ClhM Microfiche Series (IVIonographs) ICIVIH Collection de microfiches (monographies) Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductlons / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiq ues Technical and Bibliographic Notes / Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be biblingraphically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly chance the usual method of filming are checked below. r~| Coloured covers / I— ^ Couverture de couleur □ Covers damaged / Couverture endommagee □ Covers restored and/or lamir jted / Couverture restauree et/ou pelliculee Cover title missing / Le titre de couverture manque I I Coloured maps / Cartes geographiques en couleur □ Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black) / Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) □ Coloured plates and/or illustrations / Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material / Reli6 avec d'autres documents Only edition available / Seule edition disponible Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior m gin / La reliure serree peut caucer de I'ombre ou de la distorsion le long de la marge interieure. Blank leaves added during restorations may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming / Use peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutees lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela etait possible, ces pages n'ont pas ete filmees. Additional comments / Commentaires supplementaires: D D n D L'Institut a microfilme le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exem- plaire qui sont peut-etre uniques du point de vue bibli- ographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la m6tho- de normale de filmage sont indiqu6s ci-dessous. Coloured pages / Pages de couleur I I Pages damaged / Pages endommagdes D Pages restored and/or laminated / Pages restaurees et/ou pellicul6es Pages discoloured, stained or foxed / Pages decolorees, tachet^es ou piquees Pages detached / Pages detach^es V Showthrough / Transparence I I Quality of print varies / D D D Quality in^gale de I'impression Includes supplementary material / Comprend du materiel supplementaire Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image / Les pagf^s totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont et6 filmees a nouveau de iaqon k obtenir la meilleure image possible. Opposing pages with varying colouration or discolourations are filmed twice to ensure the best possible image / Les pages s'opposant ayant des colorations variables ou des decolorations sont filmees deux fois afin d'obtenir la meilleure image possible. v; D This item is (ilmed at the reduction ratio checked below / Ce document est fllme au taux de reduction Indique ci-dessous. 10x 14x 18x 22x 26x 30x 12x 16x 20x 24x 28x 32x The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: National Library of Canada L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grace i la gAn^rositA de: Bibliothequc nationale du Canada The images appearing here are the beat quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. Las images suivantes ont iti reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compta tenu de la condition et de la nertetA de lexemplaire filmi. et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimAe sont filmAs an commencant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la derniAre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration. soit par le second plat, salon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmAs en commen;;ant par la premiAre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la derni^re page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The last recorded frame on eech microfiche shall contain the symbol — ♦• (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la derniAre image de cheque microfiche, seion le cas: le symbole — ^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent etre filmAs A des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour etre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est filmd d partir de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche ^ droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 MICROCOPY RESOIUTION TEST CHART -ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2l 1.0 I.I 1.25 1.4 I 2.5 [ 2.2 2.0 :.8 1.6 ^ /APPLIED IM^GE Inc ^^ 't:S? Las' Wa.n Street r^ "o.:^leste'■, Ne* vork U609 uSA ■SS ■ ^!6) 482 ■ 0300 - Phone ^=: ^16) 288 - 5989 - ^ax \*^!5*5ffWRr.'-^*i'''*"' (??'A^,^; !t£»,:^..- -y* • t=«?:Trj!3».'.: {isaer ;afc.'li^l PRO PATRIA ..'".'■ f> '= -^ .ss^i'~r?j£r' xz^z^sS'Z ?wissiijgkEiiiii5ii:3sSsiia5iSsai;s , nnlsafl' Hi 1< 246 I dreamed of an army of Frenchmen, an endless army coming fup o' c of the pit in the gardens of the house." i-K iis;:s33SSiSi3isS.SSwr-: PRO PATRiA Bv Max Pembcrton AUIMDK OK "KKON^IADT" " (UK IN r r NK OK TIIK HII.l.s" I UK IKON I'IKA rK ' ilL m. ILI.USTRATKD HY A, FORKSTIKR TORONTO THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED 1901 j^SfJ^t l^jjfjf- im-'^fi jsfr"^; &i:*-,vr' ',•,:.;■,. : ^ ~^'-^ l\. \-' \ :\~ •< 'tstei* ^^^P^ f*:''^:. ' ' ' mammtm^M v:?*>*^K yp > J Entered aooorrlinif to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the ye«r one thousand nine hui.dred and one, by Tub Copp, Olabk Oompakt, Limitu). in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. .*, .^^ TO MY FRIEND DR. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL THIS BOOK. IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED T(i)(rf ov iroAi9, ovSi v^cs ai^SpuiV Ktvoi ■HKWimW" iMir- ifiilllilli'i-iiflttirnl -*■■■- '■■■■^ — itfiiilMliMllildMHilliliiltaHH*^^ .^w C O N 1 E N T S CHAPTER I Editor's Foreword BOOK I THE MAN The Beginning ok Alfred Hiluard's Story, AND INCIDF.NTAIXV OF TWO MEN UPON THE Road to C/lais . II Of Myself and Another III The Pani .er . IV At Two Groats Sterling V The Mouth of a Great Secret VI The Tunnel . . • ■ VII I Think to Hear the Sea . VIII Out of the Shadows IX A Chasseur from Haut-Buisson X The Lonely Street XI Old Bordenave . • • XII A Chain of Firb . XIII English Voices TACK 9 II 22 43 54 59 7» 85 98 106 iig 129 140 150 :^.: ^--H- 8 CONTENTS BOOK II THE PATRIOT CHAPTER ^^^ XIV In which I have a Letter from hie Abb^ FOROHAM ,63 XV A Lesson in Dreams 172 XVI Of Pistols and a Persian 180 XVII Agnes Comes to Cottesbrook . . . .191 XVIII I Think 01 Dover Again 201 XIX A Phantom Cravat jqq XX Pursued who had been Pursuer . . .219 XXI The Veil of the Darkness . . . .227 XXII A Remote Farmhouse 2?i; XXIII A Silent Army ... ~,~ 247 XXIV "I Remember" ^^. XXV I Qui, the Garret 263 XXVI The Meeting in the Garden . , . .271 XXVII A Jangling Bell 281 XXVIII The Pit . 293 XXIX The New Day Dawning • • . . , ■jqc XXX An Editor's Notk ,, 11,'mmmm. BOOK I THE MAN rmjt^ m 1: ••3t*:.«». m^L Editor's Foreword Al Abbazia, upon the shores of the Bay of Quarnero, I first heard this . story from the lips of the man who wrought that it might be told. As he wrote it at my solicitation, so for the most part is it written here. No longer a whispered tale for the chief priests of bureaucracy, some knowledge of it at least has passed from the council-chamber to the market-place ; and there are many who " would an they could," yet do not for lack of surer ground. One man alone is able to speak ; and he has Lpoken in these pages. That the whole nature of the momentous events he relates will, hereafter, be un- derstood bv his fellow-countrymen, it would be presumption to hope. The Englishman is slow to admit the graver perils in which circumstances might place his country and his home. The un- changing ramparts of sea and shore are for him a surer fact than all the armies of the nations. From the cliffs of Dover he looks down upon his " goodly heritage " ; in the shadow of the " coastwise lights of England " he finds his hope. Should one approach him to say, " The day is at hand when these ram- parts shall not avail, when the lights shall shine no more," he would give no hearing to so bold a 9 10 EDITOR'S FOREWORD dK^ h'h ?' ^''^ ^complacency would remain un- disturbed, the unshaken belief in the girdle of the sTn^rel^th^'/^^ %^'^"-^''^"^ ^^^-^ ^- ^^-^ unnThe end ^"''"'' '"' ""^ ^° ^^^"^ ^emw '.'^''^' ^ ''""''"' '^^^ ^^^ ^'■^^t Moltke. " of gat ng into your country, but I have yet to discover a way of getting out." If Alfred Hilliard-s story suggests any thought to se<;JrirvThr '' •''"-" '^ '""^ ^^"^^ ^^'he naUonal security the same m our day as it was when the first of the Germans wrote ? Is it the dreamer alone who may ten himself that the national creed is built upon a false a.th,upon false premises and tacit ignoranc" Is u .he dreamer alone who, in his dreams, may see t:Z,' '' ^""'^"''^ '-''' ^'^^ '^^ --y -'her These questions one man's devotion has helped us oanswer A simple soldier, stumbling blindly upon the heart of the nation's peril, of such I write The work which he was called upon to do. a housand hands would do again if England's need shot^dsoek them; yet not more courageously could it be done nor with greater love of fatherland, all sufficien; and all sacrificing. He wrought for' his coun " ofthe'p '•'!"' '"'^""'^ may say,as the grea es of the Englishmen said for Cominius- My country's good with a respeVtTore tender More holv. and Dmfr.n„^ ♦u.l ^.r ^ ^"^""cr, •M, J ''. • •) •■"^" aisnc own iiie. My dear wife's estimate." iMiMli !»CdmL:£^iClZil9Fi^JK^ CHAPTER I The Beginning of Alfred Hilliard's Story, and Incidentally of Two Men upon the Road to Calais MY story, I am to tell it, you say ? The hand is the hand of Damon ; but whence comes the counsel ? Others, and they are many, have been before me wherever the tonirne of the gossiper is heard. The momentous events of these later months —events which yet can put a hus":> upon my life- have been the theme of every tattler to tickle the ears of the credulous and to make strong the boaster. For the pleasure of undoing such as these, I must speak, men tell me. No longer do my superiors forbid , no longer am I, as a soldier, compelled to silence. The reasons are good, but I stand to a better. If I s^ eak, it shall be as an Englishman, even the least of my country's servants. That which I did, ten thousand would do to-morrow if the call were theirs. But mine was the lot ; and as it befell so let the record go. I am to tell my story, but it is to be built upon no ancient models. There is to be no *' dear reader " in it, nor any horsemen coming down a hill. Let my ■ WM^Sh 12 PRO PAlRiA fricmls forgive, m., if I break faith with them, here at th... outset ; (or who should come galloping to- Har y hordham. the parson of Cottesbrook. in good ul ;Z'°"-'''^ :"' '"^' -^'^"'^ '^'-- ^^^^"«p ^'-t upon horse . In .magination I see him, it is true, t vcen this sunny bay of Abbazia and the old town ^un? '; '?"■''' ^'' '■°'^'' "J'^" ^h'-^t good day of June which remains in my memory as any land- m I no r' f '°'' '' ^''''''' ""'"y ^^'h'ch men may not forget. And of Harry shall my first word bc> though all the canons of the arts are thereby b. okcn, and every reader that would follow me quits the loitermg caravan upon the threshold of the pilgrimage. ^"^ ''Halloa Sir Knight! halloa, halloa ! And where in Heaven s name, did you get that stink-pot from > " n,Jir' ""?; '°"'? '^^^^ ^^^"^ ^^hom you take insult meekly^ Harry Fordham is one of them. Let him ki!r!.h w"", "^''", ^''■"•*" ='"^^'^^tors, and your wn hand- kerchiel dusts the pictures. God never intended him to be a parson, he says. I would write it down that no truer servant of religion ever wore white choker (though, to be sure, he is given to stocks when h. hunts in w" er). '-Stink-pot," my dear Harry, is a vulgar term Behold a brand new Fanhard, delivered an hour ago from the city of Paris. It cost a thousand, please ^o emember. Respect Her Majesty's coin., .,- if ' u 'vc- none for me." ' -^ luoa dillili ^wi»:» wm^^^uw^zm^-:^ ALFRED HILLJARD'S STORY 13 He reined in an impatient hoi .e and looked my new automobi e up and down contemptuously. " The Lord be u;ood to you for cominp; to a thinp: like that— you that ^ ive ridden horses. Why, they must smell it in Calais, and that's a mile away. Captain Alfred Hilliard, you are on the bi oad and easy road. Thank your stars for it." I told him to have done with it and not to display his ignorance. " Come, now, you were never on a motor-car in your life?" " I have too much respect for the Cloth." " Which, in your case, is a check suit they can see at Dover." He looked down at his amazing coat, and the twinkle of his keen eyes was a thing to see. "The Church must set an example. Besides, where shall the loud lyre be heard if not in France. I want to know about the car." '•Come aboard, and I will haste thy manual to be. Seriously, it's a pretty car ? " "The proud kettle rejoicing in Day and Martin. I admit that it has points above other kettles. Be kind to my widow and children and I will listen to you. Is the horse to come, too ? " "Summon that aged impostor at the inn-door yonder, and let him hear some Winchester French. He seems to want a tonic." He hailed the fellow in a voice that would have moved a Margate hoy, and biiving wasted a good deal of breath in such plain injunctions as " Menes mm 'mmm Ji4k,^:jS^L*^ U f'h'O PATRIA le chcval it /Va/r/V," ^^ preticz-gardc,'" "> .e donnerai un /nine," he crossed the road and seated himself at my side. *' To the bureau of the nearest asylum, al/otis done, Cher Alfred. I am all for a speedy death, ' some- thing linserinp:, with boiling oil in it.' Cover me up and let her rip, as Homer says." '* I will run you into Boulogne under the hour, and bring you back with a new faith. People who abuse motors belong to a past generation— a race that tabooed the steam-engine for the sake of the horse- breeder. Ten years hence they will be in sackcloth, which is not so becoming as an Irish homespun, let me tell you. Admit that the sensation is a new thing in your life." " I admit everything to the man with the club. The thing certainly seems respectable. I apologise to its odorous qualities. Omnes sibi malle melius esse quani aiteri. The stink is left upon the road behind us, for the benefit of posterity, as it were." " There is little or none when we are moving, no vibration, no jar, you see. A good car always reminds me of a gondola. You go and don't know w^hy you go." " Until you run into a handy ditch and are better informed. Instruct my ignorance, what speed are we travelling now ? " " Twenty-one and an eighth miles an hour. Down the hill yonder I will promise you thirty-five miles an liour." " And I am an orphan. Nullus est locus domestUa ^riilillllli!niirr.iTiwrn[iiiii>ii MMM IHiiiiilttili I c^ifcMiit '•«Bk..m";#*«s&ii^Rf5H^^:i[^e^^^ ALFRED MILLIARD'S STORY 19 I had no doubt from the first that he came from Escalles and the Government's business there; very deep-set, clever eyes beneath a forehead round and shallow and by no means clever. In type a creole, whose "colour" you might detect in the thick lips and the angular nails of well-shaped hands. Hair matted and curly ; great bt eadth of shoulders coupled to a long, thin neck which seemed to detach his head from his body and to permit it to strike all sorts of odd attitudes. In short, a man of taciturn aspect whom you would have passed a hundred times without notice ir any crowd; yet one— and this was the surprise of it— whose face was known to me as the face of some one who had played a part in my life, but whc.>e very name I had forgotten. Behold me staring at him in mute amazement while Harry racked his very soul for new and ungrammatical apologies, and I had not a word to add to them. The Frenchman heard us to the end sullenly, brushed the dust from his coat, sprang upon his cob, struck the beast savagely with a steel rod he carried in his hand, and without a single word went can- tering away towards Calais just as Harry wound up with an expression of sorrow which would have brought the Academy of France to a premature grave. Here we were left, we two, staring fool- ishly at each other and at the peasant who had caught the horse. A more ridiculous situation is not to be conceived. Harry saluted it with a roar of laughter which might have been heard at Cape Gris-Nez. H^l .r/:i:;:^ 20 PRO PAIRIA x-~-y-..-- '\ " My French, vc\y French — oh, blessed tonjjuc ! Has he gone to fetch the gendarmes, do you think?" I scarcely answered him. The car was away again in a cloud of dust before I spoke. " Who could the fellow have been ? Don't laugh at me — I have seen him somewhere. I could not tell you where if my life depended upon it." "But it doesn't depend upon it. Do not court reminiscences, my Alfred, on such a day. We ha\e done all that civility required, and more. Heard civility ever such a splendid use of the imperfect subjunctive ? " " Imperfect, no doubt. Hence the gallop. He is riding away to Escalles to say that a ferocious Englishman is killing his mother tongue in the "'illage of Wimille. Your speech will amuse a town to-night. You serve humanity, gratis." Harry took a cigarette from his case, and realis- ing the impossibility of obtaining a light in a car travelling twenty miles an hour, he chewed it philo- sophically and turned the banter with a new story. "Do you know," he said, "that fellow spoke English when he was on the ground." "English?" " I will — well, affirm it. He said a word common to some emergencies of life — amongst laymen." " Anything else ? " "Oh, yes, a good deal more. Don't ask me to repeat it." "Stand excused. I knew that I had seen him somewhere. The face is as familiar as it can be." iL^ ALFRED MILLIARD'S STORY 21 "A good many faces are. I have known men that said the same of every pretty girl they met. Such a habit leads to unpleasantness." " It will not do so in this case, for I remember my man. He is Robert Jeffery, who crammed with me at Webb's." "Call him Robinson Crusoe, and I will be his mar Friday. What put that tale into your head? " " The man's face. I could have picked him out of a hundred. He went up for Woolwich and was ploughed. A clever man, as a mathematician above the average, but his taste in claret was too irood " Harry sympathised always when you told him of distress. " Poor chap ! " he said quickly ; " it is the end of the story which I generally hear in those cases." "Yes, but not in this one. What is the man doing at Calais, at the Admiralty works, too? " " Carrying a steel rod, apparently. Also riding a horse. My dear fellow, why speculate ? There is the sea, and beyond it the odorous town of Boulogne! Let us lunch, and speculate afterwards." I did not answer him. It seemed to me that the face of Robert Jeffery followed me to the town, and that the man sat at my side even while I ate. Nor, to this hour, can I account for a premonition so remarkable. iB CHVPTER II Of Myself and Another I HAD been in Calais exactly three weeks when Parson Harry Fordham fell foul of my motor- car ; and, as far as I could see, the distant winter might find me still in that exceedingly uninterest- ing memorial to Queen Mary's prophecy. An ugly fall with the Fitzwilliam hounds, an ever-anxious mother, the impossibility of serving my regiment with a deficiency of ribs and a collar-bone which the faculty obstinately described as " broken," had sent me from England in the February of the year to join the sun-seekers at Nice, and afterwards to imagine myself an invalid at Pau. Upon the links at the latter town I first met Colonel Lepeletier and his daughter. She taught him the English golf, she said ; and her dear father was so rapidly im- proved that a week found him in all the bunkers, and in a fortnight he had broken his clubs. I com- plimented the fine old fellow upon this excellent achievement and his admirable control of temper, and was not surprised that the audacity amused him. "A ff.'imf for chiMrf^n " hfi cnirl anr,^r„r(^tir-c^UT . . ■ r. '^^r^^ £::jX:Al'jh-Gl-J^ 'A game for children,' he said apologetically." 22 ^j^Sjgggm l»".--',i 1 ■ ■•■.«■ •^ -kV^ is^^aufc.,i^4tei^^ "and yet one which niiikes little things seem lin to us. I am ashamed of myself, but to-morrow t shall play again." It was good to hear him; for I agreed with Marry Fordham that Colonel Lepeletier was one of God's best works, an hone>t gentleman. A " hall-mark " man, the parson called him; and I would dub them both as he dubbed one. In all my life I thought that I had never seen a prettier thing than this spectacle of a little French girl teaching her less agile father the mysteries of golf. There is, I suppose, one hour in every man's life when he finds such a picture and such a thought as I found upon the links at Pau. The more sacred impulses are least to be written about ; I hesitate to speak of mine when they do not concern this story. But let it be recorded that I lingered a month in Pau, and that where Agnes Lepeletier walked, there went my world. Silently, surely, unknowingly, perhaps, that understanding, so subtle, so intimate, so true, began to mould our wills. The day when impatience to see my brother- oHicers and my regiment chafed and galleil was forgotten and unmourned. A rich man (for that crime the world has laid at my door), I was my own master — to serve or not to serve as the impulse dictated ; to forget my home in England if I had the mind to ; to marry or give in marriage as the whim should take me. But the time for serious things was not yet. I was at Pau, and Agnes Lepeletier had become my companion. I asked nothing more of Nature or of man. 1 1^ 24 PNO PAIR 1 A The weeks passed quickly, all too quickly, we said, when Oscar Lepeletier told us at dinner, one ni<(ht in the first week of May, that his work called him back to Paris, and from Paris mii^ht send him to the exasperatin,u:ly unromantic town of Calais. I knew nothing of his reasons, nor did he seek ray confidence. But to Agnes I sjiid, " I will come to Calais " ; and there was that upon her face which could make my pulse bent the faster and send me to the booking-office as men rarely go. So behold the new scene. The Colonel at his official house which overlooks the Jardin Richelieu, the English ' Sir Capitaine " at the Hotel Meurice which, should you stop in Calais (and may the gods forbid !) you will find in the Rue de Gui^e. Had it been the Black Country, to me it were au Eden ; for Agnes was there, and when a week had passed, Harry Fordham, th'? king of parsons, was my fellow- adventurer for every enterprise. He had left Cotiesbrook, in Northamptonshire (for he holds our family living there) to visit an unknown destination in Switzerland; but being exceedingly ill upon the steamer, the impulse took him to come and see me in Calais. A decent horse, to which the Colonel introduced him; some pleasant tennis parties contrived by Mademoiselle Agnes ; an heroic attempt to build a golf links on the sandy dunes to the west of Calais ; perchance pure pity for my solitary condition, kept him in the name of charity at the HOtel Meurice, where I had bivou- .. (Bfl/-', :v;?ir.i. I II O/.^ UYSI-LF AND AAOT/l/i/i -.) turn to En^;land! and when June came we had formed a habit of the town, and no lon^a>r detected its deliciencies. For that matter, Harry was no less frequent a visitor to Colonel Lepeletier's house than I had become. We dined there twice a week, break- fasted in the shade of the i:;arden as often, were unceasing in ovt quest of unfamiliar pilgrimage and lazy picnic. But Harry was the more welcome guest at the house, as 1 knew from the beginning ot it; and if the kindlier greeting he received was spoken by Co'onel Lepeletier's lips, none the less it threatened to be the disturbing element, not only of my holiday, but of my life. That Lepeletier's attitude baffled me, I confess unhesitatingly. My position, at least, I argued, might have won upon his consideration; ior lew that came to his house enjoyed sixh advantages of fortune as my birthright hiu' *nrust uix)n me. Nevertheless, this fine old fellow, who had loved to play the father's part to me at Pau, v.