Chapter XVI: A Terrible Moment

As our heroine heard the address of the chief to his comrades, and then saw the latter move toward her, she looked to see a possible way of escape, but there was none. There was but one hope, and that was in help. She whispered to Mary, who was clinging closely to her side:

“Scream!”

And a scream--two of them--that seemed to split the welkin, broke upon the startled air. With a fierce oath the chief himself sprang upon Cordelia, throwing his left arm around her shoulders, at the same time pressing his right hand over her mouth. The maid was likewise secured and her mouth stopped.

Cordelia was both brave and strong. With all her might she struggled, and quickly succeeded in freeing her right hand, which she instantly raised and clasped upon the wrist of the hand over her mouth, wrenching it away and at the same time sending forth another scream for help.

But her cry was not more startling nor more frantic than was the howl of pain and agony that burst from Ralph Tryon’s lips--for we know him by this time--when the grasp of the girl was laid upon his wrist, and the furious wrench given it.

“Gurt! Gurt!--she’s broken my arm again! Seize her and stop her noise!”

By this time the maid had been so far secured that one man could care for her, which left two of the ruffians to care for the mistress, the chief having moved aside to nurse his aching limb.

Cordelia’s hands were quickly bound behind her, and a thick large bandanna was bound over her mouth for a gag, effectually preventing any more calling for help.

After this the chief, whom the lady now knew was none other than Ralph Tryon, started on ahead, directing his men to follow as rapidly as possible.

He took his course down the river’s bank, keeping close to the water, and at the distance of a hundred yards and a little more they came to a small cove wherein lay a boat.

The two captives had been led at a pace that forced them more than once to break from a walk into a run, but they had not been used roughly.

Into the boat they were lifted without ceremony, and carried aft to the stern-sheets, where they were caused to sit on one of the sides; and presently the chief came aft and sat down directly opposite.

Then the head-fast was cast off, and the last man sprang in and came to the tiller, the other two taking the oars, and very soon the boat, which appeared to be a common long-boat, such as is carried by coasting vessels, shot out into the stream, with her head toward the sea, and sped rapidly on. The oarsmen were strong and skillful, and they had the current in their favor.

The distance from the park landing, where the capture had been made, to the bay was little more than two miles, and to the village not more than a mile and a half.

Cordelia knew that the smuggler--now the pirate--brig lay in King’s Cove, and she wondered if she was to be taken there. She hardly thought it.

Too many of the crew would be opposed to it; and, again, those strange men would sympathize with her, and, if they dared, seek to help her. No, she was not to be taken there. Where then?

But another thing began to claim her attention. Her breathing was becoming labored and painful. And so it was with the maid. They looked at each other, and then looked across at the man opposite. He saw plainly the torture they were suffering.

“Ah, my dear lady!” he said, with a curious look at our heroine, “you appear to be suffering a slight discomfort just now, but it can’t be much like the twinge you gave me a little while ago. Upon my word, if you’d been a man I think I should have shot you where you stood. I thought you’d broken the bone again, which the surgeon at Burton set for me; but you hadn’t, so I’ll forgive you. And now, say, if I’ll take off that gag will you give me your word not to cry out for help?”

She hesitated. She knew if she should give her word that she would not break it. No matter what opportunity might present itself, she could not take advantage of it, should she give such a promise.

“It makes not a particle of difference to me,” the chief added, after a considerable pause, finding that the lady did not speak. “If you are comfortable as you are, keep on the bandanna by all means, though I must confess it is not very becoming to you, nor does it look like a thing that I should take particular comfort in. Exercise your own pleasure, my lady.”

This added cruelty of sarcasm almost caused the girl to put up with her suffering rather than accept a favor at the wretch’s hands; but the torture was becoming insupportable. She could not endure it; and, by and by, she signified that he had her promise.

“You promise, mind you--if I remove this gag from your mouth that you won’t offer to cry out, nor make any disturbance of any kind?” She silently promised; and Mary did the same.

“Well, my lady,” after looking her straight in the eye for full ten seconds--a look which she returned without flinching--“Who do you think I am?”

“I know who you are, sir,” she replied promptly. He started; but quickly recovered himself.

“Well, who am I?”

“You are Captain Tryon of the brig Staghound.”

“Upon my word! Your gallant knight must have given you a pretty sharp description of me.”

Cordelia’s first impulse was one of anger at this slur; but she thought how foolish it would be, and straightway resolved that nothing his tongue could frame should cause her to betray or forget herself.

She looked at him steadily for a moment, and then, with a tinge in her tone which paid him back in full, she said:

“Captain Tryon, if you will look into a mirror when you next see one I think you will discover a face not likely to be forgotten when once seen, and not at all difficult to describe.”

“Will you tell me how you would describe it?”

“No, sir. I will not.”

“Why not?”

“You would be angry.”

“Oho! Am I so ugly?”

“I prefer not to tell you what you are.”

“Well I’m sorry for that. Do you know, dear lady, I had almost made up my mind to ask you to be my wife.”

