoulder.
She heard the sound of footsteps above.
Dick!
She had to bite her lips to prevent the cry that came to her lips. Harry was watching her—a scream and she would be dead. Dick could never break open that trap in time, even if he could locate the sound. Presently the footsteps went away and she felt the hand on her shoulder relax.
“Sorry to disturb you.”
He picked up blanket and rifle and ascended the steps—she watched him pull the paving-stone forward and after a while there was quietness.
There must be some exit, if the legend of the disreputable Black Abbot were true. She took off her shoes and walked noiselessly over the even floor, examining it stone by stone. The walls were obviously impenetrable; the vaulted ceiling was decorated with the lines of a St. Andrew’s Cross that met in a great stone rosette in the centre.
He had left a box of matches and a candle on the table. This she lit and carried it into the tiny cavern where the water ran. She could see no roof; she guessed it stretched up the full height of the tower, and that somewhere above was the edge of the circular staircase that had brought her down to the first cavern.
Holding the light above her head, she strained her eyes upward and presently she saw great iron D-shaped projections fixed at intervals of a foot; they reached to the top, and, most blessed sight of all, she saw above her head a star.
And yet she was puzzled. The Abbot had a reputation for gallantry, and it was hardly likely that the visitors who shared his solitude would make their entrance by so precarious a means. She reached up, but her hand was three feet from the nearest rung, and there was nothing in the room on which she could stand. She went back to her bed noiselessly and pulled out one of the sheets; she took the remaining rifle and, by dint of great exertion, managed to push one end of the sheet through the nearest rung. After ten minutes’ work the end came down and she had a rope. She knotted together the sheets at the end, and tested her weight. The staple held, and, springing up, she climbed hand over hand to the lowest rung. Her arms were almost pulled from their sockets; she was breathless, but she held on, and, reaching up, caught the third rung and pulled herself up until her feet rested on the first. She waited a little while to gain breath and began to climb. Higher and higher, and then her heart sank. Above her, she saw a steel grille, fixed immovably across the exit. It was impossible even to put her arm through, the meshes were so small, and with a bitter sense of disappointment, she descended again and slid down the sheet to the floor.
There was no escape this way. She unknotted the sheet and replaced it in her bed, stained with rust and torn at the edges. She brought the rifle back with her. She was an enthusiastic miniature target shot and knew the mechanism of the weapon. Pulling out the magazine, she found it loaded to its full capacity. Here, then, was something; her confidence grew, though she prayed she might never have to use this weapon upon the madman who slept so quietly above. The weapon might be used to terrify him in an emergency.
She went back to the wash place and looked up. Day was breaking, and she took a sudden resolve. The man had been almost his normal self, as she had known, and she guessed that this was but an interlude and that there were periods when she must shoot to save her life. Stealthily she crept up the stairs, rifle in hand, and she heard him stir, and presently his shrill voice asked:
“Where are you going? Stay where you are, you vixen——”
She brought the butt of the rifle and smashed past the paving-stone that prevented the trap from closing. The stone thudded down, and instantly she swung round the heavy bar that kept it in place. She heard him stamping and screaming above; heard, with a shivering horror, the threats that, as she thought, no human tongue could frame; staggering down the steps, she fell.
LVI
A high official from Scotland Yard had arrived and was interviewing Dick in the library.
“I am wholly responsible. I have always known my brother was queer, and about a year ago I was certain that the horrible taint of madness which his poor mother transmitted to him was developing in a way which could only have one end. I begged of him to see a medical man, but he hated doctors. I brought down the best alienists from London in various guises, sometimes as bailiffs, and occasionally as prospective buyers of our property, but in their presence he behaved so rationally that it was impossible that I could get a certificate.
“My own position was a very delicate one. I am, as you know, the heir to the property. Any step I took meant that the estate came into my hands, and that eventually, when poor Harry died, as one doctor told he must die in a few years, I should be branded with the stigma of having put him away, and I was anxious to save the family name. My chief anxiety was that he should never marry.”
“Wasn’t it easy enough to take the girl into your confidence?”
Dick was silent for a while.
“Not in this case. There were reasons why——”
And the official, dimly understanding, changed the subject.
“Then you were the Black Abbot?”
“Mostly,” confessed Dick. “My brother was terrified of the Abbot and would never go out if there was a rumour that the Black Abbot was about. I was especially anxious to keep him in the house, where, under my eye, there was no chance for him to indulge in these extraordinary paroxysms that have really alarmed the countryside. The man whom the villagers feared and whom they call the Black Abbot, is really Harry. I was a very silent Black Abbot,” he smiled faintly, “and I had no other purpose than to keep Harry indoors. I’m going to say I did not always succeed.”
“I’m afraid the truth will have to come out now,” said the official, shaking his head.
“I wish it had come out last week,” replied Dick bitterly.
“Do you think your brother is responsible for the disappearance of Miss Gwyn?”
“Undoubtedly. He must have attracted her to the window and persuaded her to come down into the grounds. He was very plausible; no man would dream that he was not sane, only I, who have seen”—he drew a long breath—“what I have seen. I’ll tell you this, Colonel,” he said, with sudden vehemence, “not all the lordship of Chelford, not all the estates, not even the Chelford treasure, would make me live again my life of the past five years! There are times,” he said, his voice trembling with passion, “when I feel I would like to dig up the Abbey and scatter its stones in the dust, raze this house to the ground, and turn the place into a public park.” He laughed at his own excess. “I am talking like an idiot. This place belongs to a family that knows not Harry. He is just a terrible accident. My dear mother often told me how worried my father was about Harry, his queer, secretive ways. And yet in a way he is a sportsman, one of the best shots in England as a boy, a great runner, and a wonderful fellow over a country, until about eight years ago, when this treasure bug got into his brain and he shut himself away from us all and gave his mind and his soul to this wild chase.”