-as here so changed in Calais that I began to doubt my very- senses and the estimate of him they had formed for me. Frigidly polite, always ready with his hospi- talities, sometimes melting to his old geniality and confidence, there remained in my mind the convic- tion that I was not a welcome guest at his house, and that my departure from Calais would be pleas- ing to him. If I delayed to perceive this, or to be aware of the true state of the case, until the situa- tion threatened to become intolerable, remember tu., q\..\ fable that Love is biind — upon whicii ■■',v ^*} 26 /wo iwih'iA I pul the sine I, lit that my inlerost in A-nes L(-Ixletier had now passed the boitmis of mere trienilship and entered into that intimate dominion ol a woman's heart whieh one, and one only, in all the vvoild may share with her. I was blind, be- cause my eyes had other thin^rs to see. To awake was to come down trom the ^^ardens of my drc-ams to the sai Jy town of Calais and it.> hotel. [ deter- mined that very day to speak lO Lepeleiier and ;o make an end of it. The occasion was the dinner at his hou.se. TI,- opportunity should Ix: found for me by Harry Kordham. The Colonel dined at seven o'clock, and it was at half-past six when Harry, black now in the prim clothes of orthodoxy, came to my room to " call be- ginners," as he put it in the jargon which amateur theatricals had taught him. I had just finished dressing, and, seeing that it was but five minutes from the HOiel Meurice to the house by the Jardin Richelieu, I suggested that we should take a turn down the Place d'Armes and chat as we went. "For, Harry," said I, "you must be serious to- night — more serious than ever you were in ail your life." He laughed and linked his arm in mine. " The gods shall weep fo. my melancholy," he said. " Behold these tears upon a virgin cheek ! " I told him to have done witl. his nonsense and to listen to me. It was a simple story. He had ob- served Lepeletier's manner towards me ; he must guess the reason. He knew why I wns In Cal-JK. gWffi!!!!-ry ii . SlK 14..1Wr; li !!|!j CT yau;^^ OF MYS/:LF AND AAOTIIFR 21 i ] If iinythintx 1;iy bohind the Colonel's m:inncr but tlK- pliiin intim.'Uion that I was not the husband he would choose for his dauijhter, I should be Rlad to know of it. Could Harry suj^Rest anything? In short, could he heip me? To all of which he lis- tened with that unabashed merriment which no- thing could moderate or control. Me would not be serious. "Oh man!" he exclaimed, when my patience was nigh exhausted, " man that is born of woman, are you not blind as any camel with one eye? Attend now to my argument. What befalls him who takes a cleek when he should use a brassey ? Assuredly he is bunkered, even as thou art, my Damon. But let him take the proper club, and lo ! there is papa, and papa's darling, and the darling of papa's darling in a threesome of their heart's choice. Play the game, Captain Alfred, play the game " " It you were not my friend, Hany, I would not go another step with you." He affected great sorrow, but so droUy that I could not but laugh with him. '• Med ciilpA, med maxitnd culpd. I will be very solemn, brother. Lee me tell you of a man in love who is afraid to ask papa, and who thereby pro- voketh papa to impatience. Ye goats and sheep ! don't you see, my Alfred, that the old gentleman is dying' for the word— the blessed word ? You ;ire the laggard. Ponder upon the cutlets you have eaten in that same house, the exceiient Buiguady ll 28 PRO PATRlA you have tlrunk. Is won pere to sit for ever, the spectator of your billins^ and cooing? Not so by my halibut!" ' ' A threat lit;ht came to me even of his nonsense. " Upon my lionour, I never thou.-ht of that. Do you really think it's true, Harry?" ''ii I were a layman, I would go nap upon it And why not ? Here is the prettiest little girl m all I-rance—I say so; do not contradict me— the prettiest little girl in all France, coolimr her heels— oh, phrase most elegant !-on the doorstep of the beast's house, while the beast plavs tennis, swmis, rows, drives a stink-pot, and does'anythin'^ but go to her papa to say, « Honourable sir, give me your daughter to wife, for I have no wild oats in my garner, and I am of discreet age, or should be and there is gold in my cellars (if I choose to keep It there J.' Man. you're a catch, and you don't know It. To Lepeletier, a milord whose money- b:«gs jingle ; to little Agnes, the fairy prince whose ribs were hurt as he fell out of heaven. Can't you see It 1 Are you blind ? Must I do the business for you-' Why, the old lellow's dying, going into rapid consumption, because you forbid him to say ' Bless you, my children ! ' " * He stopped, for very want of breath, I believe and seeing that I had nothing to sav-for I was be- wildered with the novelty of it, bewildered bevond understanding or clear thou -ht-he put his hand upon my shoulder and compelled me to look him in IIk' face. Eves more linn,>^» \ hn-,v »,.>...... i^mTMS ■.•fiTXAi&(,as^tLSA-ief:A Oh' UYS/iLF Ai\D ANOTHER 29 *' Do you want the girl ? do you mean to marry her?" he asked despotically. "Don't be a fool, Harry— at 1-ast admit my honour." '« Admitted— and underlined. rhi> very night thy latch-key shall be required -' ih -e. C .me on, Sir Romeo, I will even punish tne i3uic.j;.nx while you throw the glove to papa. It is a clean glove, at any rate." My head was too full of the surprise of it to answer him, and once more he linked his arm in mine and set out for the Jardin Richelieu. His talk was all of Agnes now, of her, and that which he was pleased to call the right ascension of the planet Venus. Nevertheless, a note of new gravity rang presently in harmony with his badinage, and the jester's cloak fell to reveal the counsellor. " A man of thirty-one ^an do many things well, especially if he has the money. Marriage is one of them. Wild oats, kept until they become riches, feed the honour of home and fatherhood. You are growing bhiM\ my Alfred. Life is ennui. You are Tike the millionaire's child who cried because it wanted to want something. Twenty thousand a year, the best place in Northamptonshire, a doting mother, are knocking the iron out of your will. I find you moody and contemplative— symptoms of repletion. As you are, you will never do anything in life. If they give you a brass plate ov—horribile ^ictu.'—a. couple of plaster angels in Cottesbrook Church, it will be more than you deserve. A wile if i i :;o PRO PAIR I A would chanuv all this. It is even possible that she would make you do something to astonish me. I have thought of it often, but no man has a right to speak sueh thoughts. Judge of my joy, as they say in the fairy books, when I came to Calais and found you with one hand already in the matri- monial lucky bag." " Unlucky bag, sometimes, Harry." " Tais-toi. Here is our exception. Do you not understand that you are winning the sweetest little woman in all France ? " •' I have a shrewd suspicion of it." "One nho will say, 'Life is not in the newspaper or the clubs, but here in a good woman's heart.' " " An excellent sentiment." " One who will tell you that you, Alfred Hilliard, of the Eighteenth Hussars, captain, must do some- thing for the island they call England, ^nd some- thing for the sake of the name you bear." " I cannot expect her to be over-anxious about our side of the Channel. She is born of France, at least." " Rubbish, my son ! A woman is of her hus- band's nation. It says little for the husband if she be not. At Cottesbrook she will babble patriotism in the prettiest broken English possible. Do not contradict me. A parson who baptizes and buries thf^m .-ees both ends of the stick, as it were. You are marrying a good girl— tell yourself that when papa asks about your expectations to-night. The old fellow would grow an inch if he could see your banking account, cher Alfred." liiiiii OF MYSELF AND ANOTHER 31 I resented the sus;,!L>estioi -would have resented it hotly but for the fact thai we stood now upon the threshold of the house, and could see the candles upon the dinner-table whereat we were about to sit. The nadir of int.imy surely ib ouched in that plea, •' I am a rich man ; give me your daughter to wife." Harry implied no such vulgarity wiicn he fell to his bantering humour, as I would have admitted in a cooler moment, and now, silencing me with a gesture, he opened the gate of Lepeletier's garden. ••Hush! we are observed," he said, with finger upraised mockingly. " The band does not play, but the curtain rises. I wish you luck, old fellow, luck from the very bottom of my heart." I knew that he did; knew that there was no truer friend of mine in all Europe than Harry Fordham, the parson of Cottesbrook. Neverthe- less I went into the old barrack-like house with heavy steps and a foreboding I could but ill define. All Harry's philosophy was true, every word of it. I knew that the one woman in all the world for me was the one I was about to meet in the little drawing-room beyond the hall ; I knew that I could speak to her father with an authority of my posi- tion which few might hope for; and yet my expectation stumb'.ed, halted, went laggingly and obstinate to the salon. Perchance the house itself helped my mood. There is no more gloomy house in all the cities. From every square and hideous I x^. Hi J 32 P/?0 PATR/A window 3'ou look upon the docks and squcalid basins of Calais Harbour. The great buttresses of the p:rey citadel are its neighbours for the left hand ; the arid Jardin Richelieu mocks its pastoral pretensions upon the right. I never entered it 3'et but it seemed to carry me to some prison-house, some silent gate, beyond its portals. And I am glad because I shall never pass its door again to my life's end. Agnes was at the piano as we entered; a little, winsome figure in a gown of muslin worn as only a Frenchwoman knows how to wear the poorer stuffs and make them rich. A simple circlet of pearls about her throat was her only ornament of ewels ; but she wore one white lose in her pretty brown hair, and that which her face lacked of colour (for it was always a pale face, I thought) she made good in expressive eyes and the little affectionate mannerisms which are a woman's power. She had a habit, I remember, of laying her hand upon my arm when she spoke to me, and excitemeni could emphasize the touch until it be- came almost a grip which seemed to act upon every nerve in my body. Quick in all her actions, always at the high place of her spirits, capable of deep feeling, nevertheless her quick, womanly sym- pathy, developed to maturity in her girlhood, was for me her abiding characteristic. It was no doll's face that looked up at us as we entered the draw- ing-room, but a face that a man might remember when others more beautiful were forgotten. OF MYSELF AAD ANOTHER 33 " Why do you always come when I am practis- ing, Captain Hllliard? " she ask'cd, as she held out an ungloved hand and with the other scattered the music upon the piano. " That is the ' March from Tannhauser,' and I hate it." "Then why do you play it, Mademoiselle .\ones ? " " Because it makes a noise, and you cannot hear the wrong notes. Wagner wrote it for me to drown the bugles in the citadel. Is Monsieur Harry musi- cal—oh, but I'm sure he's not." Harry, sitting in a low chair, looked for all the world like some great, fair-haired schoolboy. "Not musical, when I am the father o; Grcgo- rians?" he cried, in affected indignation. "Do you know that I once wrote an oratorio, mademoi- selle, and that the critics pronounced it beneath contempt ? I have considered myself musical from that day. Horrible term, isn't it? Suggests a musi- cal box in your chest. You turn the handle, and the box plays 'The Carnival of Venice.' There's an idea for a patent. Musical sweets guaranteed to play ' We Won't Go Home Till Morning,' when 3^ou've swallowed them." Agnes, who spoke good English, for she htid been educated in the convent at Isleworth— though one of the old French Protestants— was utterly unable to follow Master Harry's idiom. " I believe that you play beautifully," she said in protest. " You shall try after dinner." "I will render you 'The Lost Ci;-:u' with 'mic t' 34 P/?0 PATRIA tinf^er — the missing notes to be foiuui by the imagi- nation. Alfrtid will supply an assorted bass. lie is very good on the lower ' G.' Ask him." She told him that she would insist upon it, and had turned round to make me her ally, when Colonel Lepeletier entered the room, and with him tnere stood the very man whose horse had shied at my automobile in the village of Wimille that morn- ing, ^ bert Jeffery, of Webb's aforetime, the re- jected of Woolwich, yet here masking under a French name, and presented to me is one of France's most skilful engineers. I stared at the Colonel in amazement. Why did he introduce his friend to me as a Frenchman ? " Monsieur Sadi Martel — Captain Hilliard. Ah! you have met before, gentlemen ? " It was upon my tongue to say that we had met many times before; but I controlled myself, perhaps as a tribute to my curiosity, and in a word related the events of the morning. '* Monsieur Martel, I fear, must bear me a grudge — his horse objects to innovations, Colonel. I am glad of this opportunity to make my apologies." Jeffery, for so I insisted on calling him, nodded his head in a gesture which was meant to be curt, I thought, and spoke to the Colonel in rapid French. Then he turned to Agnes and left me with her father. •' A fortunate meeting, but I had no idea of it," said the Colonel, as he led me away from them to the window. " My friend is one of the engineers at OF MYSELF AND ANOTHER 3.') the harbour works. You will not often meet so clever a man." •' A Frenchm in, of course ? " "On his father's side. Ills mother was an .American. You will discover that he shares the vices of some of my countrymen. He has yet to understand the merits of Enuland ; you must con- vert him. His father went to Mexico with the unfortunate Maximilian, but the son has been many years in France and has almost forgotten his accent. A most interesiini? man, whose name Europe will hear one day." I said nothing, waiting for him to continue. But I remembered that it was sixteen years ago almost to a month since Robert Jellery had left England, without reputation or prospect. The man who stood over there talking volubly to Mademoiselle Agnes was Sadi Martel, and not Robert Jeffery, the Colonel said. Again I won- dered at the coincidence, and was wondering still when the servant announced dinner. We went to dinner, Agnes, to my satisf:tction, upon Harry's arm; and being seated, I found myself upon the left-hand side of the table, and so far removed fi om the engineer that politeness de- manded no effort to converse with him. Already we had been given to understand that he spoke little English; and Harry's frank admission, in turn, that he never yet met a Frenchman who could understand his French, broke the ice; and each held forth in the sure and cert;', in conviction that Ji 36 /VvV; I'ATRIA his neii2:hbour could not contradict him. Once or twicr in a lull ol' their talk I Ibund Jeffcry's eyes turned curiously upon me; but vvlienever our glances met he would avoid my (]uestion in a new outburst of declamation and argument. His volu- bility astonished me, for at Webb's we had spoken of him as a silent man. " I am interested in your enoineer," i said to A.i;nes anon. " Tell me about him." She touched my arm with her hand, in one of those sicstures I love, and answered me provokingly. •' If you listen, he will tell 3'ou about himself." '* But I can't understand a half he ?ays." " Are you sure that you lose anythinc:?" " Your father says that I do. K.s name is to be heard all over Europe."' "Then he must have invented a new speakinj^- trumpet. He is so clever, you know, down below the ground." " A good many men are clever there, Mademois- elle Agnes. We admit it generously. Have you known Monsieur Martel long ? " " Since the works began. He has invented a great machine for digging up the coal. Wiiy, are you curious ? You should ask him." "He seems to interest you, at least." " At least, sir ? Oh. I am least, then ! " " I mean that you like him." " Very much ; I like all clever men." " A woman believes every man to be clever if he OF MYSELF AND ANOTHER 37 "Docs she? Then why do you not tell me that vou are clever ? '' ' I must have forgotten to mention it. I will bei^in to-morrow. The life and times of Alfred llilliard, soldier." Harry, overhearinp; us, put in his word. " The life and high old times," he corrected. " I have often thought of that for a title when a bishop is to be written up." «' You are flippant, Harry. Does Monsieur Martel forgive your apologies? " •• He does not forgive your car ! " «' Ask him to be introduced to it to-morrow." "Tell me the French for that. Mademoiselle Agnes." " You would never remember it." " No, but you say it so charmingly." " Harry, Harry— I listen " " A pernicious habit 1 Do I intrude ? I will even make my neighbour miserable." He turned to Martel, and I to Agnes. If there be anything more exasperating under God's heaven than a dinner-table flirtati. , I would gladly know of it. You break a petal of romance— the butler cries, "Thick or clear ? " You touch a vein of sentiment _a brute says '« 'Ock or sherry?" You rise to heights of understanding- the flunkey brings you to ground again with "Saddle of mutton, sir?" Or all is going swimmingly when your host's voice is raised to pronounce a verdict, and you, all confusion in discovery, must cry Aye, Ox Ac.>> ..-• -"- .ii i'i :]B /Vi'O fAThlA rase may lx\ Happily, I sought no ilinnti-tablc llirtation with Auncs. 'Iherc was a deeper, truer voice of delight in that unspoken intimacy, in the thought that she, a little unknown French f,arl to me three months ayo, but now the one lit;ure of my content— she, who first had taught me to say, " For this a woman was born into the world " — sat there at my side, and that I miyht prison in memory every note of her lauu:hter,and make my own every vision of her changing beauty. We would not tell our story, for it were better untold. The book wherein we wrote must be the book of our lives. I think, even then, that her content was linked to mine— for good or ill, in an abiding purpose. It was a habit in the Colonel's house that we lingered at the dinne. 'Me but a moment when Agnes had left it ; fc. the old soldier did not smoke, and while he tolerated our cigarettes w^e conceded much to his habit, and usually denied ourselves until we were upon the road to the Meurice again. It w^as good to see Parson Harry, who surpassed the chimneys, protesting that the lasi thing in all the world he cared about was the narcotic they called tobacco. Upon this evening, which I have twenty reasons to remember, I can recollect that Lepcletier permitted Harry and the other to follow his daughter to the drawing-room ; but this was the surprise of it, no sooner w\is I about to imitate them than he touched me on the shoulder and pointed to an empty chair by his own. '4^ r^ ol- MV.^I.IJ' AM) A.Xo/l/lC/v' :;'> '•LL'tme sec you smoke :i cii::irette, Captain - 1 should like it." 1 s;it down without a word ;md tumbled for my cii;arette case. A liiM drill, the ...itiating hour ot riding school, a rf<'/>»/ as a speaker upon a platform, occurred to my mind as child's tasks beside this ordeal. Instinctively I knew that the Colonel was to sivak to me of Agnes. I can see him to this hour, with his trim, pointed, black beard, his sallow face, his large and kindly eyes, his nervous, white hand tapping the white cloth nervously. A gentle- man? Ay, tb.ere never was a truer. And he invited my conlidence. I felt that I could speak to him as to my own father— had my father been living. " Yes," he said, " I have never learned to smoke —my misfortune, Captain. Tobacco is the hand- maiden of Reason. A man can smoke with his enemy at the gate ! Otherwise he comes to blows. Let me see you content." " I am never anything else at your house, Colonel. When you come to England, to Cottesbrook Castle, 1 despair of my chances — after this." He ti./ned away from me to lift the shade of one of the candles. I thought that he was a little embarrassed, and I was sorry for him. My own condition was lamentable. I was hot and cold, excited and depressed, hopeful and desponding, while a man could have counted ten. To this doe.-, conventionality bring us. Why did I not say to him there and then, '' I waul Agnes, I won't hear ' No ; I H 40 PRO PAIR I A Li !' f she is mine"? IlcMvcn knows whv it romaincJ unsaiil. "• ;-liniiM lilct> U) scT \'our English honu-," lie lominiucl by-anJ-hy, speakinL!; in so low a \oitc' that I nui-i Ivnd my rar to follow him. " A soldier, however, i^ le» his own mastei" than any other man. They keep me here in Calais, and do not ask me it I WM^h to no away. Next month, ne.xt year, I may be a free man. How can 1 make promises, Captain ? " " Oh, but you are lominff to me some day, if I have to write to the General myself. It's my due, Colonel. Vou wouldn't disappoint me. I think Mademoi-elle Agnes will have a word to say on that matter." He raised his hand as though to stop me. The unshaded candle sent a ray of pale light upon a laee Avhieh, I thought, had grown old suddenly. " 1 repeat, I must repeat, Captain, that I can m.'ke no promises. You will not ask me why — you will know that I am compelled to be frank with you. I wi.>h that you could understand me. It is not to be, however. When our duty stands between us and our wishes, we may complain, but we must not rebel. I do not forget that we are both soldiers, and that one of us will think it wiser to return to his own country by-and-by. But I would ' =>e much to say, 'Stay h.re, make this your home.' Will you believe that. Captain IT Hard? " I do not know how I answf • d him. If he had struck mc on ilie face, the suij-zrise of it would not :. h.\^% iHii OF .