She did not start; the speech did not frighten her, for she had not the least thought that he meant anything more than simple badinage. So it was for a little time; by and by, as the man continued to eye her sharply, she asked herself--why had he done this thing?

Merciful heaven! Was it possible that he had seen her, and that he had conceived a passion to possess her for his own? The thought came to her like a bolt of thunder from a clear sky.

“Captain Tryon, for what purpose have you laid ruffianly hands upon me and dragged me away with yourself in this manner?”

“Wait for a little time, dear lady. I will explain by and by. We must land here.”

They had gone down to a point near to the village, but shut away from it by intervening woods, where, on the side of the stream opposite to that from which they had set forth, was another small inlet, into which the boat had been steered.

There was an easy, natural landing, on a bit of bold shore, where a table of rock came out into the water, against the edge of which the boat lay without difficulty.

The girls were here helped out, and conducted a short distance up into the woods. Cordelia knew that the sloping foot of Witch’s Crag was not a great way off, and a few moments later, when they had stopped, and Tryon told them they must be blindfolded, she was able to give a pretty close guess as to their destination.

“Why should you wish to blind us?” she asked. “Have you a secret which you are afraid we might discover?”

“Never mind my reason. I choose that you shall be hoodwinked. It will not hurt you; and I promise you no indignity shall be offered while you are in that situation.”

For one brief moment our heroine’s thoughts were deep and rapid; the result was she submitted without opposition and without further remark.

The kerchiefs which had been before bound over their mouths were now bound tightly over their eyes, after which they moved on; and ere long, as she had anticipated, they emerged from the wood upon the rough and ragged slope of the crag.

They found a very good path, however, and were able to proceed without difficulty. Up--up--up, the gradual slope, Cordelia judged, very nearly half a mile--and then they stopped; and from the change in the feeling of the air she was confident they had entered one of the caves, which she had several times visited in company with Percy Maitland.

She wondered could it be that into which she and her friends had looked a few days before from the end of the subterranean passage they had explored. If it should so prove, then she might be taken into a place not unknown to her. She was destined, however, to a disappointment of which she had not dreamed.

She heard words spoken between her captors, and presently she heard a sound as of the very slight creaking of a heavy door on its hinges.

She knew that a passage had been opened before her by the sudden sweeping of a current of air on her face; and a few moments afterward, she was again led forward, being caused to stoop as she advanced.

If she could have whispered, unheard by others, to Mary, she would have said: “We are passing through an aperture in the wall where we stopped on our recent voyage of discovery. This is the very wall in which we found the crevice through which we looked into the outer cave.”

When they had all passed through she distinctly heard the way closed behind them; and shortly thereafter they moved on again, Cordelia smelling the fumes of a burning candle or lamp.

She was confident--she felt that she knew--that they were now in a place which she had visited once before; yet, ere long, she met with something that confounded her.

They had gone perhaps a hundred yards beyond the point where she had stooped in passing, when they came to a halt, and pretty soon she heard on the left hand another sound, like the swinging of a ponderous mass on hinges or on a pivot, and there was, moreover, a peculiar grating sound as though one surface of stone had come in contact with another in motion.

“Now, my lady, this way. You will have to stoop a little.” They had turned squarely to the left, and, as he spoke, Tryon placed his hand on Cordelia’s head, causing her to stoop considerably lower than before. She made no resistance whatever, but kept her ears open and every sense she could use keenly alert.

She heard the closing of the way behind her, and when she next stood erect she felt that she was treading on something like a carpet.

At all events it was not the bare rock. She was conducted a short distance further, then caused to sit, and the hoodwink was removed from her eyes.

The light of two or three small waxen tapers was not sufficient to dazzle her sight; but sufficient to reveal to her what manner of place she was in.

It was a cavern, very nearly square in form; the walls seamed and uneven, but not ragged; the roof very high and quaintly arched, that is, it was a one-sided arch, like the half of a ship-roofed house.

The floor, which appeared to be comparatively level and smooth, was covered with a sort of Turkish matting, very soft and easy to the feet. Moreover, there was considerable furniture in the place, several chairs, a chest of drawers, a large oaken cabinet and a good sized table. In one corner was a fireplace, and on looking at the roof the observer could detect an aperture where smoke might escape.

Another thing Cordelia saw: an opening into another cave, a chamber beyond this. Tryon saw that she had discovered it, and he bade her to come with him and look.

He did not offer to lay a hand upon her. She followed him, and soon entered another apartment, not so large as the first, but much like it. Here was more furniture, and here was a bed, seemingly clean and freshly made.

“My dear lady, here you will tarry until to-morrow. You will here be safe. No harm can possibly come to you. You shall have plenty to eat; yonder bed is sweet and clean; and you may rest in it without dread.”

“Ralph Tryon! What is your intention toward me? Why have you done this cruel, wicked thing? What end have you in view?”

