"You acknowledge your part to be contrary to Her Majesty's, then?"
"I said so. Now as you answer me, I swear I will deal with you. I will fling the door wide and let you go forth freely to Mistress Idonia, whose present hiding-place I know; or else I will deliver you over to those who shall choke your discretion in your fool's throat."
"Your treason hath not commenced so well," said I, leaning back from the table, "that hath begun in distrust of each other."
"Be not over long about it," said Malpas darkly; "I am not used to repeat my offers, that, moreover, you see are abundantly generous."
"So generous," I replied, "that I doubt their worth."
"They be surely worth more," said my captor, upon whose brow the blue veins stood out, so sharp a curb did he put upon his mood; "they be of more worth to you, a thousandfold, than the favour or disfavour of that damned, cogging, glib-spoken traitor, your uncle."
He had let it slip at last! My uncle Botolph and Skene were one. And here, beyond belief, I held 'twixt my naked finger and thumb the steelyard by which my uncle's fate should be weighed, who had crossed me at every turn. A word of mine, and he that had first ruined my father's life, and after had robbed him of his fortune, might be contemptuously blotted out, as a man blots out some gross error in a letter he has writ; for that was how Malpas would serve him, could I bring myself to say he stood for the Queen. A little word spoken, and he was condemned, but I was free ... I and Idonia!
Indeed, it was clear justice, both to myself and to my uncle. For I was not to name the man a traitor to his Sovereign; rather, to speak well of him, as I expected a man should do of me. It was (now I was come to think on't) mere decency that I should not be dumb in my uncle's praise whom I had never had any, or at the least overt, cause to mistrust. Put the case the other way; that I thought my uncle's conduct treasonable. Should I denounce him to the Lord Treasurer and the Council? I knew I should not. Should I then denounce him to Malpas for the contrary cause, and upon the slight grounds I had, as of the confession he made to me when the Jesuit was found in hiding in his house? No, certainly.
Why, all that was required of me was that I should confess I thought my uncle honest, as likely enough he was. What should follow upon so fair a declaration imported me nothing. I was concerned with no grudges nor disputes of these men, to bethink me how a plain answer should work with them. Nay, I stood for the Queen's Majesty, upon oath to serve her, and would so stand, God willing, come what might; as Malpas was well assured, who yet had passed his word I was within an hand's breadth of going free; it only stayed upon my word. Then why should I not deal with another so, allowing the honour due to a like steadfastness with my own? My uncle would doubtless be let go free too; or perhaps he was not even so much as come into jeopardy. I had no suspicion but that he was still at large.... Indeed it was very probable.
All this while I sat still, musing upon that I should say, and Malpas stood above me, expecting it. More than once I tried to speak, and Heaven forgive me as I believe, had I spoken then, I should have sent my uncle to his death; but somehow the words would not come. The sophistry was too palpable; the truth too black a lie. I met my captor's eyes.
"If I tell you where my uncle is at this moment concealed," said I, "will you let me go free?"
Snatching at the apparent advantage: "I add it to the conditions of your safety that you do so," he replied swiftly.
"Then you have lost your game," said I, and getting up, I kicked the chair aside and watched his baffled face of rage. "For if you know not that, neither do you know where Idonia is, as you made pretence to do."
"You cursed trickster!" he swore, his voice shaking with an uncontrolled passion; "petty cheat and viper! So, that is it to be! Ay, white face, laugh that you have run me these lengths; I should have known you. 'Sdeath, ye be true Cleeves, uncle and nephew, unprofitable knaves both! Well, I have done my part, but there's more to follow yet and soon enough, uncle and nephew! Ah! and who shall be Idonia's guardian then, when you lie stark? ... Never a word of truth he gave me, that old fox, but kept me still dangling. 'He could not promise me her hand, forsooth, but yet he liked me. She would come to like me too, in time, no doubt; but I must have patience.' Patience—had he such patience to wait when her mother lived, or did he fob off Miles Avenon her father upon that fool's adventure wherein he was presently slain, as Uriah was slain, Bathsheba's man? Ho! a prosperous sleek lover, I warrant you, and a laugher too, until his Margaret died.... I knew that Miles, and though I was but a child when he went away, I remember the pride he had in his pretty frail wife and his joy of Idonia, for she was his proper child, though Cleeve named himself her guardian, for her mother's sake.
"It was that made him terrible, that death of Margaret, and few men dared go near him. But the fit passed. There have been Margarets enow since, in good sooth! though he still held by the child. Perdition! but there needs money to that game, a store, and he was glad of our help at first, and for many a long day after. It was to be fair sharing in all, and whiles I think he parted to the hair. Even to your coming I trusted him, and spied upon you as he bade me, being content to take the brunt, while he lay close. 'Twas then I claimed the maid as a right, but he shook his grey sleek head and paltered. Patience! that was the word, then. But it's another word now, Master Denis, for you and for him. Ay, and another word for Idonia Avenon...."
I was amazed hearing him talk so wild, whom I had thought tutored to a perfect secrecy; but his blood was up at my catching him in that baseness of lying, besides that he was disappointed of the hope I had extended and withdrawn, of setting him upon my uncle, whose treachery in their plot he so evidently feared. Why he did not spring upon me there and then with his knife I did not understand, though it was likely he reserved me a morsel to fling amongst his foul co-partners in this business, and a grateful sacrifice.
"Enough of this chat," said I, at length, "for I well perceive your purpose both toward me and my uncle. But I warn you for the last time I shall that 'tis safest you suffer me, Her Majesty's servant, to go hence free."
"It is refused," he replied curtly, and turning upon his heel, strode out of the room and into the street.