“The gold?”
Dick shook his head.
“No,” he said. “If it were only the gold, that would have been an intelligent interest in life.”
He described Harry’s search for the elixir, the famous Life Water of which the ancient Chelford had written in his diary.
“It is probably no more than a flask of a native wine—Arac or the like,” said Dick. “Poor Harry!”
Miss Wenner had intended to leave by the early morning train but had changed her mind. Possibly the arrival of Fabrian Gilder had been a factor. She had one solution for Leslie’s disappearance.
“Have you searched the Abbey?” she asked, not once but a dozen times.
Dick was weary; the Abbey had been his first thought. He had suspected this was Harry’s hiding place, and with his own hands had taken a basket of provisions for him, but this, he saw, was untouched.
There was one possibility about the underground cavern, and that was the second door, and he had ordered the blacksmith and his assistant to be at the stone tower at two o’clock that afternoon, with instruments, one of which had to be procured from London.
The presence of Miss Wenner was not as distasteful to Gilder as he thought it would have been. To use a phrase of childhood, she was “on his side.” In very truth, Miss Wenner was on anybody’s side if that person happened to be agreeable to her.
They were walking through the rosary before lunch, and certainly the trend of Mary Wenner’s remarks was very comforting to a man who had been so badly rebuffed.
“If I had my way, Fabrian, dear”—she assumed all the rights and privileges of an engagement which was somewhat illusory and he made only a feeble resistance—“if I had my way I’d put you in charge of this case. After all, you are the very man to solve this mystery and I must say you could have knocked me down with a feather when you told me you were fifty—you don’t look a day more than thirty—and you’ve got experience, you’re a lawyer, you’re up to all kinds of artfulness——”
“Not to all kinds,” said Gilder with a grim recollection of a certain blank check.
“Well, to most kinds,” conceded Miss Wenner. “And what are they all doing? This Dick Alford and this so-called detective? They’re just standing around, scratching their heads, whilst you could go, as it were, to the real heart of the mystery. Don’t deny it—I’m sure you would, Fabe.”
“Don’t call me Fabe, Mary,” he asked gently. “If you want to call me by my Christian name, let us have all the three syllables.”
“You’re a man of the world, Fabrian”—she accentuated the word as she would have done “Mary Ann”—“you understand the ins and outs of everything. Why don’t they come to you like men and say, ‘Mr. Gilder, what is your opinion of this mystery?’ Instead of which, they don’t so much as ask you if you’ve got a mouth!”
“Perhaps they know that,” said Gilder in good humour.
He lifted his head suddenly, a frown on his face. He had heard a shot; more than a shot, the whirr and whine of a bullet.
“What——”
Something fell at his feet with a “plop!” He saw a little hole, and, stooping, dug out a bullet with his fingers.
“Where on earth did that come from?”
He looked up at the sky, but the aëroplane which was later to make an appearance, and which had nothing to do with this mysterious shooting, was not yet in sight.
Dick had heard the shot and was running across the lawn.
“Did you——” he began.
Plop!
They heard it again, and presently Dick saw leaves fall from a laurel bush and heard the thud of an impact. One of the police who were still patrolling the grounds shouted to him, but he could not hear what he was saying, and raced across to him. Nearer at hand, he saw that the man was pointing to the ruins.
“It came from there,” shouted the constable, and Dick changed direction.
He was flying up the slope when the third shot sounded, and this time he located it with fair accuracy. Somebody was shooting from the tower.
Happily, he had made preparations for the blacksmith’s visit, and there was an assortment of lanterns near the entrance. He stopped long enough to light one, and, slipping back the catch with his knife, he pushed aside the stone corner piece and ran down the stairs. The room was empty. He tried the mystery door; that, too, was closed. Somebody shouted his name from the landing above and he answered:
“Come down, Gilder. There’s nobody here.”
Gilder descended the steps gingerly and looked round with his keen, shrewd eyes. And then he remembered and pointed to the slab.
“Have you tried that? I meant to tell you before.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, but I rather think that the stone turns on a pivot. If that is the case, there are pretty stout supports underneath that will want cutting through.”
Gilder sprawled flat on the floor, his ear to the crack.
“There’s nothing there that is audible,” he said. “Can’t you smell anything?”
He put his nose to the crack.
“There’s a petrol light burning down there, or else it has been burning recently.”
Flat on his face, Dick sniffed.
“Yes,” he said, and called: “Leslie!”
There was no answer. He called again, with a like result.
Gilder went up the stairs and searched amongst the tools that had been brought in readiness for the afternoon’s investigation. He selected two saws and a second lantern, and, lighting this, he descended to Dick’s side.
“It is pretty sure to be an oaken support; these old builders seldom used iron,” he said.
Throwing off his coat, he rolled up his sleeves. The thin blade of the saw worked down between the stones and after a while he began sawing gingerly.
“It’s wood,” he said. “You’ll find yours is the same.”
They both worked at one end, for, as he pointed out, there would only be one bar, the other end of the stone being bevelled to meet the edge of the floor. The wood was like rock, and both men were hot before they had half-sawn through the support. Presently Dick drew out his saw. He had gone through the oak and had heard the loose end fall below. A few seconds later, Gilder’s saw passed through the last obstruction. Gingerly he put his foot on the edge and pressed down, and the stone trap swung open.