\/y>^/:/.F AM> A.yo/I/Fh' 41 hiivr K'c-n more ;unazin^^ It was ii point-blank ivUi^al of my unspoken rcqiK-si. Ik' had said "No," as plainly as any man ever said it in tlii-^ world. The hot hlood of my race rushed to m> Tare, ehokini; taci and rea-on and ari;ument. I stood up and Wa^^i^d him, yet was sorry lor him in spite ot myself. '•Colonel," I said, "do you wish me to put ihe only interpretation ix)s-^ible u| hi those words?" " if you please, Captain." •' Vou prefer that 1 should leave C.ilais? " •' I must prefer it " «' You have said as n^.i'ch to your daughter ? " He turned away. " My daughter will understand," he s. -at every word cost him an eff' >rt. " Then I am not to broach the subject to her ? " He started at the iiuestion and looked me lull in the lace. ♦' As a man of honour, you w ill say nothing to her." " Leaving? that to you ? " '* I understand my duty, sir." *' Fori^ive me if my understandinjj^ is less clear. I shall leave for London in three days' time. It will be possible for you to ^ )irie to another deter- mination before I i;o— in which case you will lind me at the Meoiice." " Enterta- no hopes, i beg of you. My decision is infiexibic.' ■naHBH 42 PRO PAIRJA '• I shiill ^nve you three clays, nevertheless. If I do not see Mademoiselle Al^ius again " Hut I halted suddenly, and as for the rest of it, that remained unspoken. Indeed, I renumber little more of it save that I shook hands with him and went to the door. But I saw him for an instant, the figure of a weary old man, with the wan light cast upward upon a face of marble. And even then I knew how much the night had cost him. it if ^f^^^:^^MX\^ CHAPTER III The Panther I LEFT the house without another word, and sending no message even to Harry the Parson, I went out into the clear night, and struck a road that should bring me down toward the Casino and the western beach. Never did man so welcome God's fresh air, or the cooling breezes from the sea, as I welcomed them in that solitary walk. Not so much had the blow struck upon the merely selfish matter of my interests ; but at my pride, even, it may be, I think now, at my self-conceit. Yesterday I had called Lepeletier intimate among my friends. To-night-to-night, I ground my heel into the gravel by the seashore, and said, as young men will, tliat he should repay to the utmo.;t farthing. Never once did I stav to ask myself, Why is this thing so ? Wliat fact, or lie, or interest has so changed a man in twenty-four hours, that he, who yesterday had called me son, showed me his door to-day-<;ivilly, if you will, yet none the less an opjn door? Anger thrust out the s iner figures of my thoughts. Hcliad insulted me, and I would answer him. To many a lover, 1 suppose, has there come such 43 44 PRO PATRIA an hour as I spent that night upon Calais beach- where all sorts of vain oaths were sworn vainly and chivalry could colour a fine romance for me' and I called the heavens to witness that no man vet born should stand between me and her I loved Let the impression of it be effaced as the folly is forgotten. Rather would I remember the north wind as It tumbled the breakers upon the harbour piers or sent a rime of spindrift to tauten many a well-drawn sail. How the music of the pebbles rolling Ion-drawn notes of melancholv, could touch a plaintive chord, deep and human, in my own heart ! The lights of England shone for me with a new meaning as I stood sentinel upon the deserted sands. For there was the Foreland, magnificent above them all, and the star which marked the Goodwins; and other constellations as of ships passing eastward, westward, to the harbour gates beyond the oceans, to the wharves and quays of London town herself. Behind me lay Calais, a little group as of lanterns hovering abovo the marshland. A band played in the Casino, and its jarnng gaieties struck a discord upon the sea's un- changing voice. But I thought of France no lon^^er with affection ; and there came to me out of tiie night a consolation of my coumry,of her resources and of her power-even, it may be, some surpassing gratitude to that sea whereby I stood, the rampaPt impassable of our kingship, the grave and the glory of that multitude of England's sons who had wrought that kingship might be ours. For the THE PANTHER 45 lights of my country spoke of the green lanes, of the homes of England beyond ; and my heart went out to them as ever it will go homeward in the moments of our grief. An hour, at least, I watched the ebbing seas, the play of light upon the waters, the paths of the great steamers that hurried on in mystery as though land and the peoples of the land were of no concern to them. And when the first impression of it had passed I found a cooler head and a clearer wit to grapple with that which had befallen me. After all, I said, I had acted just as some impatient schoolboy, out of temper with his lesson and ob- stinate beyond knowledge. Another man would have had it out with Lepeletier there and then, would have put him to the question and demanded his reasons, and sought, it might be, to obtain a new argument and a new verdict. But all my life had been a sop to the gratification of my desires. I ha(' yet to live the day when my mother would rebuke the veriest whim of mine. My word was law at Cottesbrook, and even in my regiment the yoke of obedience had ever been made light by a tactful a" 'ndulgent colonel. Gold is but a poor mirror :h to see ourselves, l' ntil Lepeletier asked ii , -.uit his house (for so I p..t it to myself in my acji-'mt of it) I had been satisfied with the picture my mirror gave me ; but now it changed upon the instant -to show me that f^'> a man un- attaining, rcsourceless, vanquished at a word, unable to withstand even a whisper of dissent. PRO P ATRIA Shame of my weakness rather than self-pitv pre- vailed when my anger cooled. How Parson Harry would laugh at me ! And what would Agnes think of her knight, who rode away from the lists because a glove was thrown to him? It needed but this to make my humiliation complete. The harbour clocks, the great bell of the Cathe- dral booming above them, struck the hour of ten, when I retraced my steps to the Meurice and asked It Mr. Fordham had returned. They told me that he had not, but that a gentleman, Martel by name, was waiting for me in my sitting-room and had' been there since nine o'clock. To say that such a visit astonished me would be to express myself but ill. The man was Robert Jeflery, after all, then ! He had come to beg my secrecy; he could have come tor nothing else. That much I owed him for the sake of auld lang syne. I said that his secret should be safe with me, and impatient for the meet- ing, I went upstairs with quick steps. It was Robert Jeffery, after all. He was in my room, as they said ; and he had not forgotten the privileges of a rusted acquaint- ance. I found him, his black ccpe unbuttone.I, one ot my cigars between his tingers, one of my books m his hands, just as I had found him manv a day at Webb's, wlien we promi.sed him a career, and m.athematicians shed their benedictions upon him. All the old effrontery, the old reticence were there In five minutes he would know my business at Calais— I should not learn his in as many years. lipiwpii THE PANTHER 47 " Come in, old sport ! " he cried, with all the splendour of his impudence, as I entered the room and shut the door after me. '' Come and try one of these weeds and make yourself at home. You're about the last man I expected to see in France to- day. A lucky meeting, eh? Well, I'm not so sure about it." I threw off my li^ht dust-coat, and, the night being very hot and close, I went to open one of the windows which, evidently, he had shut ; but he stopped me almost with an an:.^ry gesture. " Not so, my Captain — you are a captain, eh, Hilliard ? Well, sp ire my feelings, then, and keep the window shut. I've got a cold in my head, and I don't want all Calais to hear my mother tongue. Good Heavens ! I'd forgotten I was an English- man until I saw your mug on the Paris road. Fancy that, after sixteen years. Why, man, it makes a boy of me again." There was all the old conceit, the offensive bru- tality of manner in the fellow's speech, which had contrived to make him one of the most unpopular men that ever set foot in Webb's house ; but for the nonce I passed by his impertinence, and lighting a cigar, I wheeled an armchair round and so sat facing him. " Well," I said quietly, "and why have you come here?" He blinked and looked down at the glowing tip of his cigar. The blue veins in his thin hands re- rvi i ni If 1. 1 vy\:\ r\ii' ■» »^ . » i/ » •-» ♦- •-%<•..• ii. 1 «.«. ^. » 1 thev were 48 PRO P ATRIA the fruit of his manners, and not of his birth. We had called him "The Panther" at Webb's. No other word could have described him so well. "Why have I come here? That's an odd ques- tion. I thought you'd be glad to see me. Anything else ? No, I think not, Alfred Hilliard." " Let's see," said I, " it would be sixteen years since you left Webb's? That's a longtime. I didn't remember your name this morning — until you'd ridden away." He threw the ash from his cigar with an odd little jerk, and laughed hardly. " Who's the parson chap— the man who speaks French like a bullfighter ? I like the cut of his jib. Is he a chum of yours ? " " lie is one of my oldest friends." *' So ; and you're hoi iday-m.a king in Calais. Rum place for a picnic, eh? The great Sahara and Southend-on-Sea playing pitch-and-toss together. You've reasons— I won't quarrel with them ; but the other chap, he's peculiar tastes, hasn't he ? " " Do his tastes concern you ? " '* Me— good Lord ! If he drank himself to death to-morrow in buttermilk, what's that to me ? Nice chap, though. I thought he was going to put me through the Catechism when he picked me up this morning. Say, you've a good car. You didn't buy that at a dime store, I'll wager. My park hack took the same view. He isn't used to money." •' I hope you weren't hurt? " said L " Ask the steel bar I was carrying. 1 think you ^:m' m. THE PANTHER 49 bruised it a bit. But I'm an old one. They've chucked me o(T a derrick twice, and here I am. Do I look the worse ? " " Not a great deal. It's my turn for questions. What have you been doino; these sixteen years? " " Learnine: to become a Frenchman. You turned me out of England. By ! I hated some of you. But you weren't among 'em. I ahvays thought you were a gentleman. The others — well, I'll wipe my boots on them some day, as sure as the Lord made us of a different colour." There was always, I knew, in this man's mind the sore of his colour and of that which he believed to be the due of it. He had told me, even as a boy, that he hated the " white man." No argument could modify that rankling consciousness of an inferiority which his imagination detected. He hated his fellows because they were not as he. And his temperament followed the traditions of his race. Where he could not bully, he fawned. " I'm sorry to hear you speak like that, Jeffery. There were few at Webb's who would not have helped you if they could. You did not let them " '* No, the swine ! I wanted none of their help." " But that's no reason for hating them ? " He threw himself back in his chair and laughed brutally. '• Let's talk of something else," he said. " Your p:il, Hardy, what's he doing? " " He's at Woolwich, doing well." ■•Ml 50 PRO PATRIA "Married?" " A ycar- ril not fori!Ct " And one child ? " " Yes, there's a child." "Ah, Hardy was one of them, hint— in hell or out of it ! " " You were going to speak of something else — something more pleasant." '• Yes ; whisky. That's what I want to speak of. I'm as dry as biscuits. Suppose we wash out the Colonel's Bordeaux. Filthy stuff, my chum, filthy stuff; but he likes it. Let's drink to his daughter." I rang the bell and ordered whiskies and .sodas. " Colonel Lepeletier is a friend of mine. The less said about him the better. Haven't you another subject? I'm anxious to know where you have been since I saw you last. By love ! it really is sixteen years ago." "Mix me three fingers, and I'll tell you. So; don't drown it. Anotlier cigar — I thank you." He drank his whisky, the half of it at n .<;ulp, and settled himself in his chair. The deep >e', steely eyes turned upon me curiously. Again I said that they wlio named him "The Panther" named him well. "You made a quick exit to-night," he exclaimed jocularly, avoiding my question, as his liabit was. " The old man said you were queerish ; you don't look it." '< I— oh I'm. all rifflil — a little l">asirc intrude, 'Meet me by moonlij^ht alone,' eh? But I thoui^ht it was an off-shore wind, and you puzzled nie. " That must have been amusing." " Oh, it was. I'd made up the story, and you come alons and aUer the best chapter. Old colonel — young daughter — milord the Englishman. Colonel's duty compels him to say ' No.' Mustn't pal with the English. Milord, the Englishman, bounces out of the house and goes to sharpen a sword on the pier bu. tress. Coffee for two, to-mor- row, and daughter's tears to sweeten it. Say, she's a pretty girl." Fie had touched me to the quick, and another word might have sent him headlong from the room. But a sentence he had spoken bitted my tongue and brought me to a point of curiosity beyond any I had touched. " What particular duty put upon Colonel Lepele- tier by his command at Calais should cause him to show me incivility ? " I asked carelessly, hiding my annoyance under a pretence of amusement. He answered it ofl-hand. " Oh, I knew nothing about that. These French soldiers have odd notions, that's all. He may think that you and he are to meet across a siibre some day. Who knows— who the devil knows? as messieurs the Spaniards say. Have you seen his coalpits, by the way?" " The works at Escalles ? No, I understand they are not to be seen." ii mmmm ■■■ 52 PRO PATRIA lie half closed his eyes, and I tliought that he watched me closely while he spoke. "Ollicially, no, of course not. But there mijihl be a way in." '* I have no curiosity on the point." "No curiosity? And you call yourself an Englishman?" " Yes, but not a curious one." He rose to his feet and bep:in to lau.o;h as a man in a maudlin condition bordering upon intoxication. " I'll drink your health, old sport," he said. " If you want to see the place where the coal comes from, you follow an old chum. I'll show you two fortunes not fifty feet below high-water mark. Say you're a friend of Sadi Martel — oh, you'll keep my secret, old pard ; you won't blow on one of the boys?" " I'm not likely to do that, especially under the circumstances." " Ah ! the circumstances. Old boy's honour and that sort of thing. Well, so long. It's a pity to leave good liquor, isn't it ? Let's fill another glass. Here's to the little lady who can't get married because La France sxiys ' No.' A bumper and no heel-taps— ah ! that does a man good." He drained a tumbler and then staggered to the door. But he had wits enough to cry " Good-night " to me in French, as he stood upon the threshold, and returning for an instant to the room, he took mc by the lapel of the coat and whispered a con- fidence. ^^ ( TIIF. PANTHER 53 •' You won't bo so ^hicl you're an Englishman next year, pard— no, by ! " And with that he went away and left me stand- ing by the table to wonder at the odd notions which •ome to men whose reason is bartered at so low a price. I CIIA! il K iV At Two ( ,o:t S';;rr-ig IT wa-' ch.iractcrislic f liarry For ham tliat you could never catch his laiiiiinei naj ninir. Sun- shine or rain, jj:ood news or ill — thv :• wa.-^ the man and there the jest to lift the clouds <■' your misfor- tune, or tu rub out tlic tidin^r- whi had roul-'' a you. To one ovcr-i;iven to 5j:loc)m and -atuniity (lor this picture o( myself I must admit), there was no finer antidote in all the kingjdoms than he merry consuations of that irrepres- k hun. ui. And to it he added u mea are of con ion sense more generous than the Church is apt > bes w. "iVIake a man, and you make a Cl.ri. an," was the keystone ot his teaching. He :^pe his da , >, I vvitnc-s, in making men. Harry had returned from the Coloii !> house when Robert JelTery left the hotel, and as :- on as he heard the lellow's step upon tiie stairs h< came across to my room and .seated hnnself det in an armchair, as though it had been a natural tl. ng for me to leave Lepeletier as L had done, and '. > steal away without a single word to .-\-;nes or th^ others. 54 IT nV'> GkOATS ^T'n LING 55 As eve '" wi ■ »n o.J i rini. co.ti, ;ind rarric I in his h th- < o ossii pipe which n.id btjcn ic oil. V CM r. ofiiK 11 i-dy ,!.:'r-orth( hires, i nl his slippers w.i rr -.: samp , as he p' tessed, Horn ii w an ired pairs whi.li uiu "flock" b .1 w .kod t 'n, and hich, ~om- tkr h" 'vould . -ju a! t a sHpp -loving ni tion uc liu;htc 1 the , )n, I do not hav' --ecently un roxicat- .ae. Whisky , ,•! R white. he national colours. example ;. id consume the world of the spirit they cull he n-it V. n It int i^o V ' ith ■<■ iu li..e yo'M II 'ids. ^pp pa' -akcu n 'is vei y o inL 'iq'O' - v 'ch u. upo' 1 B. ;in and ' in< li'"- •^•■ T,et s< i"> •riesi «' in il' ndv. \dd Jic anio what the waiter calls ' sy- ] ion, '\u 1 am ippy man." 1^ for t ^ liter and ordered the Cogna "h work*. !■>> 'wn pipe seemed lont;: and ,ib. ious tl ,!it. ury watched me observ- ntiy Ik! It he vas askins^ himself how he lOUiv. .oiT . \V liL xcki med presently, an ' without a lu t warning, what said papa > Don't you M . ^'m d ■ ig '" ' h curiosity ? " I ,uuc mulch and held it up while I nswered im. ' LepeK desires me to leave Calais to- morrow." .TfT I t*i_»™«« ti 56 PRO PATH I A Harry lau<;hed lon^ and loudly. The waiter who came in with the glasses stared at him in mute and I'>ench amazement. To me his humour was as water upon my back. " The reasons," he cried — " the reasons for this maJness?" " I did not ask them." He regarded me with blank amazement. " You did not ask them — not ask his reasons ? " " Not a word of them."' "Great Solomon! Here's a man who will take another man's ' No ' and go away without reasons. Alfred, you are very young, my boy." *' 1 am one-and-thirty, Harry." " In years ; in discretion, one without the thirty. I pass on. Tell me what the aged one siiid." " If I remember it — principally, I think, that l;e would an he could, but could not. The rest I divined. A French ollicer does not marry his daughter to a captain of English Hussars — France would not approve.' •' France— what has France got to do with it? Is France gomg to pay her dressmaker ? Odd rot France ! I'll tell him so to-morrow." " Would that help matters ? " " We'll see. I've promised to go over to Dun- lirk with him." " Seriously, you do not take my view ? " " I value it at two groats sterling. How far does a man in love ever see ? What business has he not to be blind ? You're as blind as a bat, my son, and WTX Wk. 1 I AT TWO GROATS STERLING 57 as proud as an hidalgo when his toes are trodden upon." "I am proud enough to leave a man's house when he asks me." "To leave a man's fiddlesticks! And a prelty girl crying her eyes out in the drawing-room." " Agnes is not likely to do that." "Figuratively, blockhead. She laughed all the evening. But a little and she would have made me sing "-i tune. I told her you had business at the hole-- -Heaven forgive me ! " " It was true. I found your French engineer when I came in. Of course I was right. He is Robert JetTery, after all." For a moment Har, v was serious. " Wh It's the fellow doing in France, then ? " "Superintending the new cual-workings. He always promised to make a first-class engineer." " Ah, with a third-class character. You can't ride in two carriages at once, remember. Which class is he travelling in now ? " " The bu(Tet-car, apparently— near the bottles." •' Then look out for collisions. He seems on good terms up at Lepeletier's. The Colonel's hand and glove with him. Miss Agnes, I notice, is merely on finger-tip terms. That's lucky, anyway." I treated the suggestion with contempt, but the sting of it remained. "He has my word that we do not give him away. But, at least, do not ask me to be jealous of him." i ■^■'mmm'^^!^ i' 58 PRO PAIR/ A " I wouldn't for the world. There is only one request this hour sugye>ls " "And that ?" " Hed — bed, my captain. To-morrow, at nine of the clock, I leave lor Dunkirk. An honest train and no stink-pots. By the time 3'ou are thinking oi" dinner I shall be here to sing" 'All's Well ' with you. Of course I shall. Am I the man to take ' No ' for an answer ? Uy my halibut ! she shall be mine— yours, that is." I laui^hed at his nonsense. " I wish to Heaven I could think so, Harry." He put his hand upon my shoulder and bade me ^ooJ-night alTectionately— more affectionately tn.tn he had ever done. " I will leave no word unsaid that shall help the man who is the best friend to me in all the world." 1 knew that he would not. I knew that if there were one in Calais who could win back that which I had lost, it 'vas Harry Fordham, the parson of Cottesbrook. And I slept upon the promise of his words, upon that and his cheery optimism ; and in my sleep I dreamed neither of Agnes nor of my love for her, but, strangely, of my country and of her safety. For a m.in had said that, before the year was out, I should be sorry to be an Englishman. Even in sleep I knew that he lied. cf^ ?V^Ii4 CHAPTER V The Mouth of a Great Secret THERE was a drizzling rain of morning falling when I had breakfasted next day. The few who sought the blighted amusements which Calais affords to that ram avis, a visitor, went limply and with little spirit to the morning bath and the for- lorn Casino. Nor was I, myself, in better humour, A night's rest found me with but little hope of Harry or his promise. What could be done, that I knew he v.'ould do ; but my logic wore a greyer robe than hi^, cind the man who had whispered the first hint of the truth persuaded me against myself. Some graver motive lay behind Colonel Lepeleticr's talk with me. I suspected already that it was fear of his own duty, reluctance to war against that destiny which had made of him a French engineer and of me an English officer of Hussars. Harry had left for Dunkirk at eight o'clock, they told me ; but It was nearly ten before I quitted my hotel and wandered aimlessly to the Gare Mari- time, the place where the land-lubbers come from — as the pa; SO' Iways spoke of it. The morning boats steam with dripping decks and busy S8 6o PRO l.^.RIA sailors, and Paris Ixr-u nu irKapables all pitiful to see; but found mc ^vitliout amusement or interest. The freshness of ihe morninjf, the racing; seas which i^ambolled in beds of foam, the close-pointed smacks, the busy Channel life, and Dovcf clearly to be seen in the after-lights of rain, moved me to a certain impatience as unreasonable as inexplic- able. While I would tell myself in one bieath that Lepeletier's words last nii^ht were typical of a mood which a day would change, I would say in the next that they were irrevocable as the seas which rolled westward to the sandy beaches and their haven beneath Gris-Nez. The wisdom of years spoke cruelly to my 3'outh of desire when it reminded me of the gulf that lies between one na- tion and another. For I had not remembered it, had seen only the face of one dear to me beyond any face my life had shown me. Questions without answers, books without stories, an hour at the Casino, another upon the beach, a visit to the pierhead when the afternoon boat came in— behold my day ! Impatient always, impatience grew upon me then as a fever. What was Harry doin , ? Why did he not send me a telegram ? Where was Agites? Had her father spoken to her ? Would she send me any word of her own ? Oncf or twice, let me confess, I went as far as the Jardin Richelieu to watch her house and to reap as a reward those quickening emotions which the h ne of one we love ever stirs within us. Ugly and commonplace to the point ol brutality as it i'f'.