Seeing him gone thus, without mounting any especial guard upon me, I bethought me to examine the defences with my own eyes, and therefore followed him leisurely to the door. A stout sea-faring man was there already, his arms crossed, blocking it. I saw the gleam of a cutlass end beneath his rough jacket.
"Be thou the host of this tavern?" he inquired, with a grin.
Being unconcerned in his needs, I made no answer, and returned to my room. The windows, which were all unglazed, were strongly barred, and I at once saw useless to be attempted. Passing then to the hind part of the house I noted a little postern door that seemed to give onto a sort of jetty or wharf, the inn standing upon the riverside as I have already said; but when I approached it, there was the neat tapster that had brought my meal whistling some catch of a sea song, and polishing of a great arquebus.
"Ho! come not too nearly, master," he sang out, when he saw me, "for these pieces be tickle things, a murrain of 'em! And I not comprehending the least of the machine, it may chance shoot off unawares."
Perceiving that he had his finger pressed to the snaphance, and the barrel turned my way, I judged it expedient to leave Mr. Jocelin to his polishing and retire. Every avenue then was guarded, as I had looked it should be, and so, without any particular design, I walked slowly up the narrow, rotten stair into the chambers aloft. I went into three or four, all vacant and ungarnished by any piece of furniture or hanging, which meant sorry enough entertainment in a place purporting to be an inn, thought I, though proper enough to a prison.
But scarce had I gone forth into the gallery again, when I thought I heard a sound that proceeded from a chamber I had not till then observed, in a retired and somewhat darksome corner beyond the stairs. I held my breath to listen, and the little rustling noise beginning again after a space, I went directly to the door and opened it.
Mistress Avenon sat within, in a nook by the window, tearing a paper she had in her hands.
"Idonia!" I cried, and running forward had her in my arms and her hot face close against mine. "My bird," said I—for so she seemed as a dainty bird caught in an iron trap—"my bird, who hath brought you into this infamous place?"
She leant back a little from my shoulder, yet without loosing me, and looked up into my eyes with such a deal of honest, sweet pleasure to see me there, that I had to pretermit my anxiety some while, and indeed had near lost it by the time I renewed my question.
"Why infamous?" inquired Idonia in her turn, "save that I knew not you were here too. But now it is certainly not infamous, though something lacking of luxuries, and a thought slack in the attendance they bestow upon guests!"
"You must not misconstrue my insistence," I said, "and you will not, when you shall have heard all I have to tell you. But for the first, where is Mr. Skene?"
"He brought me here early last night," said she, but with a little of reproach in her voice that I knew meant I wasted good time idly.
"And whither is he gone?"
"Do you desire he should be present, then?" asked Idonia, very innocently.
"No, but I would warn him if I could," I replied gravely, and so told her everything as it had befallen me.
"Always that Malpas!" whispered the maid, and trembled so I had to clasp her tight to me.
"He does not know you are here, that is clear," I said, as indeed it was manifest to both of us.
"My guardian hath used this place often ere this," said Idonia, "and I suppose none thought to prate of what happened ordinarily."
"Perhaps he has left you to seek out Malpas," I conjectured, and at this she nodded.
"They have had some design in hand together this great while, of which I know nothing."
I did not tell her that I knew it well enough, and was even commissioned to prevent it, but said—
"Wherever he hath gone, Malpas hath certainly gone to seek him; but he must not be found."
"You owe him small thanks," whispered Idonia, her head low down, "and if this intends a danger to you..."
I did not suffer her to finish, but asked whether she were well enough acquainted with the house to know of any means of egress from it, besides the doors that were so straitly watched. She thought a great while before she replied how, once, it might be eight years since, she being lodged there, she had gone upon some occasion into the cellars, and remembered to have noted that the window which lighted it was a sort of grate within the river wall and was even then decayed and corrupted by the salt water, so that by this time it should, she thought, be easily broken through.
"The tide is out," said I, "so that if I may but get through, there is the dry bank above the pirates' gallows to go by; and after, the rest should be plain enough." Which gallows I spoke of (now all rotten) yet stood in the ooze to be flooded at high tide, it having been formerly used against such pirates and river thieves as were caught and there hanged, until, the tide rising, they were drowned.
In reply to my further questionings, she said that Skene was to be sought amidst the streets about the Tower Royal, which was where I had gone that day I lost my way in the fog, when Idonia found me, and, indeed, was no great distance from Chequer Lane.
"When you shall have found him, or however it fall out, you will return to me, dear heart?" said Idonia, who was now weeping so bitterly that I could scarce keep hold of my resolution to be gone. But I did so at length, and, going downstairs to the room I had left, found it to my delight still free. Nigh choked with the beating of my heart, I soon discovered the stone steps that led down to the cellars, which were a narrow passage-room lit with a swinging lantern, and having three or four locked doors of other vaults (used, I supposed, for storage of wines and such-like) to the right and left of it. But in the river-wall, when I looked, I could perceive no grid nor aperture of such sort as Idonia had spoken, and for some moments remained as one lost, for mere disappointment. However, recovering myself a little, I felt along the whole, length of the wall, high and low, until to my infinite pleasure my hand struck upon a new oaken door, bolted with a great bolt that I slid back without the least noise. For the door itself, I clearly perceived, it had been found necessary to put it in place of the old, decayed grid, and 'twas sure as provident a repairing as any it hath been my fortune to light on!
Well, I think it stands not upon me to relate the several stages of my prison-breaking, nor of my lurking along the river-bank under the very eyes of my warders into safety; though I confess that more than once my back burnt hot with the thought of the little peering tapster and of that great arquebus he so diligently polished.
