Chapter XIV: A Snare

A smart, sailor-like fellow, wearing an Oxford jacket and naval cap, and who seemed to be in authority, as he was overlooking the riggers, who were swaying up and fidding the topmast, now turned and gave him a glance of inquiry, as much as to say, 'Now, who are you, and what do you want?'

'This is the _Firefly_, Lord Cadbury's yacht?'

'It is.'

'You had an accident at sea--a collision; did anything else happen, were any lives lost?' asked Goring, impetuously and nervously.

'May I ask who is inquiring?' said the other.

'Captain Goring, of the Rifle Brigade.'

'Oh, a friend of his lordship's, I presume?'

'No, though I have met him. And you?'

'I am Tom Llanyard, at your service--his lordship's skipper, but in Her Majesty's service, like yourself, once. Lives were lost--some of the Ostend lubbers, who failed to hang out a light.'

'Any of the yacht?'

'Only Daisy Prune, Miss Cheyne's maid. Poor little girl, I did my best to save her, but a wave took her out of my grasp.'

Human grief is perhaps rather selfish; thus it was rather a relief to Goring when he heard that the poor human life lost was that of 'only Daisy Prune.'

'Miss Cheyne?'

'Is well, or was well when she left the yacht three weeks ago, but Sir Ranald was seriously injured by a swinging block. Step below, Captain Goring, and have a glass of wine. You look fagged.'

'Thanks,' replied Goring, who was giddy again with the mere revulsion of feeling, and felt an emotion of great thankfulness that he had so suddenly, so unexpectedly lighted upon the direct track of those he was in search of. Hitherto he had only looked forward to tidings--if any--of death, not life, and it might be of unhappiness.

He stepped into the handsome little saloon of the yacht, which had all the luxury and elegance of a sea-going boudoir.

'Pemmican,' cried Llanyard to the steward, 'glasses, some dry sherry, and a biscuit; too early for grog, I suppose, sir, as the sun is not over the foreyard. That was Miss Cheyne's cabin,' he added, indicating a little state-room, the occupation of which by her gave it an interest in his eyes and still more in the eyes of his listener; 'yes, sir, her cabin, and may be again, if she sails with us.'

'Ah!' replied Goring, thinking it might be unwise to exhibit too much interest; 'where is Lord Cadbury just now?'

'They are all at a hotel in Antwerp.'

'_All!_'

'Yes--Lord Cadbury, Sir Ranald, and Miss Cheyne.'

'What hotel?'

'Don't precisely know--I'm seldom on shore myself, and, when I do, never go beyond the Hôtel d'Angleterre on the quay, as I know neither French nor Flemish, and might get stranded. But Gaskins knows where they are, and he's on board just now.'

'Gaskins--who is he?'

'His lordship's groom and valet. Pemmican, pass the word forward for Gaskins--that is, if you want to know.'

'I wish to know very much,' said Goring, scarcely able to restrain his impatience.

Gaskins appeared, just as we saw him last, looking the perfection of an English groom, with a short, dark-grey surtout buttoned to the throat, spotless white tie and cords, long-bodied and short-legged, a straw in his mouth, a flower at his button-hole, and a sudden twinkle of intense cunning in his half-closed eyes, as he recognised Bevil Goring (whom he had often seen out with the hounds), and at once took in the whole situation. He had not been so long in Lord Cadbury's service as not to know what brought him to Antwerp.

'This gentleman wishes to know Lord Cadbury's hotel,' said Tom Llanyard.

Gaskins touched his cockaded hat, and affected to think. He paused and scratched his chin.

'Can't you say?' said Goring, impatiently.

'He has changed it, sir, lately; we are now at the--the "Red Lion" in the "Roo de Cos," I think it is called.'

'We, meaning also Sir Ranald and Miss Cheyne?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Thanks. And now, Mr. Llanyard, I shall bid you good morning,' and, shaking the sailor's hand, Goring went on deck.