-'u^Ai i^^m- THE JIIOUTB OF A GREAT SECRET 6 1 was, the Colonel's house then pictured itself in my mind as some scene of passing happiness and con- tent. But there was no one about its door when I stood in the gardens to watch it upon that unfor- gotten day— and Agnes, as I learned from an ac- quaintance at a later hour, had driven her ponies to Marquise to visit a relative there. But I did not lament my occupation, and would have gone to the house though no human thing were destined to tenant it again. It had been already late in the afternoon when Dr. Woodward, one of the English doctors at Calais, spoke of Agnes and her ponies upon the Paris road. I let another hour go by in the hope that some wind of fortune would send Harry prematurely to the hotel again ; but when four o'clock was struck by the harbour bells, and there was no sign of him, the idea came to me that I would run a little way out toward Marquise upon my car, perchance in the hope of meeting Agnes, perchance in the mere resolve to kill time ; for all my thoughts were abroad, and I had no clear purpose either of intent or action. When my man had brought the carriage to the door, and we had threaded the suburb of St. Pierre and passed the barrier, west- ward, to the high road, I began to wonder what folly had kept me at the hotel all day, and why I had left my ne.v car idle. M least I was doing something now. The fresh wind, the saturated air, the galloping seas, the joy of speed, excited me to a new optimism and a better mood. Even the .slu'-tiilSff 62 PRO PATRIA I V ugliest roiid in Europe— for such you may call the route from Calais to Boulogne, with its sandy dunes, its limekilns, its dykes, its desolation— could not abate mv humour. The clouds would lift to- morrow, I sa'id. There are days in every life when they loom above us and we con not see the sun. Rut the sun is there all the siime, and a little word of couraije will lift the darkest horizon. There were few upon the road — peasants trudjr ing to Calais, a couple of troopers riding at the trot, a doctor in the oddest buggy I have ever seen, a priest, a fisherman. As we drew near to the great Government works above Escalles I remembered for an instant the visit which the man Jeflery had paid me yesterday, and all the drunken innuendo he then had uttered. Hut a greater interest pre- vailed above it, an interest of the road itself, and of a carriage which must pass upon it presently. The idea grew upon me now that I must see Agnes; must hear from her own lips as much as my honour and my word to her father permitted me to know. Here upon the road to Marquise the opportunity sb.ould be found. I say that we drew near to the great works at Escalles, and it was here for the first time that Bell, my engineer, checked our speed and began to re- member that he had a brake. A taciturn man always, with no neck to speak of for a car to crack, as he put it grimly, I came to regard him as a part nf the macliinc he drove, an automaton, a mute. On that particular afternoon I can remember no §L r'^c'TP^^. ■■^■v'^^* T///- MOUTH OF A GREAT SECRET ^3 word that he uttered from the Port St. Pierre to Haut-P.uisson ; but as we came to a walking pace to cross the rails by the workinp:s, he jerked n. thumb backwards towards Calais and implied thereby iii;;t it was raininp: behind us, and that we should catch it pre ^ntly. " GoiiijC^ to be a storm, sir." "Apparently there is one, Bell. Have you got the mackintoshes ? '' " Oh, of course, sir." '* Then go on slowly and let's see what we make of it." Certainly it was very black. Mists loomed above distant Gris-Nez; heavy clouds were beating in from the sea. At Calais it was raining already, and the contending sun cut prisms of light across the bending showers. But where might we shelter if not in the works? I was debating the point when who should appear at the great gate of the first enclosure but Robert JefTery himself. For an instant he stared at me with as savage a look as I have ever seen upon the face of man. But it passed as quickly, and he came up to the car and stood peering up at me curiously. " Where away, my chum ? where away so speedily ? " " Are you greatly concerned to know ? " •' No ; I don't care a scudo. But it's a nice day for a picnic. Say, did you see two ponies and something behind them go past here just now ? " " You are speaking of Mademoiselle Lepeletier ? " B 0f' r, ^4 PRO 1 'ATRIA "On the head first time. Your old caravan won't catch her, my boy. She was through here at one o'clock." "That's interesting. Much indebted for past favours. Are they going to open that gate and let me through? " You must know that they have laid a pair of rails for the light engines across the road by Haut- Buisson, and there is a gate which an old watch- man keeps. Usually he stood at attention when I came up ; but I remember that he was not there on that unforgotten day, nor did I discover any one else in his place. Bell told me afterwards that Jeffery laughed when I cried *' Gate ! " I did not see him, or much that happened might go unre- corded here. Would it have been for my country's good, I ask ? God alone knows. "The old fiat-head's off with the girls," said Jeffery suddenly. "Why doesn't he answer? Gosh! there's the rain coming, too. You'd better step inside, my chum. I've a bottle of something they label ginger-beer there, but the grocer made a mistake, and I do believe it's whisky. Come in and tell me." Now, I do not believe for a momen* that I wanted to go in with the man. Here and now, after all has been and is done with— may it be for our time and our children's children ! — I can record it that I would sooner have met any other man in Europe than Robert Jet; cry upon the road to Marquise. But the gate was shut, and a very deluge of rain mjmmis^r^^K'iLnm. Tin: Mi.UTH OF A (.REM S/AA'/i/ hr, bo-an to tall ; and thc-rc was the open door and the oiler of shelter, and, to cut it short, against my will, against my judgment, I got down from the ear and prepared to go in with him. " Run your I'iekt'ord's van into the shed yonder," he said, becoming busy upon the instant. "The man can stop there. I daresay you won't Ix' five minutes. We'll just pull a cork and see what the clouds say. There's a sentry here, but he's not as tierce as he looks— not to friends of mine. Say, old riuviu> is out on the spree to-night, isn't he?" He pushed open the gate, and the sentry stood to the salute. As we passed through the great door it was instantly bolted and barred behind us. I did not like the sound of the key in the lock, but thought no more of it as Jeflery led the way across a paved enclosure to a little oflice under the shelter of a wooden wall. There I asked him a question. " You are quite sure that they would not mind my coming in here? " " Why should they mind, sonny? " "I understood in Calais that strangers were for- i">idden the works," "Ah, the military works; but we're in the coal- pits. You don't .suppose I should go fooling you around the forts, do you ? What a mug you must take me ior \ " He laughed with that resonant, unpleasant laugh of his, and turned the key in the olFice door. When ■^ ■ '*- "^ pivjv!iUci.i a identic of uood ."SCOlc ii vvhi.sky and two tumblers. luai 66 /•AV) I'ATRIA " ]ust a ihimMcful to keep out the coKl. I don't drink in tl'e daytime usually, but this is an occasion. Ik-sides, it keeps the inside of the ship dry. Here's to your friends down yonder, especially the pretty one. That's a toast you'll drink, sonny, 1 make sure.'" I avoided the point and bc^an to speak of the works again. All that I could see through the little window of his olhce betrayed a vast activity, the labour of countl'ss navvies, the snorting and puffing of engines, the whirr of cranes, the ceaseless rattle of chains and buckets. Interest was compelled at the bidding of curiosity. Jeflery, meanwhile, watched me as one amused. " Plenty to do here, eh, Captain ? Why, yes, we don't catch cold. I've been on since six this morn- ing, and if I get to bed at two o'clock, it will be a sort of night off. Rut it's nothing to what they do over the pond yonder. That makes me tired." " Were you long in America ? " •'Three years in Mexico and five in French Guiana. After that I went out West and tried a couple of railways in Texas. I've seen some life —my ! " " And learned to pass for a Frenchman? " «' Oh, as for that, I speak the lingo, and my yarns of Mexico do the rest. They say I've got a twang, but don't believe "em. It's good enough for such cattle, anyway." lie hiu'-hed at hi'^ own irony, and then looking at me .-sharply, as I had seen him look twice already J^K:- •tp ▼■■ 66 "A vast activity." //// Mof'TH OF A GKEAT SI-Xh'F.T f^^ i;iiu! moil p.n liriil.n ly wiicn tliey shut the uato UjXJL Us , he put a quc^ion. " You were crossinij over to-ni.nht, weren't yuu.-' " To Dover, you mean ? " "Aye, that's so. I lieard you mention ii, I thohiiht." " Well, I was Koini? morrow." " And your pal, the parson ? " "Oh, I am not Fordham's keeper." "Go(xl sort, eh? None of y^ur hustlers, with the hat crown down Supp se we have another tot a ! look- round. It's clearinir a bit, I see." The lu ,.y storm had swept over by this time, and no V a «^reat yellow sun ulowed pale and water; in a halo of fantastic lit a minute," he said; pit •• " But what about my lights? " " You won't want 'em. Come along. I have to m:-ke a round, and you'll see something. Eve' lx.'en down a coalpit, Capiain .-^ " "I cant siy that I havc. ' " Then you shall go down one now Come along, old sport. Its a treat to see old faces -Im right glad yoii li^oked in." lie drank another ''tot " of the ub.i-kv ai <>-u!o and pa.s.sed out t- the yard. To argue witi hitn •If. and see the 6ft PRO /'.IT.WIA I would have Ix-en to defeat mvself. I detLtmined to have done with it, and to see the " pits" as he desired. 1 knew no more than the dead that I walked with a man who had set a trap tor me. It was quite tine when we left his otiice, and there was even a i,'low of the ebbin.u sunlii;ht upon all those dn.'ary acres and the !L!;rass!;inds beyond them. Away at sea land we were lour miles Irom the sea.-hore as I made it out) the aftermath of storm ^ave a glorious serenity of scene and atmo- sphere, a clearness of vi-ion which sliow.d me the white cliffs of Dover, the Foreland, and all the iVesh life of the Channel, as in some surpa.^sin'.i picuuv of Nature's paintini;-. Calais it; -If I coulu perceive as a collection of roofs and spires below the outline of the farthest cliff. The; were ham- lets upon the slopint; sides of the \\\-u\ard lulls, pasture-lands beyond them, and, to doniinaie all, the ^reat Cape whose lla>hinii lii-ht wf p 'int to at Dover; whose headland (irst welcomes tiie lands- man as he labours in the auony ot passa^e. All about me, however, was a sp'Ctacle more wonder- lul than these. We had passed as throu;;h some matiic door to a very Inferno of chimorous labour, to tield> which had become qu luniircs, to armies of swarminir workmen, to scenes ol a iire;it enter- prise of which those who passed by the outer liate niiuht not have dreamed in a hundred years. And these were the " pils " ? I asked. .\l;vady s ne ureal, some indrfmable doubt do'4,ued my steps. Whither was I tioing? Why had I followed Jeffery- ^-rlj li^r^A!.'Ali THE MOUTH OF A GREAT SECRET 69 Why did he show me these things? I could not tell you then. To-day I would suy that it was my destiny. A first enclosure, v.ist and marshy, and every- where teeming with life, we trod warily, observed, as it seemed to me, very closely by those who worked lliere, but challenged by none. Heavy, buttressed masonry, which I could have sworn was the rampart of a fort, stood as the dividing line between this outer court and a second enclosure which lay beyond it and still nearer to the sea. Ik re again sentries patrolled the rampart and stood warders of its gate. But we passed them at a nod iVom Jen'ery, and traversing a little tunnel of the buttress, we stood out in a tremendous working, which, whatever it might have been, had neither the aspect nor the shape of a pit's mouih. For my part, I could not even conceive a project, military or civil, which might provoke such activity or employ so numerous an army. Here, as in the outer yard, ballast-trains moved everywhere, their trucks rolling under loads of oozy chalk, their little engines speaking of the contractor and his business. The shriek of whistles, the burr of the crane, the iarring of steel bars, the odd chantings of' the workers, united in th.it discordant note of labour which only the largest undertakings may strike. I siiid that never were coalpits such as these. And 1 went on obstinately, seeming to realise that it were dangerous to go. A second line of ramparts, tunnelled as the f • ^t up in parish yellow spirit llames; but ili().c- who worked by iheir li^ht were the chosen leu, the m.ore skiiied artisans, the engineers. And UN ue piun-cd downward and still downward, the ;^reat buttres.sed wall over raising itself higher aix)ve us. -even the skilled wen.- rardv passed. A tremulous silence prevailed in Die pit. From the di>tance there came a sound a-^ of the throbbing 7« 72 PRO /'ATRlJ Of some mighty engine at work benc^Uh the v^y .ea tow;.rd which 1 knew we must bo NsalUn.. But the man who led me downward had no desuc to gratify mv curiosity. Passm^ Irom the da>- li.ht to 'this' cavernous gloom, he had become t;rciturn, morose, stran.t;ely ^<^'-f-«^^"P\^^,- . ^„,, I followed at his heels as we went ^^^^^^y^-' aown toward the sea. When at last the mc me o. . , ,. 1 -ind we came upon a ie\ei \Nti>i the cuttmu ceased, ana we cann- "i , eouM perceive four lines of ra.ls runmng up to puaform. as I .r the l.rminus ol a s.at.on . nd leyonJ ihen, Uk- narrow mouth ol a tunnel «h.ch ,°e.i but two traeks, and seemed to be no h,n. ,,.e than a tube of steel thrust into the tjrud whe bere eovrrs the ehalk of the Channel bed. All the c^ eonver,ed to the tunnel's mouth, but beyond Ivas utter darknes,. This was our journey s end, '"ood knows that even then I dare not tisk myself the me nin.' of the things 1 saw. When, without p ..:^: :re is , etxaled to us, tts in the twinkhng o an ve, the truth of some mystery wh.eh appeals bke to he atore terrible phase of our tmagtna- ; on and to our tear, we are .low to '-Xon -tth that truth or to aumit it. 1 -■< ■' J""" '^^\^ In ' ... ro,n the lirs. instant of inspection the whole meanint. of that which the b.ench ^^'"^^ .^iimtrv there seven miles nom •!<■ 1 nst mv country — uicn., ^ Ct' • is upin the Paris road. Uut to cla.m that Messed the moment of it, or would embrace the [:,w edue,,.. my u.ner.nost m,nd, would be to lx,ast I' wfidi ■■ IflE TUNNEL 73 ;i prescience I have no title to. Rxcited if you will, driven to a curiosity which clclies any mea-ure, telliny; myself that I should never live again such an hour as this, I followed the niiin to the tunnel's mouth ; I watched him kindle a Hare ut another a workman held; I heard his odd exclamations, that racking laugh which no other in all the world ever lauglud so ill. If my life had been the stake, 1 must go on. Curiosity drove mo now as with a lash. I neither reasoned nor apologised, for a voice within me said, Vou shall see. Jeffery raised the (lare and stood an instant at the very mouth of the tunnel. The waving, ugly light displayed a face hard-set ;is in some exciting memory. Again he looked at me as he had looked when I met him on the road to Paris. " Sonny, ever been in a tunnel before? " " Once, a Metropolitan tunnel." "Nasty, eh?" " Well, it wasn't pleasant." " Ah, but you had the dry land above you there. \o\\ were never under the sea, I suppose ? " " Not farther than any decent swimmer goes." "So! We'll take you deeper down than that. Come on, my boy. It does me good to hear you." lie entered the tunnel upon this and began to walk very quickly, while I, when we had left the last of the daylight behind us, stumbled after him with all a new comer's ungainline->s. Such a glare as his torch cast showed me the polished rails of steel, the circular roof above us already blackened 74 PRO PA r/x'/.i by ihc smoke ol L-nuinc's; hut the tr;uk I scarcely saw, and tripped often lo his amusement. " Miss your eyes, eh, Captain ? Well, you've got to pay your footini^. Listen to the music— it's a train Lioini^ home to tea. You'd better step in here, my lad— we can't allbrd to waste your precious life like that. Do you know you're standinij in what oui;ht to 'oe the four-foot-six, but isn't ? Come out of it, come out of it." He pulled me from the track to a manhole in the wall, and crouchini^ there to.u:ether we watched the eninine go clattering by, all the nof of the tunnel incarnadined with the glowing- iride.-cence of the crimson light, the very faces of the workmen standing out white and clear in the glow which the torch cast upward. But the tunnel seemed shaken to its very marrow, and the quivering earth, which held the steel, apjx-ared to live wiik the trucks rolled over it. Again, as ollen Ix-lbre, I realised the majesty of the engineer's life; never- theless, the greater question rang unceasingly in my ears, Why had I been seduced to this place'' What did the iMcnch Government want with a tunnel beneath the sea seven miles from Calais harbour? (.od is my witness that 1 did not dare to answer my>elf -did not dare until m;iny hours, nay, days were lived and i could doubt the truth no longer. We had come by this time a mile at the least, as I judged it, from the tunnel's mouth, and must be very near lo the -.1, if not actually beneath THE TVNNEL 75 it. r>y here ;ind there upon our way wc passed a soldier patrollintr, lantern in hand, a section ol the tunnel ; and once, when we had i^one on ai;ain a quarter of a mile, we found a yreat bricked shaft, at the foot of which men were haulinu; sleeivrs and steel rails by the li.uht of a coal lire and many flares set about it. The picture vvas rude and wild ; the faces of the men shaped p:dc and hard- set wherever the li^ht fell upon them; the environ- ing darkness, so complete, so unbroken, su.t;i;ested the mouth of some vast, unfathomable pit ; where- unto ill this burden of steel and wood was cast; wben.'from these shadowy figures had emerged to claim a due of the outer world. But the illusion ■^'vas hi jken when JelTery halted to exchange rapid \vords with the men and to give them tluir directions. Again I observed the quick olvtiiciirc, the respect he commanded. Of all tl. u unnumbered army of workers I had seen he, indispui-ibly, was General. And he knew his power. "Clever chaps, these Frenchies," he said, as he went on again. " Direct them plainly and they'll get there, though they've a devil of a lot to say about it on the road. That shaft was an idea of mine, which I'm proud of. We'll ventilate there by-ar -by; meanwhile the Belgian barges can beac iheir rails and send them down to us. 1 save two days' labour in three, and that's lucky in a job like this. Are you beginning to wonder where the coal is ? " 76 Ph'o r.\ih:i.\ I answcicd him by i question. "Does the shall eom; o;:t on tl' • K.uh, then ?" "Grovvinij curious, eh? WMl. perhap'^. we'll k«i up by it iind see as we uo back. Manwhile, you and I must have a bit ot a talk lor 'lu- sake oi auki lang syne. Sit down, sircc, sit doun. The plank's not exactly Waklorl'-A f^ria, bii u's next dom to it, seeinii you're in a tunnel." We were then, I suppose, the tliird of a mile from the shaft he had spoken of. 1 knew that we were deep down below the Ix-d of the Ch:innel ; and there was in the knowiedi:,e a sense of awe and mystery, and somethin^^ beyond awe and mysirrv —it may be something; akin to terror— which I realised then for the first time, but have lived through, wakint; and sleepmp:, many a day since that terrible hour. I was down below the sea in a tunnel that struck towards my own country. Above me were the ripplini? waves, the rolling ships, the flashin.i- ! lights of the busiest waterway in the world. What lay beyond in the darkness, where the last tubes of this tremendous hi^^h- road were to be seen, I knew no more than the dead. The m andeur of it, the mystery of it muted my tongue, fascinated me beyond all clear thought. The road lay to England, to my hom.e ; it could not point otherwise. Anu I, alone of Englishmen, II iJ come to knowledge of the mystery. Jeffery, I say, set his tlai e in a cre\ i. • of the track and iii.ulc a rude seaJ of a couple ol h arJs :!i,d a bench which here stood in the six-foot w ly. Work nUi TUWEL had been pi()p:i\s^inji at this place boloro the siren was blown, I ima:;incd, and the tools of the men- jacks, drills, heavy hammers— lay abDUt as a tesli- mon V to JMcnch confusion. My j^uide pointed to them with an ironical linger, and, kickiniia hammer from ihe track, madr another bench similar to his own for me. "Look," he said; "that's your Frenchman's love of order If a ticket were needed for the Day of jiuk-nient, h.'d ^o aloft without ;.t. Sit down. Milliard, and watch me drink a sup of whisky." He scaled himself on the bench and took a lon^ pull from an old black llask, which he passed to me when he had done with it. My refusal to drink seemed to annoy him. It was an e.vcuse the less for his own habit. " Well," he snapped, " you know best. Rut you'll j;et little drink where you're going to. Here's luck on the road." I rested my arms on my knees and looked him as full in the face as the guttering Hght permitted me. " What do you mean by that, Jeflery ? " He laughed to himself, a sott, purring laugh that meant all the mischief he could command. "Hark!" he said, raising his hand for silence; "do you hear the old girl throbbing? That's my shield— my own. There's some in Europe who would pay a penny or two if I'd make 'em another like it. But I'll wait till this job s through. Oh ! sonny, wouldn't you ? " I did not answer him, but listened to the pulsing I f'^^^r^- 1. '^- MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART lANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 I.I 13.2 IliM 1140 I 2.5 I 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ -APPLIE D iiVT/IGE Inc ^^ '553 East Man Slree! "^ Rochester, Ne* r.orK '4609 i,:'jA •-^ ."fi) -e;' 0300 Phone S^ . '16) 288 - '.989 - fa. 78 Ph'O r.llRlA m;ichinc w'uch, at some L^iiat distance from us, as 1 knew it mu.-^t bo, thrust its steel toni,^ue into the soft cliall< of the Channel's beJ, and cast tons of the earth Ix^hind it, as though to m;dcc a burrow for a mii^hty, liuman animal which thus would cheat the seis. The tube of steel in wliich we had walked quivered at every thrust of the enjiine. Neverthe- less, I know that the work was far away ; for I could hear no voices, could not even see the twinkling: lamps of tho.