The events which succeeded upon my escape from the Fair Haven of Wapping have come to assume in my mind a significance and singular quality of completeness that hath, therefore, moved me to bestow upon them the name of the "Adventure of the Chinese Jar;" for, detached from every circumstance, there yet stands out, clear and hard against my background of memory, that odd, fantastic shape of a blue-painted jar, with its dragon-guarded lid, its flowered panels, and a haunting remnant scent of the spices it had once enclosed.
I left the ooze and filthy slime of the river-bank when I had gone some furlong or so, and, turning inland up a row of squalid cabins, got at length into the Minories, and entered through the wall by Aldgate. Methought that some of the guard I encountered about the gatehouse regarded me with looks of surprise and ill-will, which, indeed, the disorderliness of my clothing necessarily invited, as well, perhaps, as a no very restrained gait and behaviour, for I was in a fever to be forward upon my errand, and dreaded the least hindrance therein. However, none accosting me, I passed by into the City, and was already proceeding at a great rate towards Tower Royal, when I came upon a group of persons that were talking eagerly and in loud voices, so that I could not but hear a part of their discourse.
"He will certainly be apprehended before nightfall," said one, a merchant by his habit; "so close a watch do they keep in these days upon all suspected malefactors."
"I know not the man by either the names he goeth by; neither Skene nor Cleeve," said another.
"It is not likely you should," said the first, with a twinkle of his grey eyes, "that are inquest-man of this wardmote, and brother to a canon."
I stepped close to the man had spoken last, and, doffing my cap, said: "Sir, I am but just arrived in this town, but overhearing something of that hath been made mention of betwixt you, I imagined that I heard the name of one Cleeve in question."
"You did," said the merchant; "Cleeve or Skene, for 'tis all one. But, why? Do you know the fellow?"
"It is my own name," I replied modestly; "at least, Cleeve is, and so if you were inquiring after me, I am here to serve you."
A great laughter moved the whole party at my seeming ingenuousness, and the merchant replied—
"No, no, honest Mr. Cleeve; go your ways and keep your innocence. But this other Cleeve is one grown old in treachery; a harbourer of Jesuits and Spanish spies, against whom a writ runs for his immediate attachment, and upon whose crafty head there is a price set."
"Is he escaped away then?" said I.
"He hath no settled habitation," replied one that held a paper in his hands, upon which he continually looked, "but was last seen at a certain great ruined house over against the Galley Quay, from which he is now fled, no man knows whither. But from manifest evidence it appeareth he is engaged in deep and secret designs against the State, in which moreover he works not singly."
"Now, I marvel how, if his abode were so positively known and his conduct anyways dubious, he came to be allowed such freedom to go in and out, as the sequel shows was done," I returned with some study of resentment.
"Why, as to that, it is but since he is gone that the case is proved against him; for upon a search which was then made of all the chambers of that house, there was discovered a very nest of those he was in treaty with, whose names be here set down, and themselves are brought to-day before the Council to be examined." He handed me the paper as he spoke, wherein I read the list of them. There were three Spanish men of high-sounding titles, and two or three alleged to be malignant Papists. Here was answer enough to Master Malpas, I thought, and with a vengeance! I returned the paper, and presently saluting, took my leave.
Very full of thought, I went forward until I had come into that web of mean streets I spoke of, below Tower Royal, which was where Idonia had said her guardian should probably be found. But although I spent the greater part of the afternoon in that quarter, I saw him not, nor any I dared trust, to inquire after him. Indeed, the longer I stayed, the more ill-considered and absurd did my precipitancy to this business appear, so that at last I gave it over altogether, and being by then got as far as to the Three Cranes Wharf, I stood idly there a great while, watching the wharfingers at their task of ordering the heavy goods that were there piled up and stored. Against the wharf lay a barge or lighter moored, which I perceived had but lately discharged the cargo of some great galley that rested below bridge in the fairway.
There is ever something that fascinates a man in this his own careless regarding of other men at work; and I had already stayed upon the quay no small while, before I bethought myself to return; though, when I had so determined, it came upon me that 'twas one thing to get out of prison (I mean mine Inn), but altogether a different matter to get in again, and so fell to considering whether I should make my entrance boldly by the ordinary door, or whether creep in after nightfall, by the vent in the cellar-wall I had escaped by.
Now I had not altogether decided this matter, when I found myself in that steep little lane I had inadvertently descended so many months since in the fog, of which the houses upon both sides stood almost all of them closed up and shuttered as though (to repeat what I then said) the place had been visited by the plague; which deathlike and stealthy character it yet maintained. There was nobody, man nor child, in the street as I slowly mounted it, a strange sense of abhorrence and foreboding gathering about my heart: while to this distress of my mind was now added the annoyance of a smart squall of rain and wind, that, suddenly breaking, had soon wetted me through, but for my crouching close beneath the shallow porch of a door upon the right hand, where I availed myself of such shelter as it afforded.
I had stood so about a quarter of an hour, as I suppose, and was listening to a long roll of thunder that seemed to shake the very foundations of these palsied buildings when, as if answering to the call of the storm, there arose within the house behind me a cry so agonized, so hopeless, and withal so horribly inhuman, as even now my hair stirs to remember it. To avoid this cursed spot and begone was my involuntary and half-acted purpose, checked, however, on the instant by a blinding flash of lightning that seared my very eyes, while my brain seemed all shattered in by the accompanying peal. Painfully wrought upon as I have ever been by any loudness of sound, it was some moments before I could recover myself, and indeed I was still reeling from the shock, when the door was flung wide and the figure of a man outlandishly clothed, and of a yellowness of skin such as I had never before seen, hurried by me into the midst of the road, where it fell quash in the kennel. The man was dead. It was evident from the mere sight of him, and from the formless clutter of gaudy rags he was; I turned about, and within the gap of the door ere it was shut-to, I saw the delicate, handsome features of my uncle, Botolph Cleeve.