They looked down into a dark vault; and now the smell of the burning lamp was very pungent. Dick lowered the lantern and peered down. He could see no sign of human life. He caught a view of the end of a bed, a table, and, on the floor, a rifle. He reached the bottom and, swinging his lantern round, called:
“Leslie!”
A mocking echo came back to him from the little cavern at the far end of the apartment. The place was empty; the man and woman who, five minutes before, had fought in a death struggle, had disappeared.
LVII
“Leslie!”
He called again, his voice hoarse with anxiety. He had seen two little shoes by the side of the bed. Her hat was on the floor, crushed into a shapeless mass. Picking up the rifle, he felt the barrel; it was still warm, and under the tower there were four empty cartridge cases. And then, holding his lantern high, he saw the rungs in the rough face of the wall, and jumped to the conclusion that she had escaped that way. Within a minute he leapt up, caught the lower rung and ran up the ladder to the top, oblivious of one or two ominous cracks as his man weight came upon the old ironwork. The grille at the top stopped him. He had seen it, but thought it might be movable.
“They couldn’t have gone that way,” he said breathlessly as he came down to the ground.
Gilder rubbed his gray hair.
“Then where on earth have they gone?” he asked irritably.
They searched every inch of the long room, pulled the bed from the wall, but beneath was solid stone pavement. The table seemed fastened to the floor; they could not move it.
“Do you notice anything about this floor?” Gilder asked suddenly. “It is not level.”
And when Dick looked, he saw this was true. The floor sloped gradually down from the wash cavern to the wall behind the steps. Gilder went in search of a hammer, and the two, now reinforced by Puttler and the Scotland Yard man, went over every inch of the wall and flooring, tapping and sounding. They struck no hollow place. The four men took hold of the side of the table and tried to drag it from its foundations, but they might as well have tried to move the wall itself. It had a thick oaken base, from which ran three pillars supporting the enormously heavy top.
It was very clear to Dick what had happened. The girl had been attacked, and, having discovered this opening to the sky, had procured a rifle by some means and had fired up the shaft to attract attention. Then she had been overcome and—what?
The water ran down through a crevice in the solid rock about six or eight inches wide. It was impossible that any human being could have gone down that narrow slit, but, to make sure, he had the edges of the water-worn rock broken away. The blacksmith by this time was waiting above. Dick had him brought down with his tools; the second door might yield some sort of solution.
For half an hour they worked with jacks and levers, and presently, with a deafening crack, the lock parted and the door was pushed open. There was revealed a room similar in shape and size to that which Mary Wenner had discovered; with this exception, that there were no stone benches, and in the centre of the apartment was a circular hole. Dick knelt by the side and held down his lantern; he heard the faint “clug” of water, and saw the light reflected at a considerable depth.
“A well,” he said. “All these old places have an interior well. There’s one in the Tower of London, in the centre of the dungeon.”
This room had been used as a prison at a distant period. At intervals along the walls hung rusted chains, with leg-irons attached. In one corner he saw a heap of rags, glimpsed a milk-white bone, and shuddered. What was the history of this poor wretch who had been shut away from the light of God’s sunshine, to die miserably in this dark and dreadful place?
“Well, there’s nothing there,” said Gilder, peering over.
Dick tied his lantern to the end of a cord and let it slowly down to the depths. Thirty feet below, as near as he could judge, the bottom of the lantern touched water. The old builders had builded splendidly. The green, weed-grown sides of the well seemed intact. And then his heart almost stood still. A hand was thrust out, seemingly from the solid brickwork of the well; a white hand on which flashed and sparkled a single diamond that he knew well. And from below he heard a muffled voice and in his agitation the cord which held out the lantern slipped from his hand into the water.
He cursed aloud in his rage at his own criminal carelessness.
“Give me the other lantern!” he called and pulling the other hand over hand, he untied it and flung it aside, fastening in its place the lighted storm lamp that Puttler handed to him. “And get a rope—quickly!”
But there was no rope nearer than Fossaway Manor, and he fumed in his impatience and would have made an attempt to slip down the treacherous sides of the well if Puttler had not restrained him.
After an eternity one of the detectives came running back carrying a rope and, dropping the free end, they fastened the other to a crowbar and placed this across the open doorway. Dick slipped down the rope, the handle of the lantern between his teeth. The sides were wet and slimy and presently he came to the place where he had seen the girl’s hand.
It was a small air hole about six inches by four. He tried to look through with the aid of his lamp, but he could see nothing but a rough rock wall. He called the girl by name, but no answer came and the word “Leslie” came echoing back from the interior.
And now he saw that these little apertures occurred at regular intervals. The first two were hidden by overhanging water weeds, but from below they were visible. Some sort of natural stone gallery existed on the other side of this stonework, and he remembered having heard at some remote period that the Abbey had been built upon an early English catacomb. In all probability each of those apertures represented a distinct “landing” or a place where some natural winding staircase touched the wall in its revolutions.
He had made a rough loop for his foot, and they passed him down a crowbar at the end of a cord. With this he attacked the hole in the wall, but found himself engaged in an impossible task. Nothing short of an explosive could blow these holes larger. He was almost exhausted by his efforts, and they had to haul him to the top for a rest. Puttler was anxious to go down, but Dick insisted upon being lowered again. This time he took with him a rod, to the end of which a small electric bulb had been attached. The flex ran along the rod, which was a bamboo cane, and terminated in a small battery in his pocket. He switched on the light and pushed the bulb through the opening. He could see now that the wall, which he thought was natural rock, had been roughly hewn, but he could not see the floor nor more than a foot in either direction. Withdrawing the rod, he put in his hand and felt around, but could touch nothing but the outer facing of the well.