-e who gave life to the tongue and con- trolled it. The very sense of distance appalled and fascinated in an appeal to the imagination surpass- ing any I had known. " Jeflery," I said, asking him a plain question for the first time, " why did you bring me here ? " He answered me as plainly, "To still your d d tongue for ever." Tlie words (and never a man heard seven Avords which meant more) were spoken in that half-mock- ing, half-serious key which characterised the man. To this hour I can see him squatting there upon the wooden bench, his sallow face made sardonic in the aureole of dirty light, his thin, nervous lingers in- terlaced, his deep-set eyes avoiding mine, but seeking, nevertheless, to watch me. And he had trapped me ! My God ! I tremble now when the pen recalls that hour ! He had traj^ped me, brought me to that place because he believed that I had his secret, the secret which France liad kept so well from all the world. Fool! thrice fool I was to follow him. As one ;>./ THE TUNNEL 79 blind I had stumbled on to the mouth of the abyss; and nowl could see the depths, could, in imaixination, reel back from them appalled. Fie had trapped me! He uttered the thrc;it, I say, but almost in the same breath began to question me as though the thing had never been spoken. While twenty ideas sprang at onre to my mind, while ti;e peril quickened my heart and brought drops of sweat to my face, he pursued his purpose of interrogatio.i relentlessly. For all that 1 knew he had brought me to the place that I might carry from it to a French prison the knowledge of that which France wrought against my own country. Every word he spoke recalled to me the ramparts we had passed, the patrols upon the cliffs, the great locked door, the walls which shut in this secret from the world. No prisoner was ever caged more surely. Even at that moment of it I said that the last day of my liberty might have been lived. The words which the man spoke were as drums beating in my ears. " So you came to Calais to make love, sonny, and the little French girl w.is to help you, eh? You hocus-pocussed the old man and dished him up with banknote sauce, eh? You weren't at all anxious about the works — oh, no, not at all, and you didn't want to come here. Poor little lambs and sheep ! Fiow I do like to see them out to grass. Say, boy, have a cigarette? You won't get 'em in the fortress." I took' i!ic cigarette and ^vondered at the steady I- 8o PRO PATH I A hand which lighted it. My very liberty hung upon a thread ; I had the wit at least not to break the threatl. " Isn't it about time we dropped this?" I s;Md nt last. "You know perfectly well why I cam. a- Calais?" " As true as the levels of this floor, my son. You came to Calais to make love— to the harbour works. Do you suppose I'm a chump, like Lcpeleticr?" " Lepeletier is ;i genHeman." " Oh, stick up for your friends. He'd have played a good hand for you, si^-ee, he and the other bit zi goods. But I weighed in be lore them, you see. And just in time, by ! " He had told me in a sentence why Lepeletier had asked me to leave Calais. This man had threatened to denounce his friendship for a spy. And Agnes ? But of her I would not think. " Well," I said quietly, " you make a good story of it. The other side's to come. Take my word as a soldier and a gentleman that I knew- nothing what- ever of this business until 3^ou brought me here to- night. It's your own fault that I have not gone back to England as wise as I came. And what's the offence? That I followed your lead? If it's no more, you won't persuade our people to keep their lingers out of this pie." The idea amused him vastly. "Your people— club dandies and Pall Mall fools —paid a thousand a year to say nothing and do as much! Man, you know them better. By the time THE TUNNEL 8i 1 they've cut the red tape off your packet, you will be foriiottcn on the Healthy Isles, and this work will be where all the world may come and see it. I'm living for that day. There arc some on your side I want to clem a slate for. Your slate's washed, or will be when I've done with you. The others may wait, that swine H irdy am')ng the numb_>r. He called me a black man, the dirty toad ! " The reminiscence of the old days at Woolwic!! found him in a more dangerous mood. Temper began to master him. The outstanding veins upon his forelv.ad and his hands swelled horribly. He threw the cigarette he had been smoking to the ground and crushed it with his heel. Men spe.iK of a " gliltermg eye " ; I knew what the expression meant before he had done with me. •' I'll settle with Hardy, and wring his cursed neck, or he shall wring mine," hecontimicd, with growing anger; 'that'll be pretty news to go out to you at Cayenne, sonny. By Gosh ! I hope you like hot climates. You'll want some summer clothes where you're going to." I heard him with what indifference I could affect. There was not an instant now when I did not tell myself that, if I wished to sec my own country again, i must act then, at the beginning of it, e11, my man, will liave a fever. You don't suppu>e I'm going to take you seriously." The taunt was as coal upon the lire of it. " Why diu you come here to spy out my work? " he asked. "Was it any bu-'ness of yours? Arc you an Intelligence man, or the dandy you pretend to be ? Good God ! am I never to build a house but some English fool must come along and spoil it ? Don't lie to me— lis to those who' re waiting for you when I give the word, ^'ou're playing double, and you know it." He stood clenching his hands and facing me m an outburst of anger which was pitiful to see. A single cry of his would have brought a sentry to the place ; one word might have sent me to the prisons of France. That much I remembered in spite of the hot blood of my race. " If you will be reasonable for five minutes, I will show you how I play double," said I ; " but it can't be done here. Come back to my hotel and search my luggage. You are not prepared to take my word; let your eyes convince you. I came to Calais because Lepeieti(- was here. A little re- Ilection would make the rest clear to you. Is it not rather absurd to make accusations which you cannot support, and which you know- to be false? L)o me the iuslice to remember what you knew ol me ai Webb's. Is a man with my means likely to Tiif': n XM-L R>. ^ come here pryinti nboui your alTairs ? ^'oll know- that he is not. Let us v^o up ami talk it over. We shan't uet any farther in this place." The sutiLiestion amused him. He snarled an ironic answer. " No, I tjuess not, Alfred Hilliard. You've ^one as far towards Northamptonshire as you're likely to Lvo for many a day. My ! you make ;i ^ood story of it 1 I'm a bit of a liur myself, and I recognise the breed." Now, I have said that I come of a race which was never known at any time for a well-controlled temixT. My mother is of Irish birth ; my forefathers were fox-hunters and soldiers, jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel. There was ne\er one of them that counted his life at the value of a pin's point if honour thereby were imperilled. And all the world had said that as the fathers were, so the son. Until this man called me a liar I had kept my temper under what control I could ; had feinted when he enuaoed; had laughed, jested, been serious or flippant, as his mood was. But the mask of pru- dence fell at a word. Had all the sentries in Calais been there to hear us, I must have acted as I did upon that spur of temper and of honour. " You talk like a fool I " I exclaimed, holding myself back with an effort which cost me much. " If I thought you meant a word of it, I would answer you differei ly." He took it step towards me and raided a clenched fist to my face. His eyes were bloodshot, but 84 PNO PA TNI A li^lited by a drunken anger which defied his last attempt at self-control. •' Liar ! " he cried ; " liar as you always were — that's what I mean to say." And that was the end of it, for the words had scarcely passed his lips when I struck him twice, and he fell at my feet, white and se-^ ss, across the very track he had built. ist ad CHAPTER VII I Think to Hear the Sea WE awake from anjj:er as from sleep, and in the elearer li^ht ot reason judge ourselves. While the man stood before me, while his taunts were so many lashes of a whip upon my honour, temper and the frenzy of temper blinded me. But I awoke from the stupor as suddenly as it had come upon me. My daylight was the garish flame of the guttering torch. Night was beyond in t^ -^^f' darkness of the mystery with which, evci ny awaking imagination could not cope. I liad struck the man with all my strength, and God has given me a full m'?asure of that ; never- theless, when he fell senseless before me, some moments passed before I could remember how I came to strike him, or why we were in that place. Slowly, link by link, 1 completed the chain of memory. He had brought me there upon a pretext. He had wished, as I came to see in those saner moments, to prove for himself my knowledge of that which France had planned below the sea at £5 86 PRO PATRIA E^scallcs. His suspicion Ixinu: aroused, he l..al determined thus lo shut my mouth for ever. And, in my turn, I had killed him. Cod knows I eould even believe it was that— so still hi lay, so white, so pulseless. They say that in the moments of oui .greatest peril we often act with an odd presence of mind and a method which less exacting hours could not surpass. Be this as it may, 1 do not see, locking- back to that nij^ht, that if another had struck the man down, I, a passer-hv, could have done more than I did. For my first act was to stoop and to drat? him from the '•ails. Quietly, I remember, ml methodically, I picked up our mackintoshes and our peaked hats which we had cast off because of the stifling air of the tunnel. No doctor standing at a bedside could have fingered a pulse more leisurely or wilh more patience. Hut his pulse was still. I thought that I had killed him, and a shudder, such as I pray God I may never know again, fell upon my limbs and sent me giddy and reeling in the darkness. I record it that I thought he was dead, and for a little while I stood there, held dumb and terror- stricken with the horror of it, and yet unready to admit the truth. When ten seconds, perhaps, were numbered, the dreadful fear passed as a shadow. The body at my feet quivered suddenly in a ner- vous convulsion, the fingers of the hands \vere opened and shut, but clenched no more; a groan escaped the man's lips. No music that ever was / IIIIXK TO hEM^ niE SEA 87 vvritk'n o.uld have- luvii >wcvUT iim ir lo mr Umii ihii crv .)! inc rciurnin-. I had hccn a lool t.. tlunk him dc;al. I said. M^my a man had I seen -^o do.vn to siuh a blow as mi.-.e, and yd K walkin- with his friends before another pair had boxed their ,.ounds As tliev fell, so had Jelfery lallen. l!ie knowleJ 'e sent me baek upon myselt. I ih, mh' of mv own ea^e-of the sea above me, and the r.mpari I must pass, and the li.uhts of En-land bevond tl.em. For au-ht that I k; ew, ten seconds miuht turn the scale of my libvty. A distant sound in the tunnel, as of a train approacnmii, sent me to my feet with the 1^'^^P ^^' \*^;^'''; startled from sleep. The man lived. He had but to cry out once, and twenty would answer him. I Slid that Destiny had willed this moment ot respite, and, with all my nerve set upon that des- perate hope, I turned to the darkness and ran heidlon--! know not whither, save that it was toward the land, away from the pit and the intoler- able fear of it. . . It was, at the first of it at least, a flight 01 panic, and so much I do not seek to disguise. Judge my ca^e and do me iustice. For who would have ecret which France had tj;uarded so well. T lesson which their ex mvple t iui?ht me was quick ; learned. From that moment I ceased tc .Ntnmble headlons throui^h the tunnel, b" went ^\ erect and thinkins?. As they were cui .d, so n.ight I It was intensely dark when the ent,nne had passed, and I could see that star of crimson lii^ht which the furnace cast upward, diminishin<; in inute by minut " ' ' " 1st re speck upon the roo and at hist had vanished alto'-ether in the utter blackness of distance. The 90 PRO P.ITRfA thunder of wheels had now beeome but a tremblinii of the tube about mo, and that ceased at last and the nadir of silence was touched. Every drop ot water that dripped to the Hoor was a i^reat sound above that stillness. A quickened ima^^ination so deceived me that I thought to hear the sea rollin- upon its bed of shingle above my head, and be- lieved that I could distinguish the melancholy cry of the wind and the beat of the waves, l-rom time to time I stood to listen for the sound of steps or the echoes of a voice— but heard nothing. The distant engine, far away below the Channel's bed, had ceased to throb- I stood alone, but never farther from my liberty. A fool's hope, a driven man's desire— these sent me on. 15ehind me lay the man who had brought me to the trap; before me were the ramparts and the sentries and the prisons of France. I knew that I could not pass the ramparts ; nevertheless, I went on. Courage o( a sort made my step more sure. I was ashamed of nothing, did not fear any man's story, was willing to tell my tale to all the world. Nevertheless, I understood from the first that I must seek to tell it in England, and not in France. For what meed of justice might I look for at the hands of those who guarded this insurpass- ■Ah\c secret ? Tiiey would silence me at any cost. My life would not be worth a grain of sand against the tremendous purpose which had dictated this endeavour. They would risk any accusation, any ■ .. f„ .»■,"-<-> o"« tiii< Mii-ident of destiny where- syy^w#y^^v-^''' ^fCftmif^'^ I TIIIXK TO HEAR THE SEA 9^ bv one who least deserved to know, had come to the possession of full knowlcd-e. And I, in turn, must call upon every i^nft that God had i;iven me that I mii'hi proclaim the truth. An excitement ot tlie purpose sent me on a-ain with beatmg heart toward the ramparts and the lit;ht. 1 was alone in the tunnel, I say, and 1 knew that the '••■■eat air-shaft we had passed in our journey must'' now be very near the place where I stood. A -reat sense of relief came to me of the assurance that the sea no lon-er beat above my head. There would be air at least from this point onward, and a -limpse of the sky above me. So great was the expectation of it that I ran on quickly, saying that I would tell the sentries this or that, or would avoid them bv scaling the wall of the enclosure, or would demand to be sent to Colonel Lcpeletier himself. Trtte it was that a vision of a face came to me for an instant, as some memory ot happmess past, of an old state of life lost for ever. Never more would Agnes and I meet as we had met. This barrier of the mystery lay between us as a .nilf no merely selhsh impulse might bridge. A heavy burden of mv destiny lay upon me then. 1 did not dare to think of it. Lights and the voices of men called me back from the dreamland to the tunnel. I was alone no longer. It is a rare experience to stand in doubt and fear, and to await the approach of those in whose hands our fate is. When first I saw the lanterns and .,.>..,vi ♦'>" '"i'-''^ I was without plan, or word, or 1 1 92 PRO PATRIA intention. Wlioever they were, the^e patrols had entered the tunnel from the shaft I approached so expectantly ; their lanterns struck a sudden glow- on the blackness, and where all had been intensely dark, ten seconds ago, there was now the glimmer of a candle's light. By this already I could distin- guish the shadows of three, and I knew that they must pass me, must see me, could not lail, it might be, to challenge me. Nevertheless, I had no plan in my mind, no thought of it, but stood there as one resourceless and beaten. This, and this only, could be the outcome of my flight. Challenge, dis- covery, arrest. I repeated the words as the men drew near. Then, as upon an impulse, I buttoned my cape about my shoulders, and walked straight toward them, by them, past them toward the shaft and the tunnel's mouth. " Monsieur Martel, Monsieur Martel, oii est Jour- da in ? " I halted at the words, spoken in provincial French, but did not turn toward the speaker, the shortest of the three and the one who carried the wavering lantern. Why had he called me Martel ? Had the darkness deceived him, then ? Inconceiv- able deception ! And yet he called me Martel. "// est h\ bas^' I said, distinctly, again upon the impulse. And what folly, for who could not distin- guish the voices ? But, miracle of words, the three cried " Merci" and passed on. They would find Jeffery's body in ten minutes, I said. And they had called me Martel. i I.. wm )fie!ie>\~-,»Vf^: I THINK TO HEAR THE SEA 93 not inconceivable, hair was black— so was mine, of him in inches, but I stooped, They had called me Martel and .^et me pass Well, in the darkness it was after all. jeffery's I had the advantage ir,..„ph perchance, when they passed by. He spoke P ench with sufficient accent ; I spoke it as at Strat ord- atte-Bowe, vet with enough of grammar to suffice. And our clothes ? We ^^ ere both wearing mackin- toshes and peaked caps. Abstractedly I felt abou mv cap to verify the assumption. But my hand touched a gold shield as it fingered the ru^-.nd then I knew. In the darkness I had picked up Teffery's cap ; my own lay yonder, where the patrol would find it presently. 1 laughed ironi- calU at the thought. This little thing, this unguided act, had saved me from the men. But, was it " unguided or d>d U.e hand of Destiny direct my own.^ I could not answer. , ,„i, . t The man's hat was on my head, sure enough , 1 wore a black cape such as he had worn ; the dark- ness and the circumstance of the place served for the rest. And do you wonder that many wild schemes leapt to my brain as it dwelt upon this fortuitous rencontre. If the patrol passed me ir> the tunnel, whv should I not pass the sentry at the gate? True, there would be the light of arc limps there-for often had they shone down upon me as I returned, belated, to Calais uix)n my motor. There would be arc lights and the patrol ot the en- closure and the euardians of the inner ward and :::'aKi'^ ^ 04 J'h'O rATRlA the liiuirdians of the outer. My plot ebbed aw:iy as a'burn in the sand. A miracle alone could open the .threat t;ate to me, I said. And these are not the davs of miracles. So behold me a-ain racked with the doubt of it. At every step I took now my ears were bent for any sound that should speak of Jeffery's recovery, or of the alarm that must succeed the finding ot his body The men must have come to the place by this time -must, must. I argued. Nerves that would resiTond to ever^ sound made new phan- toms for me in the recesses of the tunnel I thought often to he-r the cries of pursuit and of discovery. When (and this is as surprising as any change ^vrought in a ther^re) a great flood ot light suddenly shone out about me, the tear of it chilled my very heart. Good God! that I should set it down ! It was nothing but the lighting of the tunacl, the white and radiating glow of the arc lamps, which, I imagined, were lighted thus aiter sunset every day of the year. And now they shone in countless globes of the blue-white irides- cence-far away, until thev were but stars beneath the depths of the sea. I caught my breath again ind went on. There were men in the distance, but their backs were toward me. And I was at the very foot of the shaft I sought. The clear light showed .t plainlv-a great bricked chimney, shooing up- ward to' the air and the life above. Could I but mount there, how easy it would be to escape the ...dcal of the gate! Ay, ii-il, Ulc eternal u: irti / THINK TO HEAR THE SEA 95 And what of the sentry at the shaft's head? It was a hundred to one that such a danger spot Wd not go unwatched. I adn^itted the tru^h with indifference. The three had called .t.. ^^Ttreat arc lamp made day in the shaft, and showed its layers of blue bricks as clearly as m hHunlight. I espied no lac'der there, but a pulley ope hung loose, and I remembered as I stood that I had gone to the masthead m my a time upon my schooner yacht, and thought no more of it than any gymnastic trick which good muscles and the right u e of them make possible. To fix the loose rope to one of the heavy sleepers lying there was the work of a moment. After all, what was it to crrasp at this way of the rope-what was it, when any minute I might hear the alarm from the tunnel when discovery walked cheek by jowl with me at every step I took? Let me claim nothing of the -Utempt. I would have risked my life twenty times to escape the dread of that pit. And here w.s a means to my hand. When next I thought of it had climbed twenty feet, and could see the stars far above me. God 1 how the fresheiang a. blew sweet upon my face ! Upward and upward towan mv liberty. Did they cry after me in the tunnel below? Once I thought so, and clung nervelessly to the rope, while it swayed from side to side, and I had time to remember that a failing nerve mign. send me headlong back into the pin Anon it -emed to me that no one cried out, and that the Qh PRO PA TRlA voice was but the ripple of the sea on the beach above me. Agtiin my courage came back, as upon a freshet of hope. Though my untrained hands were bleeding, and my knees barked by the bricks, I went up, up, slowly, surely; and at every hand- pull now the face of the sentry above came nearer. Fear showed me the figure of a man gaping down at me as I climbed. I looked the second time, and saw but the stars. There was the blue of the early night still in the sky. The phantom ligure ap- peared no more. I was but two feet fro.n the orifice. Slowly now, and with every faculty quickened, I climbed that space intervening. Yonder, above the cap of bricks and the circular mouth, I should find the sentry, should be challenged, questioned, arrested. No other hope seemed possible. And yet men had called me Martel. They were those who had passed me in the tunnel to hear Jeffery's story and to raise the alarm. Ay, in truth, I thought to hear the voices again, there, at the vital moment of it all. Low at first as a sonorous whisper from the tnnnel, the note gained strength and volume, became an unmistakable cry, was not to be set down any longer to imagination or to fear. The three had found Jeffery; the alarm was raised ! I said as much, and leaped from the shaft's mouth, desperately, to the grass of the cliff. Twenty paces beyoi'd the orifice a sentry stood i_. EaraSS^SKIS'S^^^??! ,,.jJUa]l !l !H ':& \ ■ \ i Leaped from the shaft's mouth." cj6 \..^)A^7^:^.^h^ VCt .:5^, ^Cm- I THINK TO UF.\R THE Sf-A 07 i;a/,in,i; out over the anf^ry sc;is of the Channel. But he did not challenge me, and I lay upon the grass as one dead, counting the minutes until lie would hear the voices. I 1 .^\4JsKS^'f -^,i:\jm- "fM j^^g^ 1 1 ^^^^ 1 ^^^^^^>v 1 ir CHAPTER VIII Out of the Shadows I HAD always assumed that the shaft was nothing but a ventilator thrusting itself up to the cliffs head as near as might be to the sea. As I lay upon the ground, waiting for the sentry to hear the alarm, a quick survey made my enviromnent clear to me I was thirty paces from the seashore, per- haps- three miles, it might be, from my man and my car The low chalk cliffs here fell away to show me the wet beach by the Cape they call Blanc-?v'-z, and the long line of white waves which marked the ebbing tide. A . avy rampart of stone defended the shaft on the seaward side, and was now patrolled by the sentry I must pass. I was still in the third or last of the enclosures, and the •utting by which the tunnel was gained lay far behind me-a mile, perhaps two, for my sense of locality is poor. But here, as in shore, I perceived that a close patrol shut the works to strangers. Lanterns danced at changing points upon the outer wall. I "ould hear the voices of other sentries challenging other passers-by. The man who stood twenty 'paces from the shaft had kept his eyes 1 . OUT OF THE SHADOWS 99 towards the soa and the empty beach W-low us. It would Vc odd, I said, to watch him when he heard the alarm. Yet that he must do, for those lx.'lo\v were crying loudly now. lie would hear them when five seconds had passed— or ten. A great litter of lumber lay about the orifice, and I have often said that I owe my life to it. From the moment when breath came back to me, and with breath the new courage of the freshness and the exciting sea breeze (for it had ceased to ram now and there was a wonderful night ot stars, as Stevenson put it so finely), I espied the stacks of timber, the heavy steel girders, the earth m heaps, the overplus of labour. Upon my hands and knees, vard by yard, in as odd a situation as man ever found himself, I crawled to the shelter of a huge girder ; and through the interstices ot the latticed metal I watched the sentry. He heard his fellows now— he must hear them. The wail ot the wind rose and fell incessantly, but for me the sound of voices in the pit prevailed above it. What would the man do when the alarm was raised? I asked myself. How deaf he was! Twice he walked to the buttress of the rampart ; twice he returned. He would never hear, then ; it was all my imagination; the voice was the voice ot the night, not of men. Suspense, they say, is the enemy of time, making hours of minutes and years of days. Until that night of nights I had known little suspense in my life., and the truth was new to me. But I learned lOO /Vi'o I'Alh'IA the lesson in the moments that loliowcd upon my ili.uht ; learned it so well that it I lived a hundred years I miuht not 'brj^et it. l-ookiny: baek to that hour to-day, I ean admit that no more than five minutes passed between my leap IVom the shaft's mouth and the loud note of alarm upon the cliff alxjut me. But each of those minutes was to me an hour of waiting. .So unendurable did the doubt be- come, that when the sentty heard the voices at last, 1 verily believe I wished that he should hear them. Now, at last, the jjlove was thrown down. Now, if ever, I must play for my liberty as I had never played before, nor might look to play aciain. He heard the cry at his second turn upon the rampart, and for an instant stood as one under a spell. Then, bawling with all his lungs to another who patrolled the cliff ^'.