“Lady, you shall be fully informed on the morrow, and when you have heard all I shall have to say you may not be so greatly surprised that I have done what you are pleased to call a cruel, wicked thing. Wait, wait, my dear girl, and you shall know everything. It would not be well that you should know my purpose without knowing, at the same time, the causes that have moved me, and those I must keep from you a little longer. Have patience. The morrow will soon be here.”

“Oh, Captain Tryon!” She had sprung forward and sank upon her knees before him with her clasped hands upraised.

He stopped her with an oath, and lifted her bodily to her feet and set her back in her chair.

“Lady Cordelia Chester, were all the wealth of all the world at your command, and you could offer it to me for mine own, for it all I would not suffer you to put one of your feet beyond the outer door of yonder cavern until I am ready to take you out on my own terms. Is that plain to you?”

A moment she gazed into his face, a great horror--a nameless, shapeless dread--weighing her down like an incubus, and then she sank back and covered her face with her hands. When she next looked up she was alone with Mary Seymour.

“Where is he?”

“He has gone, dear lady. Oh, this is dreadful! What shall we do? Dear mistress, what does he mean?”

“Sh! Are they not in the other cavern?”

“I think not. I will look.” And the brave girl took a candle and looked out into the larger apartment--that which they had first entered--and found it empty.

“Oh, dear mistress! Who is that man? What--”

“Hush! Let me think. Or--let us look around, Mary, and determine where we are.”

By a little effort the stricken lady collected her mental and physical forces, and started, with her companion, on a tour of investigation.

She went around the larger cave, examining every part; but the point of entrance claimed her special care. She was able to detect the section of stone that was movable.

The distance she had been forced to stoop aided her in determining this; and, further, the instruction she gained from Percy, during their exploration of, she firmly believed, a cavernous passage of which this was a branch.

“Mary,” she said, when she had seen all there was to be seen, “you remember the wall which stopped our further progress on the day when we came with Percy to the Old Chapel--the wall in which we found a crevice through which we looked forth into another cave beyond?”

“Yes, lady.”

“Well, this is a branch of that passage. Did you notice how we ascended the slope of the crag, and how we were led into the first cave; and then how we came to a wall, where we stooped in passing through? That was the same wall, only we had approached it from the other side.”

“I have thought the very same, lady. Of course we must have passed the entrance to this place on that day.”

“Certainly; but having had no intimation of its existence Percy did not think of looking for it. I venture to say, with the information which we now possess, Mr. Maitland would find it without much trouble. At any rate he would find it.”

They talked longer on the same subject, and made further examination; and the more they considered the stronger became their faith in the fact that they were in a place separated only by the thickness of a wall from the passage they had traversed under the guidance of Percy Maitland.

Cordelia had worn her watch, and by and by she thought of it.

Twelve o’clock! Noon! Where was Percy? Where the earl? Where were they looking? What did they think? Oh, could Percy in any possible way discover where they were? If he could, they would be delivered!

An hour passed--and another. Mary found a box in which were plenty of wax tapers. So they would not be left in the dark.

It was toward the latter part of the afternoon when a noise beyond the outer wall arrested their attention, and presently a section of it--the very stone Cordelia had selected--swung slowly inward, revealing an aperture about four feet wide, and the same in height.

Into the cave came two of the men who had been with Tryon in the morning. They brought between them a large basket, in which, they said, were food and drink sufficient for a small garrison.

The men looked so repulsive, so hard and brutish and cruel, that neither of the girls cared to ask them a question; and they would have been likely to receive no answer had they done so.

“There, my beauties,” said the biggest and most piratical looking of the twain, after they had set the basket down and looked around, “I guess ye’ll be all right now. Rather cosy quarters, aint they? One thing ye ken be sure on--nobody can’t break in, an’ rob ye! Ho! ho! ho!”

The two men laughed and then departed. No attempt was made to conceal from the captives the locality of the entrance, as the knowledge, in all probability, could be of no help to them.

The day passed, and the evening. Together the two girls sat, not yet quite hopeless, though how help was to reach them they could not imagine.

At length, when weariness had so far overpowered them that they could keep awake no longer, they ventured to trust themselves in the bed. It was, as their captor had said, clean and sweet, or freshly aired, and it was soft and grateful to lie upon. They prayed in unison, and very soon thereafter slept.

Once during the night Mary awoke, and her movement awoke her mistress. The former got out of bed and lighted two fresh tapers, and from that they slept soundly until morning. They found plenty of water, and having washed and dressed, they set out the food and drink for breakfast.

It was then, by Cordelia’s watch, seven o’clock. Two hours had passed when she consulted the watch again. Oh, what should come next?

Half an hour later, perhaps more--they could not surely judge--the sound of the moving stone once more fell upon their ears.

Slowly it swung inward--further and further--until the way was open wide. And then entered the pirate chief, Ralph Tryon, dressed in the rich and costly garb of an English nobleman! And behind him, coming two abreast, followed six men of his crew dressed in holiday attire.

But that was not all. Last--was it real or but a wild fancy of her overwrought brain?--last came a man in the somber robes and bearing in his hands the missal of a Catholic priest!

What did it mean?

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