'Here are your railway rugs, sir,' said Gaskins, following him thither up the companion-way.

Goring took the handle of the straps in his hand, nodded his thanks, and went on shore; but had he looked back he might have been puzzled to perceive the extraordinary grin that overspread the visage of Mr. Gaskins, and the manner in which that gentleman slapped his thigh and then his mouth, making thereby the loud sound of drawing a cork.

He then whispered something in the ear of a gendarme who was standing on the quay. The latter looked over the voiture, or cab, into which Goring was stepping, and, after eyeing Gaskins keenly, made an entry in his note-book.

The latter then jumped into a tramway 'bus, which he knew passed the hotel patronised by Lord Cadbury, to whom he betook himself in all haste to report matters, and that Captain Goring was in Antwerp!

Was it fate, good fortune, or 'Cupid, king of gods and men,' that had led him so kindly, so fortunately, to blunder at Harwich, and get on board the wrong boat, which eventually proved the _right_ one for him?

With his sense of exultation there was mingled a prayerful emotion of great thankfulness that Alison had escaped amid the horror of the catastrophe, and that she was, as Llanyard asserted, well.

To see her, to have speech with her, to carry her off, now that he could lay wealth at her feet, were the next things to achieve, and to that end it would never do to put up at the same hotel--that mentioned by Gaskins, the groom; and, truth to tell, he would have had some difficulty in doing that. So he selected another--the Hôtel du Parc--the name of which he gave the driver of the voiture in which he was conveyed. Oh, how lightly and happily beat his heart as he went!--past buildings and streets, all demolished now or being so for the construction of those vast new docks, which will be the boast of Antwerp, and by the Rue Reynders, to the open and spacious Place Verte, where the graceful statue of Rubens in cavalier costume stands, and the north side of which is almost entirely formed by the towering masses of the glorious cathedral.

She was living--thank heaven!--living and well! was his incessant thought. He had no longer her loss--her death--to sorrow for; but he had her deliverance to achieve. To wait a year--no! there was no need for that now; and he felt as if she were his already.

But they had all been some time in Antwerp; what if Cadbury's influence and her father's authority had prevailed, and--but--no! He thrust _that_ idea aside, and entered the dining-room of the Hôtel du Parc, while the waiter settled with the driver and took charge of his luggage.

'What accommodation did monsieur want?'

'Only a bed-room.'

'For to-night only?'

'No--for some days, weeks perhaps.'

'Monsieur had come to see the churches, the galleries, the Musée Plantin, and all that?'

'Precisely!' exclaimed Goring, with impatience.

'Luncheon, monsieur?' suggested the garrulous waiter, and, to be partly rid of him and left to himself, Goring ordered it.

Many hotels overlooked the Place Verte; was she in one of them? Perhaps her eyes were at that same moment looking on what he saw there; and the tall edifices with smokeless chimneys, the result of the general use of stoves in houses, some old enough and quaint enough to have been seen by Charles V.; the little carts drawn by dogs; the little yellow police-vans proceeding to and from the Palais de Justice, escorted by soldier-looking gendarmes in blue tunics, with white braid and aiglettes, bear-skin caps, and carbines; women without caps, or with queer poke bonnets and long dark cloaks; the funeral of a 'Liberal' going past--the hearse without cross, candles, or priests, and preceded by a great brass band playing polkas and mazurkas; the Calvarys and Madonnas at the street corners, or in the porte-cochère of houses, all with lamps before them; municipal guards with plumed hats; artizans in blouses and sabots; shabby ill set up soldiers of all sorts and sizes, in baggy trousers, queer forage caps, and enormous red worsted shoulder knots--soldiers between whose appearance and that of 'our fellows,' Goring drew comparisons not very favourable to the former; priests in shovel hats and long floating cloaks or soutanes, one perhaps preceded by a cross-bearer and acolyte with a bell, bearing the Blessed Sacrament to the dying.