-estward towards Gris-Ne/, he ran to the shaft-head and answered those who were clamoui ing below. Under other circum- stances 1 liad laughed at the very IJabel which arose. Gesticulating, though none could see, now running a little way to the sea, now back again to the shaft, at last one clear idea possessed the man, and he fired his rifle three ti mes in the air and .set off as one possessed, in shore, toward the main gate and the Paris road, I watched him as though a great weight were carried by him from my own shoulders. For, running, he left the way to the sea open, and by the sea should the gate of my liberty be found. it was a great \nj\xt, and it sent me from my our OF HIE SHADOWS lol -3 hkliiijLC-pUice with a better couni.u;e and a clearer head than I had known from the be^innhi^ of it. I'ruvidenee alone, I said, eompelled the sentry thus to take the one road which would serve me best. True, the rampart defendiny the works, the rampart shajx-d like a fort at the elifl's head, had yet to be crossed, and a way found to the beach below. But had not Jeffery spoken of lielgian barges comini>: upon the tide to discharge their cargoes there? and how could they dischari?e car^o if there were no connecting link between the sands and the heights? All my common sen>e helped me to confidence. There would be a ladder, a scaffold there. Without it the work could not go on. As a hunted man, I ran to and fro upon the rampart, seeking the ladder upon whose rungs freedom was to be won. Reason could not lie, 1 argued. There was a ladder, if I could but espy it. And then, in the dark, 1 blundered upon it, went over the p: i- pet almost in my impatience. My instinct was a true one. There was a ladder, and luck went down it with me, even then, at the crisis of pursuit. The sentry's rifle had been answered by others, some n( ar, some far nvaj'', almost in the outer workings. 1 heard a bell ringing and the shriller blast of whistles and the cryir.g of men to men; but I was down upon the sea-beach then, and the lights of the passing ships, even the splendid rays of the Fo.eland, were my beaconi. Had the tide been in thai riiglit, GoJ knows what the end would have m, f;s^^^ 102 PRO PATRIA been. Hut it was at its very ebb. The white line of the crested seas advanced and fell at least a quarter of a mile from the outspurs of the cliffs. Not a liv'ins2: ^oul was down there upon the dark sands at such an hour. Stumbling (cursing: if you will\ now at the zenith of hope, now despair- ing again, I set my face toward Calais and ran a race such as it is given few to run. The stake was liberty; the consequences of capture — well, I tried to forget those. Silence, such a silence as I could plainly account for, fell upon the works behind me while I drew towards the higher cliffs which mark Blanc-Nez. Those who had raised the alarm, I said, were now busy upon a hue and cry which would be the talk of all Calais to-morrow. It amused me to imagine the troopers scouring the high roads, to follow in im- agination those who listened to Jeffery in the tunnel and searched every yard of it again and once agaiii. Would uiey look shoreward or towards the sea, I asked myself? Would they follow the tunnel to its end ? and, if they did so, to what point below the sea would such a journey carry them ? Was it to be believed that ^he unseen engine, w^hich day and night thrust its mighty antennae deep down below the fretful Channel, stood already far out toward the English shore? Such a thing might be, I reasoned. No reader of these lines could share the conllicting emotions of that argument. I saw, in the pictures of my mind, the witness to an ambition more subtle, more dangc-ous, surely, than OUT OF THE SHADOWS 103 any with which a nation has occupied itself. I saw, as in a vision, the depths of th ,t pit filled wiS". armed men, whose footsteps were muted by the an-ry seas, whose hopes, whose arms, were turned toward my own country. The dream of one who had been frightened by a jest, you say ? I tried to think so as I raced for my life that night toward Blanc-Nez and the open country beyond. I tried to svv " Fool fool ! face it out, have done with it. And yet I went on at all my speed. I did not know th.n why I went; nevertheless, the instinct of lliiiht was sure, irresistible. I must get back to England, nothing must intervene. There is a gap in the cliff beyond Cap Blanc-Ncz, 'I gap and a bridle-path leading upward to the pastures of a farmhouse there. When I came to the crap (such a one as you ma> see at Dumpton, in Thinet) I stoou, breathless yet alert, to reflect upon my situation. Did I follow the beach farther I should find myself presently amid those sand-hills which are the dreary ramparts of Calais upon its western side— a desert land abounding in dykes and canals and marshy swamps. Those dykes no man could pass, or, passing, could not escape ob- servation in the intricate paths beyond. AH my ar-ument sent me to the upland of the cliff and the open fields, wherein, at least, there would be many a hiding-place, many a befriending hedge. By whatever gate I emered Calais, it must not be a harbour gate or by any avenue from the sea. A child would have known that much; and I was a ■mum^^- wmm^m • mMFW^ i i 104 PRO PATRIA % 13 II m il child in idea no longer. All my faculties were sharpened beyond any point in my experience. There was an exultation of the night I could not explain. Standing upon the clifTs edge and looking out over the moonlit beach and the lonely sea, looking out towards the lights of En^-land, ray country, I said that I had cheated France once and would cheat her yet again. And, with that for my watchword, I 'urned my face toward the pas- tures and went on doggedly, stubhornly on — I knew not whither, if it were not toward the light. Heavy fields, dark paths, fallow land, through wheat, through barley, now with clumsy steps over difficult ground, again with new energy where the grass was good, by such I sought my safety when I had quitted the sea and tuined my steps shore- ward. Often I was haunted by phantom figures, the unreal shapes of horsemen galloping over the darkened fields, the sudden ap]);iritions in the shadows of a spinney, the imagineu pursuers whose cries clamoured in my ears. But all was my fancy —for I was alone there ; alone with the clear, white light, alone with the sleeping cattle, and tie startled sheep, and the horses that galloped fear comely as they heard my steps. And no longer could I re^Von with lirection or locality. I must escape thf men, I said— always that and nothhig more. Tnoi: ... fatigue began to weigh upon me, and my t^iep was slower, and I said that I had come to the end of effort, my purpose stood unshaken. I mast get back to England. % y^._ 'ly^p^^-^at OUT OF THE SHADOWS 105 A va-uer sense of locality, an odd singing in my e-irs the sudden consciousness that, unwittingly, I had 'quitted the tields and struck upon a road brought me to a stand at last as at a challenge my reason. What road was it, then? I peered about, yet could make nothing of it. Yonder in the distance the lights of Calais beckoned me as to a prison. Far away, out of the shadows of the moonlight, I could distinguish a carriage upon the hillside, ari a pair of ponies that drew it. Who would be abroad in such a place and such a carriage? Again and again, as though my head had been muddled by a blow, I asked myself that question. Who came toward Calais in a pony carriage at that time of night? "Great God! I ci-ied at length, " if it were Agnes ! if 5* M P i CHAPTER IX A Chasseur from Haut-Buisson THE carria-e came out of the shadows at a snail's pace, as the distance made it, and took shape with exasperating deliberation. I sat upon a low bank at the roadside and asked, it i were the carriage which Agnes drove, whence had it come, and whither was it going? ^1^^''^ was I with running that minutes passed betore a memory of the day would serve me and recall to me, letter by letter, the words of the truth^ It was the Paris road, I said at last. It could be no other. Agnes had delayed at Haut-Buisson and was returning now to Calais. Obstinate indiffer- ence to aught but fatigue kept me there upon the bank to laugh at prudence. I had run away as I thought, from that very path to end by stumbling upon it blindly. There was no more dangerous place for me in all France that night. A full golden moon of summer shone down upon the road and set it as a vein of silver, white and clear even among the shimmering wheat and the darker pasture lanci. I cuUiu make o.i. i- i io6 :|i^ "^ m^f- W' ■ A horsernan rode out of the shadows. io6 );i .*=^w^ 9^*^ StM^M^:^.. hi ,i- n '» *: -.r.^^is:-.' A CHASSEUR FROM HAUT-BUISSON 107 for such it appeared to be, outstanding in the clear light and coming toward me with a beggarly slow- ness which seemed a mock upon my sore-tried patience. Never once did my eyes leave it, from the moment it came out of the darkness by Haut- Buisson and began to cross the open country to- ward Calais. It was the phaeton which Agnes drove. I was sure of it now. And I knew that she must pass the place whereby I rested— knew that I must see her, must speak to her, must tell her. A horseman rode out of the shadows and drew near the crawling phaeton. Down there upon the white road, he looked like some toy soldier playing upon a child's field, I counted the seconds while he reined to hail the carriage, and then, again, the minutes as he galloped on for Calais and the gate. Soon the thud 01 hoofs upon the road became as the distant beating of a drum ; and I, who had watched him with indifference, turned in a fit of panic and scrambled down the bank to the edge of the dyke that skirted it. There had been no moment since the beginning of it when my heart beat as it beat to that music of the hoofs. He could not pass me by, I said. The lights of Eng- land shone more distantly at the thought. Lying there, I might not see the Foreland, my beacon beyond the horizon of stars. The distant road, the phaeton, the lamps of Calais— they were shut from my eyes as by a curtain ; and lying close to the earth, in the foolish thought that it might shield ■\P% ^^Fm^i^.rUi£iM 111 it y t^i inS PRO PAIR I A me, I listened to the sounds as minute by minute they magnified. The man was halting then—was drawing rein. I lay closer still to the earth and waited for the end. These instants of peril, how real they are to us when fear is tuned to their note, and all the reality has gripped our nerves, and we may not know from one beat of a pendulum to the next what our to-morrow will be ! Twenty times as the horseman drew near me I believed that he had seen me, was riding to the place, was crying to me to surrender. Closer still and closer to the earth I lay, to drive the figure of my imagination from me, but it would not be moved. At last I shut my eyes, my ears, would neither think nor listen. If this were the hour, so let it be. I had done my best. The shadow draws near, it touches us, it passes. W." rise up to laugh at it and to forget why we were so afraid. This view, at least; is vithin my own experience. When next I looked up from my hiding-place by the dykes, the stars were shining gloriously in the unclouded heaven above. Once more the Foreland beckoned me; from the road itself there came but the muted sound of labouring wheels. How grotesque all that I had done and said seemed in that moment! Of course the trooper did not see me. He would have something else to do than to search every bank he pa^ -ed or to draw rein at every bush. I had acted like some woman frightened suddenly. And now I could laugh at myself— if, indeed, there was not a graver occupa- A CHASSEUR Fh'OM HAUT-BUISSON tion For the phaeton had breasted the hillside by this time. I ran towards it and held up my hand. ^,^ '« Mademoiselle Agnes, are you gomg to run mc down?" . . , She reined the ponies back upon their haunches. I could see her pretty eyes open wide at my pie- dicament. And little wonder. Never again upon that Paris road will she meet a man smothered in dust and grime, his boots white with the chalk ot the clifTs, the mud thick upon his cape, his manner that of one who scarcely knew what he did or what he wished to do. Such a picture of myselt I mav not deny. «' Captain Alfred ! " she cried at last, as though escaping the spell of astonishment. " But-but where is your carriage ? " I tried to answer her collectedly, but failed grotesquely in the effort. " You must have passed it at Escalles— my man Bell is waiting for me there. 1 have been to the works The Engineer Martel persuaded me to go there and then tried to arrest me. I knocked him down and escaped by the beach. That's my story, Agnes." ^ T Excitement drove the words as a torrent. 1 spoke in English, and had not the remotest idea of what I said. She heard me with pitiful eyes and a little low cry. " It is vou, it is you, then ! " -" - c •■ T'-i - r-x"-^ii- \"'^a "let rod'^ bv *' No douul of it. Irt^ teuuw ^^^.tO ja.-s. .-'-i- ^j Lm»m^j^.iE.^^: 1 * I lO P/CO PAIR I A could have thrown a biscuit at me. I suppose there will be others. What am I to do, Asnes ? " The man asking- the woman for help! Judge me as you will, I seemed then to have lost all power to think or act for myself. Instinct of sympathy drew me tenderly toward this K^nile girl, as though we two had been cast out by Destiny to that lonely road, there to battle for our happiness, our tuture, our lives. " What am I to do, Agnes ? " The pity of that question wrung my very he^^rt. She listened in silence. I know now that the wise little head was full of a hundred plans. But the night had robbed her of her girlhood. She would never think and act agai. as she had thought and acted before she heard my story. •' You rr.ust go away from Calais," she said slowly; "you must go away to-night." I laughed, a little ironically, even at her. Fear can make our selfishness brutal sometimes. "That's easy enough. Tell Jacques to call a balloon, and I will float to Charing Cross, l^on't vou see that I have no chance? They will watch every gate, every train, every steamer. How can I go away ? " She would not hear me. " We must think, think," she said quietly. "Let Jacques go back to Escalles to tell your man. They must not question him." "01 course they must not. Let him tell Bell to wit f-r mo at the Meurice." " Your own hotel ? " ^i,Mk%M££^u^ A CHASSIiUU FROM IIAUJ-BII/SSON ill Hit quicker wisdom aroused my own. "No," I said, for the idea came swiftly; "let him go on the load to Boulogne." She spoke a few words, with a composure that astonished me, to Jacques, her groom, and he descended from the phaeton and began to run to- ward Escalles. When he was gone she drew the apron back and made a place for me beside her. I entered the carriage unprotestingly. The antidote that I sought to my own heavy fatigue was here, sent by my destiny, upon the Paris road. " .A-nes," I exclaimed abruptly, " why do you say that 1 should leave Calais ? " "I say it for my father's sake. You will carry his good name to England and it will be in safe keeping. He has many enemies here. Sadi Martel is one "of them. That is why he took you to the forts." apo,-i^__the works at Escalles are forts, then? " She looked up at me with wondering eyes. " What else should T call them— the harbour-forts and the coal-mines?" I did not answer her. But I thanked God for the words. The woman that I loved knew nothing, then. " Let us understand it all, Agnes. Martel does not like your father, but how do I hcip him? " " By going to the works. He will say that you are here, m Calais, with my father's sanction. If you did not leave to-night, they would arrest you to morro^v. You wilt go because i ask it of yuu." H 3 "T' 9*vc^^c^ai_ 113 PRO I'MRlA !"■ ■I fei' "Show mc a way, and I will sail by the first steamer? Don't you see that it is all impossible:' They will arrest meat the first tiate we pass. Ot course they will. What's the ^ood ot devc ivinji ourselvi. s?" It wiis a despairinc;, pitiful conle-sion enouuh, but, II woman's braver heart Rave me ibM.lution. The answer w;!s a touch upon my arm and a pretty word of the old manner " We shall not pass the first jjalc, Captain Alfred. We shall iio in by the I'orte de St. Umer." "But that's on the east side." •• It was yesterday " "Explain, little guide; I am like a child to- night." "The blind lead the blind round the town of Calais. There is Fort Nieulay. The cluisscnr who passed us will be waiting for you there." "I understand that. He will wait at the Porte St. Pierre " "And we shall avoid the Porte St. Pierre. That is why I sent Jacques to Escalles. They cannot question him." Her prescience ama/.od me. I sat back in the phaeton and wondered at the ingratitude of my un- belief. For in my heart of hearts I said that a miracle alone could save mc from the soldiers ot France that night. " Oh ! " I cried at last desperately, " if 1 could be- ',nvthin" :it a.11 but the clia^^i'iii- at Porte \\( ^\'( ^ t n St. i'ierre! Of coiu>e the man will stop us. He A CllASSEi'lx' /AV>.I/ HAUr-liCISSON II,; will send to every gate In Calais and search eveiy carriai^e." Her calmness was amazing. "Not Colonel Lepektier's carriage," she said quiotly. " Perhaps not ; but you cannot hide five-foot- elevcn in the moonlight, Agnes." " Wc .hall not try. We shall put fivc-foot-eleven under the hood. I thought of it at once. The road to St. Omer is over there by the cottage. We will open the hood before we turn. When you are in Calais you must send to Mr. Fordham, and he will help you. I will go to him myself, for they would be waiting for you at the hotel. To-morrow you will write to me from England." " Every day— it would not be a day if I forgot. You wish that, Agnes?" We were at the turn of the road by this time, and she reined her ponies in. The rj\\\ note we had struck troubled her. She sat very still and thoughtful. " I wish your happiness," she said at length, as one speaking in a reverie. I read her doubt of it in every word. Long minutes passed before we spoke again. Above all the confusion and clamour of that night her presence was as some call to courage and recol- lection. I could think more clearly, act more resolutely now than at any moment from the begin- ning of it ; and I seemed to realise that she and I, the little bright-eyed girl and the man wiio ioved > IM PRO PATRIA ) 1 !« :? If her beyond all that life could give him, were battlinp; for their happiness there, two miles from Calais, upon the Paris road. There is a cart-road across the fallow, a little way from Fort Niculay, and three miles, it may be, from the western gate of the town. I hau passed it many a time when my automobile rushed on to Boulogne, but thought it no more than a farmer's path to an old white house upstanding above the .sand dunes which are Calais's ramparts. Now, however, we turned the ponies to this track and began to follow it quickly. I judged that it would bring us round to the southern gate, and so to the Porte St. Omer and the Dunkirk road; and this conclusion was justified presently, when the lights of the ships disappeared from our view, and even the harbour beacon became but a loom of irides- cence in the sky. Every yard we drove now was a new landmark of our safety. The shadows of the unlighted road enveloped us so that any horse- man riding yonder toward the fort would need a hawk's eye to discover us. And there was always the hood! I began to tell myself that my little guide had reason, after all. «' Agnes," I said at length, "I must see your father to-night." She became very grave at the words, and for a little while afterwards was silent. " Why should you see my father? " " To co^^'ini'c him of mv honestv=" " Has he doubted it, Captain Alfred?" A CHASSEfJh' FROM tl ALJT-BUISSOX 115 "At least, he will hear Martel's story. 1 owe it to you that he shall hear mi '.■. "He will hear it from n« . It you vould help Sadi Martel, you will go tc oc, nous., to-night." " But the others will be '.■-..' " " For the news of your arrest, yes. That is why Sadi Martel went yesterday. My father believes in your honour as he believos in his own. I sh.ill tell him why you left Calais to-night." '« If I leave it? That depends upon Martel, does it not ? There is a steamer, of course ; but others are not likely to forget the fact." She would not hear such a gloomy story. "Mr. Fordham will help you," she said quickly. " If you wait for him by the Jardin Richelieu, I will drive myself to the hotel and send him. Is pru- dence so ditlicult a thing? " She laid a little gloved hand upon my arm and I took it in my own. It was pretty to hear her talk of prudence, this very child guiding the hunted man. And I said that the hour was odd beyond belief— the hour which told me that I must leave France for my country's sake at a moment when all my hope of life was there in the town of Calais. For we were approaching the St. Omer gate now. I could hear the screech of railway whistles, the deeper sirens of the packet boats, the faint murmur of activity at the railway stations and the docks. But the road itself was deserted. A watchdog bay- ing in a lonely house was the only herald of our approach. %m 1' ii6 PRO P ATRIA "Captain Alfred!" slie exclaimed presently, " when you are in England you will remember your friends in Calais? " " There is nothing on earth that could make me forget them." '•Then I shall know that my father's honour is in safe keeping." I had feared this from the beginning — had feared it greatly ! but the reason of my fear I did not dare to confess. " If th' re is one man in France I would sooner serve than another," I said quickly, "it is Colonel Lepeletier. But I am a soldier. I must do my duty. I am going to England for that." " I pray God that your duty will not wound my father," she answered. It was my prayer, too ; but then, in all the excite- ment of the night, and of what the night might mean, I would not think of it, would not ask myselt the questions which to-morrow would bring. Vague ideas, shadows of thought, half-formed resolutions raced through my brain, to leave me without pur- pose or decision. The gate of Calais was the one concrete fact. I must pass ihe gate. We had raised the hood of the phaeton a quarter of a mile from the Porte St. Omer, and now, as we approached the barrier, tl e ponies lifted their feet at a touch of the whip and carried us at a fast trot to tne octroi and the guards there. For my part, I did not believe it possible that any carriage might pass that gate unchallenged, and I sat, far back A CHASSIS UR A'O.l/ HAUT-BUISSON 117 among the cushions, with eyes half closed and nerves twitching, and all the tension of the doubt upon me. We could not pas. -the notion was pre- posterous. I would have staked half my fortune upon the certainty of the challenge and that which must follow the challenge. When I heard a cheery " Bon soir, niademniseller t>om the keeper of the barrier, it seemed as some jest to herald that dis- covery.' The man was peering below the hood, I said. I could see his lantern, as the light of it danced from the road to the windows of his little house, or fell upon the brass of the harness, or glistened a moment on the very splash-board before us. He must know that I was there. And then— a tniracle for laughter— we went on again. I heard Agnes telling me that the danger was past. Ah, little guide, could you have looked out that night' at the darker road of life before us both, with what heavy steps should we have set out upon it 1 P' n CHAPTER X The Lonely Street THE miracle, indeed, had happened, and, if you come to think of it, b; t a poor miracle, after all. When I look back to that night, the marvel is that I should have driven to the western gate with so poor a heart and such pitiful unbelief. For which of them, if it were not Martel, would have sought his man in a phaeton from the Dunkirk Roud, and that phaeton driven by Colonel Lepele- tier's daughter ? And what servant of the barrier would have found the courage thus to insult the commande;- of the garrison? A child's fear! I grant it ; but it was very real to me. The barrier was behind us, in truth ; the broad Rue Victor Hugo before us. Nevertheless, it needed no spur upon the memory to tell me that even here we were still at the beginning of it. How to get out of the town of Calais now that I was in it, 1 knew no more than the dead. There wa-, I admit, still with me that perturbation of mind, that inertia of will and excitement of thought which could shut out any realisation of the more momentous truths, and leave me with but one desne, one uu- ii8 ! J THE lo.