How the storm went thereafter I know not, but I know that for a full half-hour I stood wrenching at the door that callous fiend had locked in my face, but could nowise move it. Then, with a thrill of disgust, I went to the dead outcast, where he lay all wet and smirched, and drew from between his shoulders the long thin knife that was stuck there to the haft. This I cleaned and put up in my jerkin. It was my only weapon. The body was of a man stout and of great strength, though not tall, and as well by the cast of his features as by his clothing I knew him for one of them they name Cataians, or Chinese, that perhaps had been led to this inhospitable asylum by rascally allurements of adventurers upon some Eastward voyage; as I had once seen two Indians, that sat huddled on the ground in the Exchange, with a ring of laughing apprentices about them, and of whom I heard it said that they were princes in their own land. But by what marches of fate this poor Chinese had been defeated, and sent down from his home in the East to death in our inexorable London, I could by no means conjecture; nor yet could I determine (which imported me more) what course it were fittest I should herein follow. Howbeit, a certain strange faintness then assailing me, partly from sheer hunger, but more by reason of the horror of this murder, I saw my dilemma settled for that while; and so, staggering forth of the lane into Royal Street, where is a good tavern, I there made shift to eat, but principally drank, until I had rid myself at least of the extremity of distress into which I had fallen.
In that place I stayed a good hour, there being a merry company come together of players and other (for which I was indeed glad, and it cheered me more than all else), when the day beginning to fail, the guests departed their several ways, and I also, upon my own.
"The watch will certainly have been notified by this time," I said to myself, "for 'tis impossible that a dead body should lie so long in the streets unperceived. Well, my uncle will have got hence scot-free, as he is accustomed to do in despite of all justice, and of writs of attachment, or of black Malpas either; which saveth my conscience a toll, and so I hope there's an end of my dealings with him."
Nevertheless I could not refrain from going part way down the hill again, to see whether the body were indeed removed. And so it was, as I had looked that it should be; though it occasioned me some surprise to note that the door of the house now stood wide, while a little within the threshold two other Chinese hung wailing and wringing their hands in the most abject misery.
Excited at this opportunity to learn the cause of the outrage I had been so close a witness to, I went over to the men, and accosting them, demanded whether the dead man were their friend; but to my question they replied by never a word, at least not in English, but continued to lament as before. I then made signs that I knew all that had befallen, and at that they ceased, and soon nodded, making eager signs that I should tell them more; whereupon I drew forth the knife from my bosom and handed it to the man I stood closest to, who received it with an exclamation of fury, passing it to the other with the one significant word—Skene! The other Chinese now came forward, and in the intense hatred that twisted his yellow face, I read the recompense that should be meted out to the murderer if ever they two should meet. "Skene," he repeated twice or thrice, tapping his long fingers upon the blade; and then with a gesture, pointing inward to the house, whispered, "Here—house;" by which I understood that this was a favourite lurking-place of my uncle's, who no doubt hoped, upon any domiciliary inquisition, to divert the vigilance of the officers by making parade of these uncouth strangers as alone inhabiting there; or in the last event, perhaps, intended to disguise himself in their clothing, and so steal off. I could not but admire the ingenuity of the man, for all my disgust of his countless villainies.
Meanwhile, the two Chinese were engaged upon a ceremony that at first I could not come by the meaning of, though I soon perceived it to be a solemn vow they made upon the dagger, to avenge their dead comrade. Which concluded, they gave me back my knife, and seemed to wait my further direction. All passion had left their faces, that now appeared serene and patient, as I think the features of those of that nation do generally, so that it quite overtasks an observer to guess their mood, whether it be bloody or peaceable.
"Have you any English?" I asked after a pause, at which one shrunk up his shoulders as meaning he had not; but the other replied with such childlike boastfulness, "English—much—yes, yes—English," that I could not forbear laughing.
"Do you propose to return home by ship?" I asked slowly, and made a motion with my hands as of a ship sailing. But this neither seemed at all to comprehend.
"China—Cathay," said I, somewhat at a loss how to suggest my meaning, but immediately the one who had so much English, replied vehemently—
"Skene—yes, yes—kill!"
There could be no question then that it was to be revenge at all costs, for the other Chinese, taking up the word, cried out too: "Skene—kill," which he followed up with a peck of his own Romany cant that I made no pretence to attend. However, the upshot was that they stood upon the fulfilment of their vow, and fully expected I should direct them therein. Now, that I was equally determined I would not; for little as I cared how it should go with my uncle Botolph, I had no stomach to set two bloodthirsty strangers at his throat, to dispatch him in cold blood. So, turning to my interpreter, I bade him in the simplest terms I might find, to have a care what he did, for that we lived under a just and peace-loving Queen, whose constables and guards were sworn to prevent such private revenges as they planned; in the which if they proceeded, they would themselves certainly be brought into confinement. But in truth I might have spared my breath, for I saw that no intelligence of my warning reached them, though they had evidently strained their apprehensions to the limit to receive it.
"Skene—kill," they said, when I had done, and without more ado went into one of the rooms where they kept their stuff, and took each of them a small curved sword with a marvellous long haft, which, though they made no pretence to conceal them from me, they carefully hid within the folds of their loose silken coats.
"This must be thwarted," I said to myself, and debated how it should best be done. At length I hit on a plan that promised, I thought, fairly, which was that I should contrive to divide their forces; sending forth him that had no word of our language by himself, one way, to search (and lose himself amidst) the streets thereabout; but as to the other that was perhaps the more dangerous by reason of his capacity to put such sloven-mumbled questions as might nevertheless lead to his discovering Botolph Cleeve (though it was indeed hardly possible): that I should take him with me as far as to Wapping, where I might easily fob him off with any tidings of Skene I should profess then to gather; and so be rid of him.