“Look out!”
The warning shout was Gilder’s and came from above. He drew out his hand quickly.
“Away from the wall—push with your feet!” yelled Gilder.
He had a glimpse of a grimy hand thrust out from one of the square air holes, saw the flicker of steel and felt the rope giving as strand after strand was slashed. Then, with a crack, the rope parted, and he went down, down, until the bitterly cold waters engulfed him.
He struck the bottom with his feet and paddled up to the surface again. He was instantly chilled to the marrow. He saw the lantern come down toward him, and heard Gilder say:
“Hold to the cord just enough to keep you afloat.”
Dumbly he obeyed. His eyes were fixed on the airhole. So, too, were the eyes of Puttler, who, flat on the ground, his head and shoulders over the edge, covered with his revolver the place where the hand had emerged.
The cut end of the rope was passed down to him. By reaching up he could just grip it, but not sufficiently to obtain a sure purchase. Cramp had attacked his legs. The paralyzing coldness of the water was astounding, and in one moment of fear it seemed that his life was to end miserably in this dark hole. There was no foothold on either side, and unless help came quickly he knew he could no longer keep his senses.
Almost within reach was the lowest of the small apertures, but it did not seem worth while to reach for that. The cord of the lantern served to keep him afloat, the warmth of the burning wick was the only comfort he had.
“Dick!” He heard his name whispered with a fierce intensity. “Dick, take my hand!”
It came out of the lower air hole, and with an effort he reached and found his wrist gripped. And then his senses left him.
When he came to himself he was lying in the open air. The warmth of the sun’s rays made him sleepy.
“Where is Leslie?” he asked, struggling up on his elbow.
They looked at him blankly, thinking that he was in a delirium.
“How did I get out?”
“Gilder went down for you when he saw you drop.”
“But Leslie caught me by the wrist,” he said wildly. “She was there—didn’t you see her, Puttler?”
Puttler shook his head.
“I saw you holding on to the side just as the new rope came, and Gilder went down for you.”
Dick was ghastly.
“You didn’t see her? You didn’t hear her?”
Struggling to his feet, he passed his hand wearily across his forehead. Had he been dreaming? Was that part of the delirium of the death that nearly overtook him? But he was sure, as positive as of any human experience he had had. Leslie’s hand had come out from the wall and caught him by the wrist. He had seen the diamond scintillate in the light of the lantern and then he could remember nothing more. But it had been Leslie. He could still feel the pressure of her fingers about his wrist. He had not been dreaming. Somewhere in the deeps of the earth was the woman he loved, and he was helpless to save her. He covered his face with his hands and for a while his shoulders heaved.
LVIII
Leslie had no doubt that the wooden bar would hold. She could afford to sit, covering her ears to shut out the hideous noise above, until his paroxysm had subsided. It must have been in such a mad fury as this, after the killing of Thomas, that he had wreaked destruction upon his room before, in a sudden fit of panic, he had got out of the window and, taking his books from the library (she saw the torn and soiled pillow case in which he had packed them) had escaped to this lair of his. She took her hand from her ears; he was moaning dreadfully, but somehow she could endure that. Fortunately, she had put on her wrist-watch when she dressed, and this marked the passage of the hours. Noon came, there would be people about the estate now, though it was not likely that Dick would come again to the ruins unless he was attracted there.
The plan she had made she now proceeded to put into execution. Standing under the shaft, she fired a round into the air. The third shot struck the iron grille and ricochetted with an angry buzz that sounded like the drone of a bee. No sound came from the room above. If she could only attract Dick to the ruins, she could indicate her position. But Harry had a rifle! She went cold at the thought. She may have lured him to his death.
For one mad moment she thought of opening the trap and forcing her way out at the point of the rifle. But it was too late now. And then she heard his voice, sounding hollowly and faintly.
“Leslie!”
She went up one of the steps so that she could hear him better.
“They’re coming, Leslie. You will tell them I haven’t hurt you, won’t you?”
“Yes, yes,” she replied eagerly.
He said nothing after that, until there came a shuffling and stamping of feet above her head, and then she heard him say:
“Hullo, Dick, old man! I hope I haven’t given you any trouble.”
From below she heard a deep rumble of sound which might have been a voice, but in her eagerness she was tugging at the oaken support, and in another second the stone fell behind her and she scrambled up through the trap. She could see nothing; the place was in darkness.
“Dick!” she called.
And then a hand gripped her, and she realized with horror that all the shufflings of feet and the conversation had been so much acting on his part.
She was still holding the rifle, but before she could raise it he had gripped the stock and wrenched it from her hand. She heard it fall with a clatter on the stone floor below.
Half swooning in her fear and terror, her struggles grew weaker. He was holding her in his arms and his strength was surprising.
“We are going below, my sweet,” he whispered in her ear. “At last I know the truth! So it was Dick you wanted! Dear Dick!”
He was chuckling softly to himself as he carried her to the top of the steps.
“Will you walk down, or must I throw you?” he asked, in a tone so even and rational that he might have been uttering some commonplace of everyday life.
With trembling knees she walked down the steps into the lighted room, and he followed, pausing to close the trap and secure it firmly.