\i:ly street 119 chanuv'l puipose. Minute by minute, as we drove on toward tlie Jardin Richelieu, this idea of tiight bc-an to possess me to the exclusion of all else. No" plan was in my head, no sure determination of means, but only the will to escape the town and the shore if I miiiht, and to carry my momentous secret to Enoland. I would not hear that other voice of argument which said, " Delusion, delusion ! you have seen but a coal-shaft, after all." A true instinct kept me to the pith of duty. Such aruuments, such hopes, I say, carried me m silence to the shadows of the Jardin Richelieu, where, for the last time, Agnes reinec her ponies back, and I knew that I must say " Good-bye " to her. Until this moment, perhaps, I was but hall conscious of all that she had done for me ; blind, it may be, to the unselfish courage of her girlhood, un- able to see that night's work as she saw it from the tirst. But in the instant of parting there came a repentance as swift as it was sure. I stood there to tell myself that I might never look upon her face again, might have touched her hand for the last time, might be uttei ing the last A'ord I should ever speak to her. And God know:, what that minute cost me. "Agnes," I said, "we shall never forget to- night." " Never, never," she faltered. "It is only nu revoir. Next week, next month, I shall come to Calais again." The promise did not deceive her. I * a I % "T7 W w f ui u i \ I i 120 Ph'O PATRIA ■\ f " They will never let you do that." " Then you will come to me— to my EntrlanJ ? " She hid her face from me, and I could hear h^ r sobbintr. The niiiht had unnerv^ed her. Farewell was making cowards of us both. And the moment;; might be precious beyond understanding. " Yo'^ vill save my father's honour ? " she cried, drawing baclc from me at last, and lifting a tear- stained face to mine. " His name shall be as that of my own father." " I will ask nothing more. In England you will remember, as I shall remember in France." " If the year passes by and you do not see me, ;»/^Ho;/« ny in a check suit and a wideawake. If the new curate continues to preach for thirty minutes, I am coming home pgain for the honour of the village. Now, my brother, your best leg forward — and don't mind the chalk on your boots." He marched straight into the hotel, head erect, eyes watchful ; and I followed him, this strong, sane man who read the story with such an unerring instinct for the truth. When, in the precincts of th.e h.a'l. no one stepned out of the shadows to cry "Halt, there!" it seemed to me THE LOMiLY STREET 12': that some personal masnelism of the man kept the fi'nu-es in the da^knes^. What " the chasseur who "had ridden to the Porte St. Pierre, ot the alarm I had heard at the wo'kin^^s, ot Jeffery lying senseless in the tunnel? All these meant nolhin^^ then? Or was Harry right, after all, and had Jeifery, recovering consciousness, been unable to tell them a coherent slory? I dared to hope that this was so. The very civilities of those in the ^Tcurice iustified the assumption. Not a gesture of welcome or attention was changed. Frangois, the butler, stood there as though to say " Command me, and I will die for you, at a price." The chambermaids raced to bring me hot water. Harry was a hundred times justified. " Now," he said, when we were in his bedroom together', " Ix^ sensible and beHeve. Calais is not at" all intci-esied in your movements ; she is interested only in your purse. What she may be in half an hour's time I do not pretend to say, for in half an hour's time you will be on the sea! I am going fishing, sir, fishing on the deep blue ocean. You are coming, too, Master Al- fred " ^ , I stared at him open-mouthed. "Fishing? Good God, what a man ! " He continued in his bantering mood. " Fishing, as I say. Your comments are not reverent, sir. The urgency of the moment forbids a proper penance, but you have just got to bustle. " Come, now, into your dress-clothes, quick ! " 126 /'A'O I'AIRlA i M' ti I ihink that I iv'^ariKvl him as 1 slioukl have rc^Mrclcd any maniac out of IVclIam who had come thcM-c to help mc. He laimhcJ at my protests, and opened the door that I mliiht cross the landiniT to mv own bedroom. "Five minutes," he said; "I ^ive you live minutes. The police may be here in ten " " But if they come before." " Well, they trump our ace." He was playing :i great game, nothintr more. I said as much as I threw aside my muddy clothes and dressed myself with trembling tiniiers. The police mii?ht knock upon the door at any minute. He counted upon the delay, upon the supposition that Jeffery had given no coherent account of his mishap, or of me. If this failed him— well, the alternative was the prison of the citadel ; and more —for ihere was that of which I would not think, my own hallucination, the nightmare I had lived through in the tunnel of Escalles. When I re- membered this, I could start at any sound upon the landing. The chambermaid's knock sent my heart leaping. Where would it end? My Cod! 1 said, it was but beginning. Five minutes he had given in which to dress, but three of hem were left yet, whc.i he came in my room and began to show less imperturbabiTity than he had yet done. Even he w anxious, then ? I had imagined as much. ,i,xr ., M u ;.i 11,1^,.^ fhf» t»e 'iet str.'iip^ht ? " ■ vVCii, i'-^ saii-i, vf •. .... - - - - — '« As straight as it will set to-night." \ s THE IJ^NEI.Y STREET l,?7 "Goal; then wc will ^o. Your fur coat, if you please, young gentleman. It will K- cold at sea." "Harry," I exclaimea almost angrily, "why do you harp upon that nonsense ? " "I will tell when we are outside. Meanwhile, I am in command. You will oK-y me implicitly." " I am doing so, it appear.^— act ing like a fool to amuse you." He ignored the petulant temper. "Come," he continued, laying a hand upon my arm in a kindly gesture, " 's it not serious enough, old fellow ? Do not make U more so." " 1 am trying not to." "I hope so. Let us go down now. At the bureau you will ;.sk what time the Casino closes." T began to understand. This clever head was playing a master hand. "They will think that we have gone there." " If they are right-minded people, they will." " While we " " Are going fishing." lie threw open the door at the words, and descended the -lairs as though the whole place belonged to him. At tiie bureau he stopped and waited for me to tell my story I remember that I repeated the words as a schoolboy repeats a verse of poetry, without any right sense of phrase or meaning. " W" it time did the Casino close?" The man said, "Half-past ten, monsieur." I thanked him, and, linking my arm in Harry's, went out toward the sea. I ■■"5»i«,»W. ' ^ • ear ^' -a ; I 128 /'/?(9 PATRIA The night had fallen clear and calm after the rain. There were few abroad, but at the corner of the Rue du Rampart a c/iasseur-cl-cfieval passed us at a canter. I knew that he was riding to the INIeurice with news of me, and that we had escaped him by two minutes. 1 til ^11 i^ { ^ii ! n ?af«si!^.. ^■■i^^''^*^- CIIAPTER XI Old Bordenave WE stood until the horseman had turned the corner of the Rue du Havre, and tlicn went on with quickened steps towards the light- house and the railway. Neither of us spoke, for the story behind us needed no words. But Harry's lengthening stride betrayed him. I knew now that he feared for me as I had feared for myself in the hotel. Through the railway gates, by the wharves, straight on to the quay of the inner harbour, we went doggedly, silently, at a walk which threatened soon to become a run. Never once did Harry pause now or look behind him ; no word of explanation did he vouchsafe. Straight as a line he went to the harbour quay and the fishing licet there, and I followed him without protest or comment. The figure of the chasseur loomed always in the mists behind me. I could indicate no better direction than that which carried us away from the shadows. We crossed the quay, I say, and cune to one of 129 ^:^ :^m:^mm.wj^ V :' 1 I lli 'I. .Il III! f si i 130 PRO PATRIA the long ladders by which you descend to the water and the boats. The tide had been making since I quitted the beach by Blanc-Nez, and now it rushed and swirled about the huddled fishinjr- boats which were here preparing for their long night's work. In the instant of waiting at the ladder's head I remembered that Harry had often fished with old Jules Bordenave, the owner of five good smacks in Calais, and that there was no valid reason why he should not fish once more that night. Good Lord! I said, to think that I had been unable to see, as it were, a yard before my nose, where this idea was hatched. And now it appeared so simple a thing that I saw it as in a flash — I would not ask a single question. We descended the ladder, and. crossing a couple of smacks that lay warped close to the quay, we found old Jules Bordenave's boat the third from the ladder— a trim ship, lugger-rigged, as all the Frenchmen are, and ready, it appeared, for the night's work before her. There was no living thing on deck save a mangy dog which came up and licked our hands fawningly ; but Harry went straight to the cuddy aft, and diving down the wretched companion, he dragged me after him to as close and stinking a hole as ever I have put vay nose in since I was born. "Good-evening, Bordenave. We are here, you see." The fat fisherman, the very relic of a man, grimy, siilieJ, broad-Iaceu, struggied to his leet, iii!feS^M;;i^a3K" Y^:'^i^%j£:W^ssit^'^ ^^^^f^'^}^ -■^■Tv-^^ ' We descended the ladder. " «?o ■f.M m ! i| 'J''i= j' . vJ- ■' 'It i- :«^^' ■HBiil ^^;- J.'. OLD BORDEN AVE 131 and cuffin, a lazy, barefooted lad. who sprawled upon a bench, he made room tor us and said something very quickly. I could not follow much of it, but Harry interpreted. " This is old Bordenave," he exclaimed by wav ot introduction. "He'd sell his ^oul for threepence- halfpenny. Say something about fishing. Luck>, >lavsn^ it ? He sent word round to the hotel to-day, askinii me to come. I nodded my head and stammered a few words which seemed 10 amuse old Bordenave very much Harry had fished with him often before. Our visit was no surprise-if my clothes were. " Monsieur was going to the Casino, but he changed his mind," Harry rattled on boisterously "All Englishmen like to change their minds, it pleases them. We'll show him something better than dancing, eh, Bordenave?" Bordenave smiled like a child at the mention ot the Casino. , '« Ah ' " he said, " that costs dear. Id. bus, t.ic dancing. You will not catch any big tish there, monsieur. They are all thieves-and the Enghsh- man-he likes to be robbed. Better to follow the Abb6 Fordham. You will dance because you are so well to-morrow." " And give you twenty francs to drink that same health," interposed Harry. " Well, we are quite ready, Bordenave, if you can go now." .' Ai your service, monsieur. We shall have the tide in ten minutes, iheie is plenty out=;.e. A mg^^g i:}2 /'h'O I'ATRIA 1 11 fresh niuht, messieurs, with a falHng breeze. Will it be for lonj;? " " A good sail, Bordenavc. Make Dover if you can. But you can't, of course you can't. I've bet my friend twenty louis you could. A hundred francs if you do." Old Bordenave stiffened up at the words. " Not make Dover? Oh, we shall see, monsieur, we shall see. A hundred francs, you s;iid?" " And I'll give you another hundred, Bordenave," ! interposed, in a jargon which w 's wonderful. "Not a word to any of your friends up there, if they come asking after us. It's a wager, you know." The old fellow waited for no more, but went ui"* the companion as though a spcin-point drove him. Two hundred francs ! You must catch a lot of fish to make two hundred francs. If anything saved us that niglu, it would be greed, I said. P.ut we were one-and-twcnty miles from safety still, and if I live a thousand years I shall never hunger for a sight of the cliffs of Dover as I hungered for them in those moments of delay. For we were alone then, Harry and I, in the stinking cabin. A dirty lamp cast a wan jet of light upon our pale fates ; it seemed to mock our odd attire. Each knew of what the other thought ; no question was put or answered. The c/iasscur who had ridden to the Meuri. e, what was his occupation? Dancing at the Casino, perhaps. Desperation of thought is akin to farce ; you tell vour.^eii any uonsieQ>c u nen yuu aie le.uiy .uitiiu. ^ W^M ^^^*^ >l«.li i'imtam':' ^1 OLD HORDE NAVE 133 " Harry," I said, when old Bordenave had gone up, " it's ten to one we are boarded." He took out his pipe and began to fill it. "The Cloth doesn't bet," he said, "or I'd lay twenty. There was once ;i parson at Derby who saw two dogs lighting in the aisle of his church. He was one of the old sportin- kind. When he had rebuked his flock for the attention they paid to the dogs, and found they wouldn't listen to him, he said, ' Well, my brethren, if you won't have the Gospel, I'll lay two to one on the black ! ' The good old times are gone, my brother. I have even had a dear old soul threaten to write to my bishop because I play golf. She said that I was heard to say, ' Damme one.' What I really said was 'Dormy one.' There is a considerable difference from an ecclesiastical standpoint." He lit his pipe and went rambling on again— stories, jests, any flippant talk to keep my thoughts from the quay above and those who might appear upon the quay presently. And just as I understood those surpassing minutes of delay, so did he under- stand them. To be caught there in the cabin of old Bordenave's boat would be the ultimate ignominy. If we could but get to sea, away, if it were but a mile from that cursed town of Calais, a man might dare to breathe again. But it held us as a prison. Would the smack never weigh? I asked. How Bordenave and his crew raved and ranted on the deck above 1 You would have thought that the rail- way-st;ilior; Vv'iis on fire, or tiic Hotel ae v inC. Hut I: i •I fi It >;i4 j'h'o J\iiki.\ it was nothing, nothinu at all— onl}- an argumcni with a neii;lilx)urinn fisherman. And now the lamp began to swing in the musty cabin. The seas, lap- ping upon our sides, beat the bows of the smack more heavily. We lifted to them and sanlc again. The cries of rage and fury were changed to the methodical words of command. I knew that we were at sea ; and when Harry rose and cried, " Thank God ! " the chain of my nervous tension snapped as at a blow, and the sweat poured down my face like rain. " Thank God ! We are out of the harbour, my son. Do you feel her lifting? She is making what our friends upstairs call the choui!. They are using the sweeps to get her out. You will be in Dover before sunrise, old fellow." I threw otf my heav}- fur coat and wiped the perspiration from my face. " It's worse than forty minutes in the Grafton county. Good God! I shall die for want of breath." He sat down upon the bench again and struck another match. " If the moon behaves decently, we'll go upstairs in ten minutes. My pipe's out, you observe. A man who lets his pipe out has been thinking pretty badly. Let me see you smoke, and I'll begin to believe in you." I felt in the pocket of my coat for a pipe, and filled it deliberately. As bad a sailor as ever ventured upon a " pleasure " ship at Margate, the excitement of the night drove all thought of sickness from my OLn IIORDEN.W /•; I?,o 1k;iJ, and lounJ me, ibr the first time in my life, able to smoke upon a ship. And I larry was talking again now. I said tliat he would talk all the way to Dover. " I want to hear the story again," he exclaimed, when the pipe was going. " Let us have it from the beginning— the whole thing, and no cuts. I must get to the bottom of it — if I can." I settled myself upon the bench, and told him the whole of it this time. " As God is my witness," I said, " I believe that the French are trying to make a tunnel to England as we contemplated making one to France some years ago. You understand now why my wits are gone wandering." He thought upon it for a little while without any of those haphazard conclusions which are my trouble. I envied his power of silent reasoning ; but I knew that he would jest no more. " Let us pan it out," he replied, with his composure unruffled. *' You go to Escalles, and a man takes you down a cutting at the Government works there, and shows you a tunnel running under the sea. We, in England, know that the French are undertaking great schemes on the coast, and the official explana- tion to our Government is that they are marine works and coal-shaftings. That accounts for the swarm of workmen, the engines, the earth, and all the rest of it, But, my dear fellow, if they had greater designs, if, as a supposition, they were making a tunnel, don't you think that one of those M^MLtM^ *fl i' ; ; f 1 ; H i i-h /'A'O IWTIy'lA workmen would j;ive it away, and that our In- telliixcncc people would hear of it in twenty-four hours. Why, of course they would. There has never yet been a great surprise of war sprung upon one nation by another, and there never will be. What you saw was a shaft to reach the coal which French geologists believe to be under Cap Blanc- Nez. Your nerves were all wrong, and you went at your conclusions headlong, like a baby horse at its first fence. The man who was with you forced his own ideas upon you and you accepted them. He would be pleased enough to see you arrested, but not for the reasons you imagine. CJietx/iez la /eniiiie, and you understand his game. A threat to Lepeletier accounts for all that happenedat the Colonel's house last .tight. Jeffery named you to his superiors for II spy, and enticed you into the tunnel. I have undone the lid of the trap, and here we are a mile from Calais already. Confess that nothing remains but for you to lie by at Cottesbrook for a month or so, and for me to return to Lepeletier and to have it out with him. But I shan't mention a tunnel, because I don't believe in one." I heard him to the end without protest, and then put my own case. His logic was unanswerable from his point of view. But I had seen that which neither he nor any other of my countrymen will ever see. Minute by minute my mental vision became clearer. I could build up the arguments for my .-elf now. " Ask yourself two or three questions, Harry," 1 Siiid quietly, for the very subject gripped the minu : f di Miiiiii m^ ,$?E?«?n#is<^«'M fc^' OLD liORDENAVR y.M as in a vice. '* In the first place, did our own eni^ineers believe that it was impossible to build a tv nel frcm Dover to Calais ? " ' They convinced Gladstone and Watkin, at any rate." " There was talk, I know, about the trouble of levels and ventilation, but the scheme was supported by any amount of money, and the sanity of Parlia- ment alone saved us from it. Very well, what we can do the French can do. That is my lirst point." "Go on, my dear fellow— I admit all that." "And, admittinijf it, you open the door for my second. If it is possible to build a tunnel from Calais to Dover, I don't see why a nation, which from the days of Napoleon has invited madcap schemes for tiie invasion of Entjland, should not turn to this scheme. Here is a dare-devil engineer wi.; comes to them and says, 'You are tunnellin<5 for coal under the sea at Escalles. Give me per- mission, and I will carry you a shaft through to Dover.' If they listen to him, the next point is to cover their intentions. They plead before Europe their marine works, a great harbour scheme such as we are planning -it Oovx'r. That permits then: !\o you say, to accumulate stores, workmen, and engines. The thousands of tons of earth they bring out are not measured by English spa They watch the works as they watch their forts, and no stranger, until to-night, has come within a quarter of a mile of them. An Intelligence Department given to somno- lence IS apt to t.ikc Gov/vnniijnt pretensions as it i It ' ! t I. C i I ^ f i ii I'h'O I 1/ v7J finds tht-m. It lightens 111. Inn i t iv>pniisibility ;inU is a cloak for laziiu ->s. Admit Unit our Inti-lli- iifence Department has done this, and all else follows. The scheme is darini; to the pent ct fatality; bui it is not half so wild as man\ II il: ..• of invasioti to\vhiv.ii iManee has listened du'ii!:' lii'- last iweniy years. That, at least, is my fi' ' > pin: n. 1 do not think that I shall change it to- -a n-.s He hstened to me with gic'.i'i!; 'lUiM'est. That terrible doubt ol the problem > >ed jne pur; ose at least, the purix)se of causing Ui> to Ibi _-ct >vhere we stood and the daniiXM* which encompa-^cu as a* >ui. I was oblivious, I think, of the fact that w were on a ship in the outer channel of Calais ' nbou Harry, in his turn, was as serious as ev r I had seen him since the day the Bishop ordained him at Ely Cathedral "Alfred, old fellow," he said, "I could pn v ( od that all you tell me this night is imauinatiu. If it's that, to-morrow will be the end ^^ it. If ot, vou have a great work to do in England, 'or my part my mmd is in a mist, ant! I cannot st... where your thoughts are going to. You say the ,>n'''Xt of a ha; lx)ur > jvers the swarm of \orkmL.i at Escalles , but what of their tongues wiien liiey ate outside tliv works? Why does none of Hum write a word to our people offering the ^ ret loi ■' money payment r Is it |X)ssib1e to bt.!k\e in tin silence of a coupli. of thousand .- " " Always supposing that a coupieof fhi.usai \\\X' Hi ihc seCi Cl. I ! OLI BOhniuYAVF 139 "Ah' I hadn't 'Uunt . throne;! . ^k " to '' mob ab'Ve^ It n ht b u, H H( iil ' S pip i' . r arc they d( ng it 't , in^ s^n " God kui vs ( r I Oov tell you." He stood anc t ^^ • con.trani' n hatch T^e r oven^ .it ii li •<■ 'd his restlessness of thought Mi idi Pi >c 1> iie said, " You will makeDc- ar-wiiv. Tb lights of Calais are a mile behr.id u^ 1 tos*' 10 blk >. hi ^, t 'he foot of the com- p; nion h: pit his ha u n^ houlder again. Reiii •mber." he mcd, you may have a o -^x-orktc . in .11 ami, A red Hilliard. Few done \Vh , I w u s\\ wit a grc. ,r be! ht 11 ■■ a. G' bk ;, you, old fellow, what- him to God's fresh air and the the ighi , but his words r^^ained i - Er J id . m country, I might yet find A ork to d( (■ i CHArTER xn A Chain of F'ire THERE had been a full i^ale blowing from the north-east when the rainstorm burst upon Escalles some hours ago ; but the wind had fallen with the night, and now it was no more than a fresh breeze, sweeping down Channel from the east and permitting the lugger to carry every sail she could set. A trim sea boat, speedy as all luggers are, she laj' upon a course north by west, and met the tumbling swell with good bows that lifted her dripping decks triumphantly above the angry crests. She would make Dover in four hours, or five at the most, it appeared. Old Bordenave named four ; but he loved the ship with a woman's heart. And an hour more or less, how would that help us ! " You wish to fish, Monsieur lAbb^. No? well, it's all the same to me. We shall have a good night, messieurs. Gris-Nez is very bright, but that is the rain. You see the Foreland in a mist, and you say 'Very good.' When he shines in a ring, take care. If we had been tishmg to-night, we 140 H^ . nc ^^ ^^.