It needed no small skill of mine to put the case before them in such sort as they should not guess the motive, but rather should approve the advantage, of my design; and in the result I brought them to my view. By this time it was perfectly dark without, though the room where we remained was faintly illumined by a little bronze lamp fashioned like a beast with a fish's tail, that one of the men had already lit. By the uncertain light it afforded, I gazed in admiration of the scene, so dim and vague, yet so deeply charged with purpose. We had left conversing together, for the two men had things to do that needed no speech to forward them. It was manifest that they would not return to the house, and therefore they applied themselves silently to the selection of such articles as seemed at once necessary and portable. So engaged, they moved about the shadowed chamber, their silken dresses slightly rustling, and their yellow, peering faces now and again bent towards the lamp, as they examined some piece of worth that they would carry away: caskets of sweet-smelling wood, or trinkets of silver, or else some mere idle toy they had bought in an English shop, not of a groat's worth but by them infinitely prized. What a satire was in this their so contemptible a fardel, who would lightly toss away another man's dear life! Amongst the many treasures they thus overlooked, and either kept or rejected, was a jar of about fifteen or eighteen inches height, six-sided, and very gay with painted devices of flowers and leaves; and upon this jar one of the Chinese dwelt long in doubt, as it seemed, whether it should be saved, for it was something cumbersome, although not of any groat burden. However he took it up at last with the rest, or rather exchanged it for some other trifles that might be of less value, and so ended his preparation.
"Let us begone," said I, and holding open the door, signed to the one of them to leave the house, which he did; and after, we, that is the man with the jar and I, left it likewise, directing our course towards Wapping and the Fair Haven Inn.
For a considerable time we trudged along together in this way through the deserted streets; I already more than a little weary of an enterprise in which I had, as it were, enlisted under force and without reason. The tumult of the storm, the murder, the strangeness of the habits and Eastern features of the two men, the disability to converse in a common tongue, by which one seemed to be pleading with the masked presences of some horrid dream, all these circumstances combined to deject my mind to a degree I have never since experienced; and I deplored this new plan for my uncle's safety more even than I did the one upon which I had set forth. I stole a glance or two at my companion, but wrapped in his placid reserve he never so much as raised his dull eyes to mine, nor showed himself scarce aware of my presence, save by the precision with which he paced by my side. Once and again he would shift the weight of the Chinese jar he carried in the slack of his coat, or finger the hilt of his sword.
As we approached near to the gate in the City wall, I became suddenly apprehensive of the danger we ran into, and cast about in my mind how to avoid the guard that, howsoever in ordinary times one might look to be passed through without much question, yet now in these times of suspicion would be sure to detain so irregular a pair as we that were thus about to present ourselves. Accordingly I turned off suddenly upon the right hand towards the river, and coming to one of the quays (I think Smart's Quay), was lucky enough to find a skiff there moored, which I loosed, and motioning the Chinese to get in, followed him and pushed off. The tide was again on the ebb, having passed its height about an hour since, and so without use of oars we drifted easily down stream, until in a pretty short while we got to Wapping, where I ran the boat ashore and leapt out. I could see the Fair Haven about a hundred paces ahead, and, although there was no light in Idonia's chamber, as in precaution she had doubtless left it dark, yet could I see the dim square of the window frame, and pleased myself with the hope that she was yet waking, and thought upon me.
A little path of turfs laid upon the piles that here restrain the river-course led right forward to the Inn, and trusting to the security which had so far attended us, I perhaps diminished something of the wariness I should have used; but at all events, we had gone a bare score of paces when I stumbled upon a man that lay crouched in the rank grass of the turfs. Recovering myself speedily, for I had not quite fallen, I accosted him angrily, who, without replying, but yet obstructing the narrow path so that I could not get past him, drew forth a lantern he held concealed in his cloak, and lifting it high, regarded the pair of us, but me especially, closely.
"One at a time is better than neither," he said coolly, and I heard his blade grate in the scabbard.
But even as he fetched it forth, the Chinese had his crooked short sword out, and leaping past me with the swiftness of a cat, brought our opponent down. Against the starry sky I could see his arm work forward and back, as he plunged in and withdrew the steel. The lantern rolled from the dead man's hand, but, not immediately extinguished, threw exaggerated shadows of the grass-bents along the path.
Horrified at the fury of his onslaught, I flung myself upon the grovelling heathen, crying out—
"This is not your man, you fool! This is not Skene."
"No, my nephew," he replied quietly enough and in perfect English, "but it is that black thief, Malpas, that would have done the same for me." And without awaiting my reply, he took up the Chinese jar, which in the assault he had necessarily relinquished, and having carefully wiped it, went whistling softly down the causeway to the silent Inn.
My father once, reading in a favourite philosopher, paused with his finger on a certain passage to ask me what I made of the sense of that he should read; and so continuing his lecture aloud, rehearsed some score of good reasons there set down, why a man should do virtuously; but that, either way, the gods ruled the event. When he had done I asked him in my turn whether the whole book were in that kind, to which he answered that such was indeed the tenour of it, though there were yet other reasons given besides those he had read. But while I was yet considering of my answer, he intercepted it, himself replying for me.
"You think there are too many reasons," said he smiling, "and that if these the author calls gods take occasion to correct our errors we may do as we please; but that if they do not so, then must we do as we can."
Then stroking down his beard with his hand, he bade me do virtuously, at least so long as I was in any doubt about the gods; "which," said he, "is a question only to be settled in that manner."