“Sit down.” He pointed to the settle by the table and immediately she sat down. Her face was ghastly; her last reserves of courage were almost sapped. “You have hurt me beyond forgiveness, Leslie,” he said, his solemn eyes fixed on hers. “Do you realize what you have done? You have treated with contempt Harry Alford, Eighteenth Earl of Chelford, Viscount of Carberry, Baron Alford.…”
With the solemnity of a child reciting a lesson he repeated the titles he held, even to a remote barony of Aquitaine which the Chelfords had held in the dim past. She had a queer feeling that she was standing before a judge, listening to an indictment of some hideous crime she had committed.
“You have attempted to endanger my life; you have conspired with those who hate me; you have treacherously held communication with and given comfort to my enemies.…”
There were other charges, that would have sounded ludicrous at other times, would have aroused her to fury, but she listened now, husbanding all her strength for the coming struggle.
His rifle leant against the steps, but he barred her way effectively. Looking round for some weapon, she saw nothing but the lamp and that was too heavy for use.
“For you,” he said, in tones of deepest gravity, “there can be only one punishment—death!”
His voice trembled. She felt that, in his queer, crazy way, he was sorry for her, and regretted the necessity. She tried to rise, but her limbs refused her office. She put out an appealing hand, and then, with a sudden leap, he was on her. His hand closed about her throat strangling the scream. And then, up above, there was the unmistakable sound of footsteps and a deep voice. It was Dick. She tried to call out, but he held her tight. With one hand he reached over and extinguished the lamp; and now, in a final desperation of fear, she threw him backward and for a second he released his hold.
But before her tortured throat could utter a sound he was at her again; pressing her back against the edge of the table. She tore at his hand, but it was immovable.… This was death! A loud ringing in her ears, a fiery light before her eyes; she was losing consciousness… and then she felt the table move, at first slowly and then so rapidly that she lost her balance. The big refectory table was sliding lengthways toward the end wall. His grip relaxed and in that instant he dropped away from her, and, reaching out her hand, she could feel nothing. She heard a thud and a groan and stepped forward—into space. She did not see the yawning cavern before her. One desperate effort she made to recover her balance, caught at the hard edge of the floor as she fell, and went slipping and sliding down stairs that cracked and broke beneath her, until her feet struck something soft and yielding. Overhead there was a deep rumbling sound, a soft thud, and silence.
LIX
Harry was unconscious. She felt his face and her fingers touched something warm and wet.
She could see nothing; the darkness was impenetrable. No sound came from the room from which she had fallen. The floor was thick, the heavy oaken base of the refectory table gliding, she guessed on rollers that worked as truly as they had when, hundreds of years before, the Black Abbot found this exit so valuable, had slipped back into its place. If she only had some sort of light! It occurred to her to search the unfortunate Harry. Presently she found a silver box containing matches. She struck one and looked around. They were lying at the foot of what had once been a wooden stair. The treads were broken, the heavily carved handrail had rotted, leaving two wide gaps. Half the treads had vanished, the other half were now broken by her fall.
Harry was lying in a recess carved from the solid rock, and left and right ran a narrow passage streaming with water. She left the alcove and struck another match. The passage curved and twisted so that only a few feet in either direction was visible. Pools of still water filled the hollows of the floor; long bunches of gray fungus, grape-like in its formation, hung from the roof. Yet the air was sweet enough. She felt a gentle draught coming from the left-hand passage, but as yet she could not explore and she returned to Harry.
His eyes were closed, his lips bloodless, and through the grime his face was gray. With a gasp of horror she thought he was dead, but when she put her hand under his waistcoat she could feel the faint flutter of his heart. He had an electric torch somewhere in his pocket, he had told her, and she began to search. It necessitated moving him slightly and as she did so he groaned. The lamp was in the tail pocket of his frock-coat, a square, flat lamp, of a type usually to be found in every room of Fossaway Manor.
She thought at first that the unconscious man carried two, but found that the second package was a spare battery. Switching on the light, she examined the roof above the broken stairs. She saw it was the underside of a slab of wood. From here she could see the rollers on which the table ran; stout things of wood. Near the head of the stairs two large wooden grips projected downward, rather like the butts of huge Browning pistols, and she guessed that by this means the table was drawn back from below.
When she looked at Harry again he was staring upward with wondering eyes.
“What happened?” he asked.
“We must have fallen through a trap,” she said. “Do you think you could reach those handles?” She pointed to them.
He rose unsteadily to his feet, replaced his spectacles which had been knocked off in his fall, and looked at the butts. Only two of the treads remained intact. He tried one, but it broke under his feet and the supporting posts were sagging.
“I can’t reach that,” he said. “It must be twelve feet high.”
Then she noticed his wound and made him sit down while she dressed it with a strip of silk torn from her skirt.
“How on earth did we get into this beastly place?” he asked, wondering. “Where are we?”
“We’re under the Abbey,” she said, and his frown ended in a grimace of pain.
“Where is Dick?” he asked.
“He is up there, I think,” she said.
And yet why should Dick be there? He would not know his way into the lower chamber, she thought, with a sinking heart.
“Do you think you can walk?”
He looked round in dismay.
“I can walk all right, but whither?”
“Let us try the left-hand passage first,” she suggested, and he was agreeable.
The left-hand passage, they found, was a steep ascent which turned continuously to the left. It was like one of those corkscrew tunnels through which she had travelled in Switzerland, where the train burrows its way upward in the heart of the solid rock. Was it above Montreux or on Pilatus? She was too tired to think.
At the first turn she stopped. She had seen a glimmer of light, and, making an inspection, she found a square hole, cut apparently in the rock; the further end was covered with hanging weeds, and through these she saw the light distinctly, a faint yellow glow. They continued their climb, and presently came to another small opening. Here, then, was one of the sources of air supply, though little came this way, for when she lit a match before it the flame scarcely wavered.