High overhead the sweet carillons or musical bells, so common to all the churches in Belgium, were playing merrily in the cathedral spire, from whence, ever and anon announcing the hours and half hours, came the sonorous booms of that vast bell at the baptism of which Charles V. stood as 'godfather,' and which requires the united strength of sixteen men to pull it.

For the first time during a past period Bevil Goring had an appetite, and was well disposed to do justice to the cuisine of the Hôtel du Parc--and, truth to tell, the Belgian cookery is second to none in the world; and after having _pâté de foie gras_, and dainty cutlets of veal, richly egg and bread crumbed to perfection, with pastry from Meurice's in the Marché aux Œufs, without which no meal seems perfect in Antwerp, and a glass or two of Chablis, he thought he might as well ask a question or two of the garrulous waiter, who was hovering about, with a white towel over his left shoulder, his thick short hair oiled, and his moustache waxed and pointed _à la empereur_.

'What is your name?'

'Jacquot, monsieur,' he replied, adopting the first position in dancing, smiling suavely, and pressing his hands together, or working them, as Dickens says, 'with invisible soap in imperceptible water.'

'In what part of Antwerp is the Rue d'Ecosse--is it near the Place Verte?'

'Rue d'Ecosse, monsieur--there is no such street in Antwerp.'

'Think again, Jacquot, please. I want the Hôtel Lion Rouge, Rue d'Ecosse.'

'I assure you, monsieur, that there is no such street and no such hotel,' replied Jacquot, emphatically.

'I am not mistaken,' thought Goring. 'Can that rascally groom, in the interests of his master, have been deceiving me?'

As he had no reason for doubting that the waiter was correct in his statistics, he felt doubt and anger rise in his heart at the anticipation of trouble and difficulty; for if this fellow Gaskins had recognised and deceived him he would at once sound an alarm.

'Have you heard of an English milord in Antwerp called Milord Cadbury?'

'No, monsieur. There are many hotels; he may be in one.'

'Have you a visitors' list in Antwerp?'

'No, monsieur; but here is the Brussels English newspaper, which may contain what monsieur wants.'

It was and is a weekly periodical, which gives the names of all visitors to the Belgian capital and its adjacent cities and towns, and after a brief search Goring found the names of 'Lord Cadbury, Sir Ranald Cheyne, and Miss Cheyne,' as being located at the Hôtel St. Antoine.

'Where is that hotel?'

'Close by, monsieur--at the corner of the Place, adjoining the Marché aux Souliers.'

'Thanks, Jacquot,' replied Goring, who began to breathe more freely. 'Now to consider what my plans must be,' he thought. 'I must not be rash, but I must act on the instant, as it is quite on the cards that Cadbury may shift their tents to Brussels or elsewhere.'

He twisted his moustache and almost ground his teeth at that idea.

'_If_ he does,' thought he, 'and I can ever lay hands on him, I will parade him at daybreak--by heavens I will!--with an officer from the nearest barracks as my second. There is no explicit law against duelling here as at home, so, my Lord Cadbury, I may make your little game a dear one for you in the end. Now, however, to write to Laura Dalton, or shall I telegraph?'

Jacquot, who had left the room for a minute, now came in with some perturbation in his face and manner.

'An officer of gendarmes wishes to see you, monsieur, immediately, and has given an order to seize your luggage.'

'To see me--to seize my luggage! What the devil does the fellow mean?' exclaimed Goring, who was prompt enough to ire, as he started up from the table on seeing an officer of gendarmes, with his sword at his side, without salute or moving his cap, bluntly enter the room, while giving an order to some others who were outside.

We have said that Bevil Goring had promised to write to Laura Dalton reporting what discoveries he made of the fate of Alison.

But day followed day at Chilcote Grange after his departure, and neither letter nor telegram came from him; and Laura, who was really full of anxiety and concern for both amid her own personal causes for serious thought, began to think that he too had disappeared.