How many times since then I had recalled my father's grave and tolerant irony, I know not, but it was not often; nor certainly had it ever returned upon me with so compelling an insistency as now, while I still stared after his evil-hearted brother, that murderer of the man at my feet.
"If the gods rule the event out of this business," I thought, "how will it go with thee, my uncle?" So easy is it to apply to another the precepts were meant for ourselves! And truly, when I contrasted my own qualities with Mr. Botolph Cleeve's, I came near to forgiving him, so eminently did he make my own uprightness to appear.
Now, very greatly though I desired Idonia should know of my safe return, I yet could not bring myself to leave Malpas thus exposed and subject to every chance indignity by the wayside, nor was I willing to carry him openly to the Inn or any house at hand; so that, after some while's reflection, I decided to lay him in the boat I had come down by, covering his face with the sailcloth, and after, to launch him out into the ebbing stream. The night was clear above, the thunder having wholly passed; but from a mounting wrack of cloud that peered above the edges of the sky and a chill light wind athwart the river, I judged we should have rain before morning, and so hastened to be done with my task (which unspeakably revolted me) and get into shelter against the oncoming tempest. Notwithstanding 'twas the better part of an hour ere I had completed these hasty and suspicious rites, and had shoved away the skiff with its gaunt recumbent passenger outward (or was it homeward?) bound.
These pious offices done, I turned with a sigh from the black hurrying water, and approached near to the Inn. I was surprised to see that a light now shone in Idonia's chamber, and from the shadows that now and then traversed it, I understood that she was not yet retired to rest. How then I might direct her attention to me without at the same time attracting such attention of others as I might well enough spare, I very earnestly debated; but at length, minding myself of the knife I had got from the dead Chinese, I drew it forth; and having torn off a great burdock leaf where it grew by the bank, pricked with the knife's point the one word Denis (sufficient for my purpose, I thought), and running the blade through the midst of the leaf, poised, and let fly with it at the window. It struck the sill fairly, and hung quivering. My heart stood still during the interval that succeeded, but when presently that sweet small head appeared, all dark against the glory of her hair, it leapt to my very throat for excess of joy.
"Idonia," I whispered hoarsely, and came right beneath her window as I spoke her name; "Idonia, I have come back."
"Hush, dear," she besought me, and leaned forth from the sill, so that a strand or two of her hair hung down and touched the letters of my name in the leaf. "Do not speak again.... Oh, I have been waiting for you, Denis! But you are come; I can see your face. I can see your eyes..."
"You speak as if you feared something," I replied, in disregard of her warning. "Are you threatened with any danger?"
"No," she said; "at least I do not comprehend what may be dangers here. For it is a house of mystery. My guardian has but now left me. He is disguised: I cried out when I saw him.... Oh, Denis, I am horribly afraid here.... It is all so silent, and yet I know the place is full of men."
I hesitated no longer.
"Is there anything by which you can make a rope?" I asked, "any sheet from your bed, or clothing?"
She caught at my intention.
"Yes, yes," she murmured, nodding. "There is my cloak. I will tear it."
"They may hear the sound of the tearing," I said. "Do not move from the window." And so, returning to the little slip or inlet whence I had sent down the boat, I found the oars which I had removed from it, and carried them with me to the house. Idonia could just touch the blade of one with extended fingers when I held it out at arm's length.
"It is too short," said Idonia, with a pitiful catch in her voice.
I bade her keep her heart up, and, unclasping my belt, laced the two oars tightly together where they were frayed hollow by the thole. The joined staff they made reached high enough now, and without awaiting my instruction Idonia caught it to her (I holding it upright) and swung herself lightly to the ground.
"Free, oh free!" came her cry of exultation, and a moment after we held each other closely in a long embrace. Her lips were fire.
"Oh, Denis, Denis, do not let me go, nor never leave you," she said, and I (witless braggart) swore that nought upon earth should sever us.
I led her up the turf path, sheltering her from the rain that had already begun to fall thickly. My thoughts were all astray and I had no plan of any sort, but still to have my arm about her, and feel her yielding to my touch, as spent with love and weary with the pride of so much given.
A man must feel humbled by the magnitude of that he asks of a maid, but all I could say was, brokenly: "I will try to be worthy, sweetheart." Poor words, but she thanked me for them joyfully. She besought me to let her rest soon, and we sat down by a weather-twisted pile at the water's edge, for I could not run into the jeopardy that might lurk amid the inhospitable dark houses of this place, where everything oppressed with a sense of evil. My cloak kept off the worst of the rain, but, as the rising wind swept across the river, Idonia shivered with the cold. Nevertheless she lost not a whit of her gaiety, which indeed seemed to increase with her distress, and she would laugh more loudly than I thought was altogether safe at some odd construction put upon my remonstrance in her wayward speech. I could not long disguise from myself her condition of fever, which at the same time I knew not how to alleviate; but more than once I caught myself wishing I had left her that night at the Inn, where, for all her fears, she had not been any way molested, nor, I now thought, would likely have been, her guardian having returned, and Malpas beyond the power to annoy her further.
A little later, and quite suddenly, she relaxed her extravagant hilarity, and fell into a moodiness equally to be pitied. She wept a deal then, and seemed to have got a strange perception of the malignant influences that surrounded us. The sound of the wind terrified her, and she would shrink down whispering that something tugged at her cloak. I did what I could to soothe and comfort her, but she only shook her head, or pressed my fingers with her hot hand.
But the worst was when, by some trick of the brain, she thought herself back in the Inn-room again, when Cleeve had entered in his horrid uncouth dress, and with his yellow face and hands.