“How much farther are we going?” asked Harry faintly. “I’m nearly all in.”
“We must go on,” she said. “This probably brings us to the open air somewhere.”
He put his hand on her shoulder, and, walking slowly, they made another complete turn of the winding passage, and this time they found an air hole that was not weed-covered. The light was stronger now, and, looking through, she thought she saw a swaying cord. And she heard something, too—voices. It was not an illusion; somebody was talking at an immense distance away, it seemed. She looked again. The cord seemed very near, but when she thrust her hand through the opening and tried to grasp it, she knew that she had been the victim of an optical illusion. She called out but there was no answer. She must have imagined the voices.
And then she heard a faint shout and the yellow light which had shone through the entrance went out.
“I can’t go any farther.” Harry collapsed against the wall and slid down into a sitting position, his head on his breast.
“Do you mind if I leave you in the dark?” she asked.
He shook his head wearily, and, leaving him, she continued the climb, and presently found herself in a straight, narrow passage. At some period an attempt had been made to dress the sides with stone slabs. The wall was littered with crumbling fragments of stone, and gaps showed where age and the action of the damp had detached the dressing from the walls. As near as she could judge, she was moving away from the Abbey in the direction of Fossaway Manor.
This latter was a guess. It was impossible that it could lead toward the cut road to the north of the estate. Then the explanation came to her: she was passing under the Mound, the high bank that fringed the Ravensrill. What light feet had trodden this way, she wondered? What fears or hopes, desire or despair, had sped along this rough stone floor? Unconsciously she was reconstructing an ancient cause and effect. The effect brought her to a standstill. Right across the passage a wall had been built; a solid barrier of masonry which checked all further movement.
Though she did not know and could not guess, here was the obstacle that the revengeful Lord of Chelford had set up after his assassin had gone forth to slay the man who had dishonoured him. No more would the light steps of frail womanhood trip along this secret passage, and since Yvonne of Chelford had died of a broken heart no woman’s foot had stirred this dust.
Leslie turned back, her courage failing. Approaching the spot where she had left Harry, she heard his soft chuckle and her skin crept.
“Leslie. Leslie!” he whispered eagerly. “You have no idea what a bit of good luck I’ve had!”
And when he came into the light of her lamp, he was his old exalted self.
“What do you think happened?”
She was conscious now of voices. She heard somebody shout and a faint answer, but faint as it was, she recognized the voice. It was Dick’s.
“What has happened?” she asked quickly.
He doubled up with silent laughter and could not speak for a minute, and then he showed her a knife.
“With that,” he said complacently. “I saw him go down… and then the rope came near… I could have touched it. Then I remembered I had my knife and I reached through and before they could pull it away I’d cut it.”
She gazed at him in horror.
“Was somebody on the rope?” she gasped.
He nodded gravely.
“The arch-enemy of the human race,” he said in a sober tone. “Richard Alford.”
Petrified with terror, she put her ear to the hole and heard Dick speaking. Then without a word she fled down the slope. Round and round the circular passage she went until she was almost dizzy. Presently she reached the lower air hole, put through her hand and tore away the veiling weeds.
“Dick, Dick!” she called.
She could see him now, for the air hole was just above water level. His face was gray and drawn.
“Dick!”
She thrust out her hand and presently closed about his ice-cold wrist, and at that moment Harry’s hand fell on her shoulder and she was dragged backward. She felt the wrist slip, she heard the splash of water as Dick Alford fell, and fainted.
LX
She woke and it was so dark she could not believe her eyes were open until she felt the lids. There was no sound. She was lying on the hard, uneven floor where she had fallen, she thought, but when she put out her hand to feel for the air hole, her fingers touched rough rock. Groping round for the flash lamp, she found nothing. Presently, however, she touched a smooth, cold surface. It was Harry’s knife, a long-bladed clasp knife.
And then she remembered clearly. Dick was in the water, drowning. She struggled to her feet, trembling in every limb.
Dead perhaps.… She staggered blindly forward and came in contact with the wall. Gripping her hands till the nails cut the palm, she strove to regain her self-control. He would be rescued; there were men with him, she told herself, and became calmer and again sat down, so her back was to the wall, and waited, the open knife on her lap. Feeling in her pocket for a handkerchief, her hand touched the matchbox, and she took it out with a sense of gratitude.
She was weary to the point of exhaustion. The rough flooring had slashed the soles of her silk stockings to ribbons and her feet were terribly sore. She waited for some time before she struck her first match, for the box was already half empty. She saw that she was in a part of this underground system which was unfamiliar to her. The roof was higher; the walls bulged in like the sides of an hourglass, and the floor had been roughly paved. At intervals there seemed to be niches, alcoves in the wall, and again she thought of the Swiss tunnels with their safety niches. There was no sign of the lamp; evidently Harry had carried that with him when he had gone off. It was not like him to leave her; even in his delirium he would not have done that, she thought.
As the match burnt out she heard halting footsteps re-echoing down the passage, and, closing the knife, she slipped it into her jacket pocket and waited. He must have been a long way from her when she first heard him; the passage acting as a huge speaking-tube.
“Are you all right, Leslie?” He was normal again. “I’m sorry I had to leave you, but this place rather rattles me, and I had to go along and see if I could find an exit.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I carried you down that wretched circular arrangement and you were fearfully heavy,” he added, so naïvely that the girl laughed for the first time in that period of horror. “Do you know, Leslie,” he squatted down on the floor by her side—“I have an idea. Do you remember those holes we looked through?”
“Yes, I remember them,” she said, wondering what was coming next.