"He said he was my guardian," she ran on, in a dull low voice, "but I knew he was no one of this world. He said it was a foreign habit he had filched from a dead man he had been enforced to kill, and that he used it to escape detection of the watch. Ah! it is all escaping with us—escaping and killing! I knew he had some secret lurking-place near the river; he has often said so, and that he went disguised when any great danger threatened. The watch ... and yet he used to laugh at it; but lately he has come to fear arrest: why is it? and so he killed an innocent man and took his coat to save himself.... His eyes, when he told me he had been waylaid at last, and almost at the Inn door! but he killed that man too, he said: he hindering him. Christ! how his eyes do sift you....
"These jewels in the jar, now, I know they have all been worn by men he has killed. I remember them perfectly well. There is the great cross the Spaniard wore; and these rings. I wonder when it was you murdered him. He was a fair-spoken gentleman, and I thought you were friends...
"I forgot. This is you, Denis, not he I call my guardian. I do not think he altogether trusts me any longer, although he gave me the jar to keep ... and I have left it behind in the Inn. It was worth a king's ransom, he said, and ordered me to keep it by me until he should have finished a certain work he had below, that would not take him long. I have left it, and he will be angry ... I fear him, Denis. He is calm as death when he is angry....
"And yet he can laugh too. He laughed when he told me of the Chinese he killed, and how he dared his fellow to betray him. Oh, he made a merry tale of it, and of his forcing the poor wretch to simulate a desire to take vengeance upon a man that had fled—when it was he, the murderer himself, remained behind! Yes, and he laughed at you, Denis, until my blood burnt me ... I shall never forget his wrinkled heathen face as he laughed."
It may appear an incredible motion of my mind, but I could have cried out for joy at a diversion which, then befalling, served to turn Idonia from these crazed memories; albeit the cause was one properly, and at another time wholly, to be feared. For chancing to lift my eyes to one of the houses that be here builded by the water's edge, and serve doubtless for the storage of marine stores and tackle, I saw a man, and after, another, and then a whole posse of men armed with cuirass and halberd, that advanced directly towards us. Idonia saw them almost at the same moment, and seeming to recover her wits in the suddenness of the danger, she broke off, and turned to me with a swift glance of inquiry.
"Quick," I whispered; "down by the piles to the beach," and helped by the darkness of the night we scrambled off the path on to the ribbon of wet bank beneath it, where we crouched, perfectly concealed from the soldiers.
"Halt!" cried a voice above our heads, and the trampling footsteps ceased. "We be thirty men strong, and none too many for this business. Anthony, take you twelve and post them before the door. Six men go with Will Huet; see that none escape by the windows. There is a light burns at one yet. I will take the complement and go within. Now mark me well: our warrant is principally to the capture of Skene, alias Cleeve, and one Guido Malpas, that was of the Earl of Pembroke's household, but since discharged. He is a tall black man and a dangerous. It standeth upon us to apprehend the whole sort that here congregate together. They will make resistance and you will defend yourselves, but for the rest I have it in my authority that no blood be wasted needlessly. A live captive may prove useful; a dead villain is nothing worth. The password is At last. Set on."
Idonia had half risen from her place; she watched the retreating men as they filed along towards the Inn.
"I must warn him," she cried impetuously, and had clambered on to the turf path ere I could let her.
"What madness is this?" I urged, aghast. "You would yourself be arrested or ever you could get sight of that devil."
"Devil or no," she panted, while she struggled to unclasp my restraining arms, "devil or no, he is my guardian. Denis, I cannot stand by idle and see him taken."
"Sweetheart," I entreated her, "you can do nought, indeed. They be all armed men..."
"Hinder me no more!"
"Idonia!"
"Oh, it is cowardly, cowardly!"
"Listen," I said, appealing.
"Ah, Denis, let me not thus, or you will kill me.... See! they are close to the house already. A little while and..." Her voice rose to a scream of absolute terror that I vainly sought to stifle against my heart. She flung her head back; her hair, shaken from the filet and caught by the wind, streamed betwixt us like a cloud. We stood long thus.
"Loose my wrists," she whispered, "or I shall grow to hate you, Denis!" and methought there went a sort of awe with the words. I let her go, when suddenly, with a sob, she dropped down unresisting into my arms.
I knew she had spoken under the stress of her disorder, but none the less her words hurt me like a lash. It had revolted me to use my strength upon her, although in love, and to hold her so straitly against her will, who but a moment before had been leaning in free confidence beside me. The wind and rain were now increased to such a pitch as I have scarce known: the dim bulk of the Inn hung in a mist of swinging vapour, through which the glimmer of the one light aloft, shining, touched the edges of the slanted pikes.
Idonia was plucking weakly at my sleeve. Her eyes were pitifully big. "You look distressed, Denis," she said, in a crazed dull voice. "Why do you look so stern and sad? We are together.... I forget how I got away, but that does not matter now, does it? Some one was holding me by the wrist and hurting me. I cried out, and you came. You always come when they would be hurting me.... It is very cold," she shivered, and drew down more closely within my arms; all wet as her cheek was, its fever heat burnt through to my bosom.
"You cannot walk," I said: "I will carry you." But all the while I was thinking: "Is her reason gone?"
"Whither, Denis? To the Inn? It would be warm there, out of the wind."
"God forbid!" I answered her.
"Ah! no ... I remember now. He is there.... His yellow face, and his eyes when he gave me the jar to keep! ... Denis, Denis, Denis..."
And so, without any further effort to beat off the oppression in her brain and blood, she fell away into a long swoon: so long, indeed, that I had almost despaired of reviving her, when I bethought me of the Inn, to which she had hoped I was about to bear her. There would be strong cordial wine in the vault, I knew; and a cordial she needed instantly. I might quickly go and return again with the wine—if the vent were but open.
The Inn was scarce ten score paces distant. There was some risk, perhaps, but not great: less, surely, than I took, kneeling helpless beside her in the bitter storm. I bent over her and kissed her passionately on her eyes and lips and brow; and then I hastened away.
Had I known the upshot then, I would rather have lost my right hand than leave her; but that was in God's mercy hid....
To speak my bottom thought, I had hardly dared to hope that the shutter were still unhasped: but yet it was, and yielded easily to my touch. I felt a strange tightening of the throat as I pushed it back and leapt astride the sill. The vault below me was wholly dark. Without more ado I swung myself in. I missed my footing, fell, and lay stunned.
How long a while elapsed ere I recovered consciousness I know not, nor yet how long I remained in that intermediate state where things outward be still denied for real. A confusion of sounds assailed my aching brain, from which I recked not to gather any purpose or tendency. But at length, my head having somewhat cleared, I recalled my situation, where I was in the narrow passage-vault; and soon perceived that the sounds I had heard were those of men in earnest conference within one of the vaults adjacent, that had formerly been barred. The lamp which had lighted the passage had been removed, and from the pale ray that issued from the chink of the door, I saw it was now used for their purposes who spoke together beyond.
Without, the storm raged very furiously, so that there were times when I could hear nought else; but otherwhiles, whatever snatches of debate I overheard they went always to the continuous deep second of the wind. Some instinct of security held me silent, and after a little I dragged myself painfully along the stone floor, until I had my ear at the chink. The halberdiers were certainly not of the party; they had either not yet entered, or else had come and, failing to discover these men's place of concealment, had gone. A man was speaking; a jovial rough voice it was, interrupted now and again by careless laughter.
"You mind me of that tale of the two robbers," said the fellow, and I heard the clink of a cup set down, "that were engaged to set upon a certain Canon who should pass through the wood they lurked within. Now a passenger approaching, the one was for killing him out of hand, but his companion, being something scrupulous, would not, but bade him stay his hand until the man should sing.
"'I care not a jot how he sing,' says the Captain-robber.
"'Nay, by his singing I can tell in a trice whether he be a canon or no,' says the robber-squire.
"By this the passenger was got free of their ambush and into a place where two sheriff's men met him, at which he swore for mere joy.
"'I would he had sung,' says the squire.
"'Go to, buffle-head!' cries the other in a great rage, 'for by his swearing I know him for the Father Abbot himself, and better your squealing Canon, by how much noon-sun surpasses candle-light.'"
A round of hoarse merriment went to this shrewd apologue, of which I was yet to learn the application; but waited not long for it.
"So then, Cutts, 'hold to that you have,' is your advice, trow?"
"Ay, abbot or traitor, or barndoor fowl," replied Cutts (who was none other, I found, than he that had fled away from Dunster so long since); "'truss and lay by,' says the housewife."
"Well, you have me trussed already," said a mild voice, that for all its stillness overbore the murmurs which greeted Cutts his policy; and at the sound of it I caught in my breath, for 'twas my uncle that spoke, and by his words I knew they had him bound.
"I am not in case to do you harm, as a traitor, nor yet to benefit you as an abbot," my uncle proceeded very coolly. "But if it seem good to your worships to restore me my freedom, I have my proofs of innocence at hand to show to any that professes to doubt my faith."
"Too late for that, Master Skene," said another.
"Ay, Captain Spurrier, say you so?" returned my uncle, with a little menacing thrill in the sweet of his voice. "I had thought you that use the sea knew that one must luff and tack upon occasion. Delay is sometimes necessary, when haste would mean sudden shipwreck. Wherefore then do you say I speak too late?"
"Where is Malpas?" cried Captain Spurrier, and by the grating of a chair I perceived he had started to his feet.
"I had thought to meet him here," said my uncle. "Our design stays for him."
There was a dead pause at that, and I could not but admire the fortitude with which the baited man met and countered his opposites.
"He denounced you to this council, ere he went forth," said that subtle voice of the tavern-server, "and upon such positive testimony as we could not but allow it. If any lead this enterprise it is Malpas, and not thou, old fox."
"So thou use better terms, friend Jocelin," said Cleeve, "it shall not be amiss, nor yet if thou answer me why it was I returned freely hither amongst you all? Had I aught to gain from you? But rather had I not all to lose? There is a warrant out against me on the Queen's part; had I not done wisely, being so disguised as no man might know me, to avoid this suspected house? Yet I returned. Our ship is to sail to-morrow. Captain Spurrier is here in his place. What lacks of our engagement? What hath gone untowardly? Is it Malpas his failure? I ask of you in my turn, where is Malpas? Is it not strange that upon such a night he should not be here to bear his part, as I do, and Lucas Spurrier and Jocelin, and the rest? I say there is something I like not in this defection; but yet it fears me not. Let them that be faint-hearted stay away; this enterprise is not for cowards. Do you lack a leader? You trusted me once. Malpas trusted me, for all he cozened you into a belief that he did not so; but he is gone." He paused, and then with so strangely intense a malignancy as, despite my knowledge, I could scarce credit that 'twas assumed, he added: "Would that I knew whither Guido Malpas hath gone, and what to do!"
There was such clamour of contrary opinions, oaths and hot argument, when he had done, that I could not tell how it went, but gradually conceived the opinion that they believed him and were about to set him free, when, to my utter dismay, I heard the door at the stairhead open and heavy steps descend to the passage where I lay concealed. I crouched down on the instant, but dared not move from the place, nor indeed had the opportunity to retreat by one step, when the men were already in the room; but so dark it was I could not see their arms (for I doubted nothing of their being the halberdiers) nor their numbers that entered. They set the door open of the inner vault and trooped in upon the conspirators.
I saw them now. They were men that bore a body. The tide had set in again. The boat with its burden had returned upon the flood.