“Do you know that they are placed in the side of a well of some kind?”
Not a word about Dick. He had forgotten the rope cutting and the horror that followed.
“Has it occurred to you,” he went on, “that the treasure may be at the bottom of that well? It only struck me a few minutes ago. If we could get out and have a talk with Dick, he’s such an ingenious devil that I’m sure he would find the opening of the well, which may be inside the old Abbey itself. Most of these mediæval buildings have a well in the centre and kept their water supply enclosed.”
“You didn’t find an exit?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I got into a sort of labyrinth and I thought I should never get out again. Good heavens! Look at your feet!”
They were indeed in a sorry plight, swollen and bleeding. In an instant he had pulled off his own shoes.
“Put them on,” he said authoritatively, and when she demurred, he seized her foot and slipped her toes into the shoe. “I was a great runner in my day,” he said, with a hint of pride, “and barefooted running was my specialty—to use a horrible theatrical word.”
The shoes were much too big for her, but the comfort of them after walking barefooted on that rough floor!
“There’s one place I haven’t explored, and that is the little side passage to the left. There has been some sort of a fall there and the rock looks rotten. I don’t like to attempt an exploration. By the way, what made you faint?” he asked suddenly.
“I don’t know—nerves, I suppose,” she said.
It was useless and even dangerous to tell him of what had happened by the wall of the well.
“I thought it might be that,” he said. “If you feel fitter now we’ll go along.”
He walked ahead, switching his lamp on and off at intervals. He wanted to save his batteries, he told her, which had shown signs of running down. All the time he kept up an incessant chatter. He had plans about the future of the Abbey and grew enthusiastic when he expounded his scheme.
“This is not even a Saxon-English burrow, but probably goes back to the days of the original inhabitants of Britain,” he said. “We are walking in paths that were originally cut by cavemen. Doesn’t that thrill you, Leslie?”
“Terribly,” she said, with unconscious irony.
“I’ll have the place wired and lit; it will be necessary to increase the electric supply, but Dick will see to that. I may present it to the nation or to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners—I’m not certain which. There is no doubt from an archæological point of view.…”
So he talked on and she followed him, sometimes listening, sometimes her mind occupied with the agony of thought. Was Dick safe? She was sure that he was not alone; there were men at the top of the well and they would save him. It was not possible that Dick Alford should die in that dark place, that his splendid life should be ended so tragically. The walking was tiring, for they were climbing all the time.
They must have covered about a quarter of a mile when he stopped.
“Here is the side passage,” he said, and warned her: “Don’t go into it; the stones are still falling.”
He put his light into the hole—it was no more—and she saw a great heap of fallen rock in the middle of the path. There was just room between the top of the heap and the roof to crawl through. But what she noticed instantly was the strong current of air that fanned her cheeks when she stopped to look through the aperture.
“This must be the way, Harry,” she said instantly. “Can’t you feel the air?”
“I noticed that,” he agreed, but was reluctant to enter this unpromising byway.
“We must go, Harry. There’s no other way out,” she said. “We are getting farther and farther down, away from the Abbey, and, as you say, beyond here is only a labyrinth that brings you back to the place from where you started.”
“All right,” he agreed, with evident distaste. “I had better go first.”
He crawled gingerly over the pile of stones and slid down on the other side.
She heard his voice.
“It is all right here,” he said, and then the light of his lamp showed and she followed him.
The passage was very high; it was a natural fissure in the rock. Yet the hand of man must have been here, for the floor had been levelled, and there was evidence of animal life. A long black shape scudded across the path and disappeared through a hole. The girl gave a little scream and shrank back.
“It is only a weasel,” said Harry calmly. “Where a weasel can get, we can get.”
The passage had widened and now the work of man became evident. They were in a square chamber with two entrances on either side. The roof was of vaulted stone that seemed to bulge downward as if it supported a weight beyond its capacity, but this was hidden by the long stalactites that flashed in the light of the lantern. And she shivered. It was extraordinarily cold, almost as if they had come into an ice house.
“No door. I wonder what the idea of this place was.”
It was the first man-made chamber they had seen. The walls were running with water; wet and shining; the roof dripped incessantly, but only one small pool of water gathered on the floor; the rest ran off in a central chamber and apparently into the solid rock.
“The dripping of water wears away stone,” quoted Harry, and pointed to the floor with its tiny saucer-shaped depression.
There was no sign of door at either entrance and he went ahead of her through the farther entrance, covered a few yards, and stopped, looking upward.
“Daylight!” he said.
The first thing of which she was conscious was that, away from the little room, she was warm again.
The shaft that worked upward was a natural fissure. They could see the rough edges of rock jutting out at intervals. In some places it was wide enough to hold a full-sized man; in other places it was so narrow that only an arm could have reached through. But there it was, the clear, uninterrupted view of the sky, and the girl beheld a phenomenon with which miners are familiar, the view of a white, winking star in broad daylight.
“That is where the air comes from,” said Harry. “Now we’ll try where this passage leads.”
It led to a blank wall of solid rock, he found. They stared at each other in the darkness.
“We must try back,” said Harry.
Hardly were the words out of his mouth than there was a distant rumble and roar, the ground beneath their feet shook, and down the passageway through which they had reached the Cold Room swept a cloud of flying dust.
“Wait,” he said, and flew along the passage.
He was gone a few minutes before he returned. She could not see his face except from the reflected light he threw upon the floor to guide him on his way.
“The roof has fallen in,” he said, and there was a tremor in his voice. “I am afraid, Leslie, we are finished!”
LXI
A hot bath and a meal, though every morsel seemed to choke him, restored Dick Alford to something like himself. There was hope—faint indeed, but still hope. He had despatched his bailiff in search of explosives, but explosives cannot be bought over the counter like cheese and bacon. He had a telephone message from the man to say that he was on his way to London and would return with the necessary apparatus. Dick’s plan was simple; even then a derrick was being rigged over the well; his plan was to dynamite the wall of the well and to get into the gallery.
“For a long time I’ve been suspicious that the rock on which the Abbey was built was honey-combed with passages. My father told me something about it and I’ve seen an old plan that shows an elaborate system of corridors, though the family has always thought this was largely imaginative on the part of the artist.”
“Have you the plan now?” asked Gilder.
Dick shook his head.
“Harry took everything of that nature away with him the night he left the house.”
“It is not amongst the books you found in the underground room?” said Puttler, and a search was made of the library, but without success.
They were on their way to the ruins when Puttler saw the aëroplane in the sky. It circled twice and then began to dip steeply.
“I believe that fellow is coming here,” he said.
And so it proved. The machine roared its progress for a hundred yards or more, and then dropped. Presently they saw a man get down. Though he wore an airman’s helmet, Dick recognized him. It was Arthur Gwyn.
He met Gilder’s scowl with a little laugh.
“I’ve got some money of yours, Gilder,” he said, and dragged with some difficulty a huge packet from the pocket of his leather coat. “That is more or less the amount I owe you, unless the franc has depreciated in value since I left Paris. And now you can do your damnedest!”
Gilder took the packet without a word and Arthur turned to Dick Alford.
“I read about Leslie in the French papers,” he said simply, “and so I came back. Has she been found?”
Dick shook his head.
“Have you any idea where she is?”
Dick told him all that had happened that afternoon and Arthur Gwyn listened in silence. When Dick came to speak of his plan, he shook his head.
“I had my early training as an engineer before I went into the law,” he said surprisingly, “and I tell you, from my elementary knowledge of the science, that you’re likely to blow in the whole well, and if there’s anybody on the other side, God help them!”
He accompanied them to the lower room and was swung down on the derrick to make an inspection. When he returned to the surface his report was not very promising.
“So far as I can see,” he said, “whilst you may enlarge the opening of any of these air holes, you may also bring about a fall of the rock inside. You’re dealing with surfaces which have been exposed to the chemical action of the air.”
He went down and made an inspection of the lower room, which was new to him, and, as they had done, tried to pull the table aside. And then he did what they had not attempted; he pushed at the table at one end and felt it move, at first slowly and then quickly, as though he had set in motion a counterweight. He had just time to swing himself on the table and grip its edge when the aperture appeared under his feet.
Dick saw the broken stair, and, sitting on the edge of the hole, dropped through to the rocky floor just as the table slid into its place. They pushed it back again and propped it, and Arthur and Gilder joined him below carrying lanterns. He saw a piece of something dark on the floor and picked it up. It was a strip of silk.
“This is the way,” he said quietly. “I’ll work to the left; you go to the right, Gilder.”
Arthur made a rapid mental calculation.
“The left passage will lead you to the well, and unless I’m very much mistaken you will find the air holes on your right-hand side. If you don’t mind, I’ll go with you.”
The men ascended the treacherous slope and came to the first of the air holes, continued up until they reached the straight passage down which Leslie had made her fruitless journey. They, too, were brought to a halt by the wall barrier, and returned the way they had come. There was no sign of Leslie or Harry, but when Dick passed the alcove down which he had dropped from the Abbot’s room he found a burnt match stalk.
He ascended again, a long, steady climb.
“We’re near the surface of the ground,” said Arthur.
Ahead of them the star lamp of Gilder showed. He was coming back to meet them.
“This passage ends in a sort of maze,” he reported. “There is a side passage, but that’s entirely blocked by stone.”
They went back with him to the place and Arthur Gwyn examined the débris.
“The roof has fallen in here,” he said. “How long ago, it is impossible to tell. This stone is old, but I should think that the fall has been going on for years.”
They returned dispirited, and accompanied Gilder on his exploration of the maze. Though they tried passage after passage, they invariably found themselves back at the place where they had started. Dick made another inspection of the fallen roof. It had collapsed a few feet from the entrance; and, though he did not know this, there was twenty yards of crumbled rock between him and the little chamber where Leslie Gwyn was waiting for death.
Dick came out into the light of the setting sun, his haggard face white with dust. Arthur sat on a stone, his head in his hands, the picture of despair. Even Gilder was shaken from his habitual calm, could do no more than stare tragically at the ruin which hid so much. The broken arch of the window, red in the light of the setting sun, was more than ever like a query mark. There was something devilish about it, something which epitomized the spirit that leered and mocked at them.
“Come back to the house,” said Dick steadily, and, to the bailiff who approached him: “No, I sha’n’t want the dynamite—yet.”
They walked dispiritedly along the mound, Arthur Gwyn, the most dejected of all, walking in the rear. Suddenly they heard him shout, and turned. He was pointing across the river.
“What is it?” asked Dick, hurrying back to him.
“The wishing well—have you thought of that?” gasped Arthur.
“The wishing well?”
And then Dick remembered that rendezvous of the country swains, the unfathomable crevice in the earth down which, as a boy, he had dropped stones, listening to hear them strike from rock to rock until they grew fainter.
“That reaches somewhere,” said Arthur excitedly. “We can but try it.”
Dick ran down to the bank, plunged into the water and waded through to the other side. The two men followed him, and something whispered in Dick Alford’s heart that this was his last hope.