^j ,^u^,hmg upon cur ^'"^";'"=^' ;™ ' ji„er called out- together when the bo> at the m "The rocket, '"'=f,f ;;• '°*jVhi! Yonder, by A sudden hush ftU ^^^ ^'';J:^,,„..„, above Escalles, some one h,rd fired a r _^.^ ^^^^j^^_. the sea, ^""^ /™™ '^VbU of Rold-blue light. A rocket -""ff,, ".•'4°;';r,om Escalles remained second and a t""^" J^'^"'* . ^ .^^..j_„ towards the unanswered from the or. but away ^^^^ ,,es,, by G--N« and '^e -as. ^^^J^ ^^^^ ^^^^„, up from other stations, unt>_ of flame were archeu " J^! ^^^eoulogne Harbour, chainof fire from C--f»';,»'^ ,„Kosity which p.:::«ratve:::rdfoiaBordenave alone was „mused by them. ood-humouredly. "That .-I>»k yonder he sa,d^g^^^^^^^,,^^ 0„,, is how they keep .hem^"- '^-f^ ^^en I We shall '""•"■"Str^vr'. ance to .hat, Monsieur want a bottle ot wine i v^,. s,i„t! Then some rAbbS. And another ^^°^J^ '^^'^^^^ „.,^ one last poordevilisouto thepnson^ The ^^ ^^^ Wec-k, and they sa.t ^^-f^^^,^^ „,. ,,,t_i ^^ " oTv^me la, and order and the long legs, .(, Is p ■I- 1 !,■• !: 142 / V9 I 'AT hi A Abbe. And God scna an open door tor that poor fellow." In my heart I said " Amen," and when the old man turned to me he found a ready seconder. Nevertheless, he looked at me a little closer than he had done, and afterwards his eyes searched our wake to learn if any boat were coming out of Calais Harbour. But we were alone there. Other smacks, it is true, lay beyond us towards Dover and the open sea ; but no vessel swam in the hither water between Calais Harbour and the lujjg^er. And the wind fell to die softest of breezes. We should never make Dover in four hours, I told myself — perhaps not in ten. "That bottle of wine, Bordenave," I exclaimed, seeking to draw him from the deck ; " we were in such a hurry to go fishing with you that w^e forgot to dine, if you have a biscuit and a glass of wine I will say that your boat is not to be beaten between Finisterre and Flamborough Head. Come, there is a bottle of wine aboard, ancient ? " The old man heard me affably enough. He was one of those thirsty souls who lick their lips when- ever they hear a cork go pop ; and at the word " wine " the sun seemed to shine upon him again. " Ah 1 '■ he exclaimed, as though he meant nothing at all by the remark, " then you came away in a hurry, monsieur?" Harry was up in arms in a moment. *' Captain Hilliard is ahvavs in a luirrv when the ladies are about, Bordenave. He thought he was A CHAIN OF FIRE 143 fXoinu to the Casino. A word to the wise. He left his dinner for les beaux yeitx. And now he's starv- in^^ Give him a biscuit and he will show you a splendid set of teeth— all his own, too." Bordenave looked at me auain, at my dress-suit, my fur coat, perchance at my hatj^ard face —for the hotel i^lass had shown me how hni>i;ard it was. But, whatever his suspicions mij^^ht have been, he was either too avaricious or too benevolent to think more of them ; and with a word that mi.i;ht have meant notliinjj^, or mi,t?ht have meant a good deal, he led the way down the companion into the stinking cabin again. " Let us go below, Abb(^. Sometimes it is good to be where people cannot see you. If the Captain is hungry, we will take care of him. I am hungry myself, and I have no teeth, you sny. All the Ivtter to rob the dentists -the thieves who cry, * Buy your teeth of me, and I will take your old ones away for nothing." If they would send their fireworks up for the dentists I would say ' Bravo! ' This way, messieurs, and mind the dog." Chattering and laughing always, he made a place for us on the benches of the cabin and produced his treasures. The assortment was odd, to the point of laughter. A roll of course >ausage, rich and abundant ; some cooked fish in a piece o^ blue jxiper ; a yard of delicious white bread, and butter abun- dantly. For the rest, onions, beetroot, coffee from a tin-prst. m'tlk in :i ba-sn, and three liott :c> o\ h.ii">h vm (III pays, sliarp, heavy, acrid, hoiu-^t. I have dined K ft It."-' 144 PRO PATH I A ill under curious circumstances many times in my life, but never as I dined then. In spite of all, of the pathos, the pity, the fear of that which I had under- gone, my hunger would have satisfied a goiiymand. And the stimulating properties of the raucous wine found me grateful. They gave n ■ a false courage, which, at least, permitted me to forget that rockets were being fired from the heights of Blanc-Nez, and that the long night must pass before we made Dovci Harbour. " Well, skipper, it will be four hours yet, don't you think ? " "Give me a wind, monsieur, and it shall be three." "But if the wind drops?" " A sensible question," chimed in Harry. " If the wind drops, we shall get out and push. What do you say, Bordenave — shall we get out and push? " " Oh, the Abb6 is master here. If he thinks that he can walk upon the sea — very good. I remember a fellow who made shoes in which to walk from Gris-Nez to Folkestone. Sapristi ! what shoes they were ! He was drowned off Wissant, and we buried him with his shoes in the cemetery there. That is the way with all those fellows. They have it all in their heads, and then they try to teach the sea. The sea says ' No,' and down they go." " As the man in the fiying machine," said I. " When I was a youngster I saw one fall headlong, 'ij- ■l«'Tii(r]-i«-m1-\t-?(1ii-« in I nn.lnn T rnilU ■; ' " ^ clawing at the air as he came down. He tell with r TiaSfi" A CHAIN OF FIRE 145 a sickening thud which I hear now when I dream. It was just as though all his bones went snap at once." " Pray for his soul," cried Bordemive ; "God has not meant us to fly, mon- ieur. If He had, we should have found the place where the wings go on. I do not want to fly, and I am happy. The earth is good enough for me— the earth and the sea. Fill your glass, Abb(:', and drink to the sea. You owe her something to-night, do you not? " I looked up quickly at Harry and caught his warning glance. The rockets at Gris-Nez had not lx?en fired in vain, then ! This cunning old French- man could share their secret. I would have staked a fortune on it. '* The sea, by all means," cried Harry, raising his glass willingly ; " the sea, and the skipper of the smack Hirondelle. I drink to you, Bordenave. You will make Dover, after all." The old seaman emptied a mug of wine at a draught and filled another pipe. '* The Abb6 said a hundred francs " " And the AbWs friend another hundred." *' I thank you, messieurs ; two hundred francs, then." " And another hundred for the excellent supper we have eaten. You must permit me to pay for that, Bordenave." " Ah, monsieur, if I should object ? " "Then there's ilic wine, Bordenave — would a hundred francs " 11 fl 146 PRO PATRIA " Blessed saints ! — four hundred francs ; and all for making IDover Harbour. You shall be there at three o'clock, messieurs. If you wish to go back again to-morrow, I will come and call for you. Four hundred francs — but I shall grow rich." In this way was the compact made. I have no doubt at all that the grasping old rascal knew from that moment, at least, the plainer facts of our story, and the meaning of the rockets which Escalles had lired. An Englishman sought to escape from France and would not go by the packet boat. He offered four hundred francs for the passage. Very good ; old Bordenave was quite willing to be corrupted. He rather liked it. " Finish your wine at your ease, messieurs. I am going upstairs to whistle for a wind. If there are any more fireworks, 1 will tell you. The Abb6's friend may wish to lie down — eh, monsieur? You would not have all the people see you on deck?" •* As you please, Bordenave. But I am very tired to-night." "Then you shall sleep, monsieur. I will call you when I make the quay. Four hundred francs ! Man Dieu ! you shall certainly see Dover." He went away, and presently the pattering feet above our head spoke of business on deck and the changing of the sails. For my part, fatigue was telling upon me again ; and .'lat and the wine con- trived an indolent state of mind wherein nothing is very real or very fearful to us. One an.xiety alone I' 7 _^-^iil^ .^^^•"■Mm ■ ^..ri^:¥^m> " ->t^«*«r /I ( IIAtX Oh FIRF. 147 troubled mc. I musl Iv sure of Harry's friendship at Calais. "I leave it to you, Flarry, to brin,c: Lepeletier to reason," I said. " There is no one else I could or would ask. You know that." He smiled at my simplicity. " Come," he said, " is it really Lepeletier about whom 3'ou are so anxious ? " "You will tell him just what I have told you — saving that which you call my imagination." He was serious in an instant. •' Yes," he said ; " it would be well to say nothing about that. When you are at Dover you can write and tell me how far you are justified or I am foolish.' ' And then he went on flippantly again — "At Dublin, the Viceroy kisses all the debutantes, you know. I wonder if the custom holds in mere embassies. To-morrow, remember, I represent you at the court of Lepeletier. Really, my dear fellow, it should not be diflicult where Mademoiselle Agnes is concerned." It was my turn to be serious. " Oh," siiid I, " 1 have done with that." "Done with it? Mark to him. Done with the prettiest thing in France. Shame on you, my son ! I will brij-.g her to Cottesbrook myself before the month is out." " I wish to God you could, Harry." " Oh, but I shall. I am determined upon it. The place wints waking up, and she VriU do it. Does she ride, think you ? Imagine the spleen of forty- fi! 148 PRO P ATRIA two dowagi'is wlio h;ivc Uaiii;htci'.s ready for you." " They will be very ani^ry, cert;'. inly." " And your mother. I would t^ivi- much to see the day when Lady Milliard lirst kissts little A^nes Lepeletier." "I would fjive half my fortune, Harry." He had mentioned my mother's name, which I never hear but some picture of my childhood and of a mother's life is conjuicd up thereby and set for me in a frame of the past most precious. And now a picture came af;ain as I lay resting on the cabin bench, and the swish of the seas we breasted was a sleep song. Cottesbrook, my home, with its pastures, its old-world people, its woods, its dells, its Abbey house — how far off it seemed ! One face alone I missed from the house of my dreams — the face of her who had told me an hour ago that we should never meet ay::iin, that a gulf impassable was set between us. Would Agnes ever reign at Cottesbrook ? Ay, God alone could answer that question. I could not lift the veil of the future which loomed so darkly. Dreaming, I saw my home; but the sun did not shine upon it, and there was darkness in the woods. A troubled sleep 1 slept in that miserable cabin, but a sleep which left me refreshed when Harry waked me and cried me to go on deck with him. He was wearing oilskins then, and the lamp's wan light showed t'^^c d''ll, leaden drops of water upon his cape, and ti e p;i'lor of the face which looked ^l^W A CHAIN OF FIRE 149 down to mine. Rut I was still heavy with the dream, and did not understand him at the first. " What is it ? What do you say ? Have I been asleep ? Good Lord, what a fool ! " He gave me a hand from the bench and turned towards the companion. " Old Bordenave is curious," he said. " A tug has followed the fishing fleet from Calais, and is searching some of the ships. You'd better come on deck, for it will be our turn soon." I went up after him with leaden steps. It was no surprise to me. Reason had told me from the first that I must answer for the night in the citadel of Calais. (ii.m'H'R XIII Ivnirlish Voices I HAD ih()Ui2;ht tliat it was w i Jark when Harry waked mc ; but when wt wint up to the deck the greyer hiihts of dawn were in the west; and eastward the sun came up above tlie waters a> a ball of lire new kindled and nnUow. All about us the lazy sea eauuht the morninti's beani> and tossed them in jewels of the spindrift. The coast of France was no longer white al e our horizon. r\»ver herself, as a picture cut m stone, stood above the waters dominatin<;ly, in silent, unwaked majesty, the very type of a fortress town. We were not a mile from the Admiralty Pier, not a mile from safety and the shore. The new harbour works shaped clear in the breakinii; rays of sun- light, and Ix'yond them I could distinguish the big hotels, the ramparts of the Castle, St. Mary's Church as a nest upon the cliff side. In fit'teen minutes, I said, we should have passed the harbour gates, for the tide served. Why, then, was old Bordenave curious ? " Yonder, Captain," he cried, " yonder is the Calais tug. Look for yourself. They have just 150 ■I i NCI. I ^11 VoUIS «5l stopP' vl La IA>//,//.\;inJ m> !Virn-.l IVmi. lie would be two niik> in.rn hciv, iKTli.ip>. It will Iv uiu turn next, the AbW says. Very well, if the Cii[)- tain dois not mimi ! An odd sensation came over me whil' he >ix)ke. It was not altoseiher tear; it was not a sudden con- sciousness of danuer. To-dr I should call it ex- citement pure and simple -exactly the same sen- sation as comes to a man whe. waits tor the start ot a race in which he is a runner. I'ursuit had do^'ged mc all nii;ht as a shadow; but the morning sun brou.ulK it to the light. We played no longer in the dark. •'Are you are of what you say. Bordenave?" I asked as qu letly as I could. " Are there r.o steam- trawlers with your fleet ? " He rut his hands deep into is pocket-^ ^nJ pulTed quickly at i pipe. Look he, , Captain!" he exc "if you d 1 not want to see your frie: J would ^ y W^ off as quickly as you W" all laughed, in spi. of ourselv. of putting it, Harry louder than the rest of us. "Where are your wings, Bordenave.-'" he crietl now ; " give the Captain a pair and he win lly to Dover. You say there is no >.ind?" "Not enou;jrh to lift a flag, Abbe. 1.o,m. at the sail yonder. D« s that say wind?" " But you c'.uid row me ashore in the dinghv ! " I suggested. Bordenave turned a' i looked me tuii in the tace 1 bluntly, "aUiis, at liis wav '^me^mmm \r^2 PRO PAIR I A v. -.j;,; i "They are blind on the stciimcr, then, Captain?" *' You mean that they would be here before we could get ashore." "They will be here in twenty minutes— less i' you put a boat out. Do not trust then», Captain, they have good eyes." Harry stamped his foot. " Then, in Heaven's name, how is the man to get ashore ? " '* Messieurs," replied the skipper with some diffi- culty, " I have done my best." We fell to silence and to watching the distant ships. Dawn found the sea as a lakv- ; the hour of slack wjiter was nearly done, I imagine, d. Two miles away or more, towards the cliffs of l^'i uce, a tug lay near a French' smack, and had put out a boat to board her. I realised that in ten minutes the same boat might be hailing the HivondcUe. " Harry," I said, turning to him with the sure knowledge that he could not help me, " I must get ashore somehow." " I agree," he answered gravely. '• The longer we wait, the greater the chance for those fellows to understand." " There is onl)' one way, Alfred." " I am going to take it, Harry." He wrung my hapd, but said nothing. My fur coat lay on the deck now, and my boots were quickly beside it. The French crew watched me with an amazed silence which was eloquent of their thoughts. Already the smoke from the tug's funnel tfiiiH '52 '' The first vigorous strokes sent the warming blood through my vems." It ■H,:i ras^^;^ ' ENGLISH VOICES 153 f i tlriftcd horn the hither sea and hec;an to shut out the view of the smack and the boat. There was no time to lose. I stood up in my vest and drawers, and rollins? my litjhter clothes in a bundle, I tied them round my neck. Even then I could remember my sovereign-purse and the case which held my money. I should have need of them ashore. '• I must get to Dover, Harry." "God bless you, old fellow! but it s worth trying." '•You will see Agnes to-morrow?" "Of course I shall." " Tell her that I remember my promise." "Monsieur, monsieur, the tug is moving again." Old Bordenave spoke. I did not look behind me, and without another word to them dived into the sea. There was only one idea in my mind. At any cost I must reach Dover Harbour— the shores of my own country. I had plunged well away from the stern of the smack, and was so sheltered by it that I accounted myself safe, at least for the moment, from any ob- servation by those upon the tug. The sea struck cold as ice upon the head, but the first vigorous strokes sent the warming blood through my veins ; and turning upon my side I began to work strongly for the Admiralty Pier. I remember well that I con- soled myself from the first with the assurance that the pier was not a mile away, and that I had swum a mile many a time in the great lake at Cottes- brook. From the smack's deck I could distinguish the very porters waiting by the morning train fcr 154 /V.'O IWTRlA \ I ii i the pjickct boat Irom C;ilai:>. Tlx so fel!o\vs would bo astonislic'tl wlicn a ha'.f-niikcJ man ramc up to their carriages, I said. And [ should find myself ashore with a pair ol soaked flannels and a llannel coat wei.L;hing any number of wet pounds; but it would be upon the shore of En.uland, and to- morrow my work would Ix-uin. Subtly and calmly my mind was busy already with the jjreat uncer- tainty. I could think of twenty things then; but of those behind me I would not think. All that Harry had said was said by me ayain and aj^ain. If 1 had been the victim of imauination — very well, my escapade could hurt no one. If, on the other hand, I had learned a truth so ureat that 1 feared to speak of it even to my oldest friend— why, then I was a thousand times justified of that which I did. The very doubt helped my resolution. I was not a mile from England; and in Hnsiland I had a great work to do. Never did man swim in the sea for a stake so terrible or for a snore so dear. The sea was calm, a great lake rolling laziiv in the sun of the morning. P>om the smack's deck I had seen the houses of Dover as in some miuhty scene of a play; but now, from the level of the water, they appeared a great way off, as though a hand had rolled them back for my despair, and set a greater gulf between the swimmer and the shore. I knew that my deceptive vision tricked me, and took no thought of it, but only of that which lay behind me, and of the tug, which I began to re- member when the first energy of flight had passed. iiMi ENGLISH VOICES ifi 30 Had I been observed by the Frenchmen, or did old r.ordenave's bo;it still shield me? Once us I turned uf a my back to breathe, I beheld the still sea behind me and the smack hove to, and beyond it the squat steamer with smoke pourint? from its twin funnels and crests of foam at its bows. Doubt was possible no longer. The tug was making for the Hiroudelle, and in ten minutes a boat from it would follow me. I rested but an instant, and then was upon my side a,i;ain. It is one thing to swim at leisure, for the love of it, knowing that you may turn to the shore or the liepths at your will ; it is another matter to swim for your liberty, if not for your life. I had set out from the ship thinking that I had a child's task before me ; but the half of a mile taught me the lesson, and for a little while a despair, almost as of death, settled upon me. Seas which had been gentle as the touch of flowers upon the lips now began to bu!iet me with stin^ ng slaps. I sank lower in the water and came up again with diffi- culty. The sky, grey and cold of morning, seemed far alx>ve me. I ccald no longer distinguish Dover, for ihc salt siuns; and burned my eyes; and all about me was the grey, green swell, pitiless, in- finite, tortui ing. Was it ordained that I must die there, I asked — die v%^hen my voice could be heard in England and her white cliffs might almost cover mt' with their shadows. And yet of death T thought less ihin ol ilic tug steaming there in my wake, 156 /Vi'O PAIR/ A ■ '.' h-: one mile, two it might be, from the place where 1 lay. How tar was she behind me now ? God, how n'y strength seemed to fail me ! I must rest, must breathe— they might take me if they willed. It would be a reliel, 1 s;iid, to sink down, down, and to sleep in the eternal silence of the depths. Some one halloed across the sea, and I thought that I recognised the voice of Harry, and that he warned me of the tug's approach. Once I heard a siren blasted, and then the whistle of an engine, curiously near to me. I had been swimming the breast stroke when the voice came floating over the waters; but now I sank down until my head was almost submerged, and so looked backward at the ship and the men. Bordcnave's boat still lay there, perhaps thrcc-qi! utcs of a mile from me, and the tug was near by it apparently hailing it and sending out a boat again. But that which brought all my courage back as upon a beam of light was the specticle of Dover herself, so near to me, so clear in the vigour of the day that I hud but to swim a hundred strokes to make its harbour afely. What tide there was appeared to help me to the great buttress of the pier. I perceived it all so plainly in the pleasing mellow glow of dawn, the lapping waves, the men upon the jetty, the while houv,'^ beyond, the waiting train, with a shimmer ol steam above the engine'^ funnel. IJut a little river of yrey, green water stood Ixitvveen us; and so gentle a river that it seemed to -.port and play as a human thing waking ENGLISH VOICES 157 to greet the rising sun. I said, when I beheld it, that notliing could stand now between me and my victory; and, roused at the siren's call as by a clarion note, 1 struck out for the shore again with a measure of strength which amazed me. Three hundred yards to go, perhaps— three hun- dred yards for liberty and a prize of liberty beyond my words. God knows, my heart beat as every stroke carried me a little way to that giant pier whereof the very stones rewarded my exhausted eyes. None would pursue me now, I said, or, pur- suing, must answer English voices and an English law. Odd, indeed, it was that no one observed the swimmer from the shore; but who would have looked for him in such a place and at such an hour.-" Alone I swam; alone I passed through those phases of hope- and fear, of joy and despair, which such a scene could not fail to create for me. None fol- lowed, I said. Oh, amazing confidence! for, saying it, I heard the steamer's paddles beating the water, and I knew that she pursued me. She was coming on, then, into the very mouth of the har- bour ! For one unforgotten moment I ceased to swim and listened to the echoes. Let those who have been in the water remember the ihrob of a steamer's paddle as it smites the seas and tumbles them back- ward in eddies of rushing foam. What a sound it is, mysterious as the rolling thunder from the depths, reverberating, tremulous, maki.ig the waters tremble and the swili ripple even upon the distant shore. m ir,s PRO PATRIA And now I had the cclio of it throbbing in my cars ; ihc waves seemed to (lush as at some foreign j-iower ; I could feel by instinct that a ship was behind me, that it raced up toward me, that I mii;ht even be ihawn down by its swell as in a whirlpool. The knowledge was torture — torture beyond all power of writing. I had dared so much to win so little. It would be a humiliation surpassing words to be taken here, when but two hundred yards lay between me and my liberty ; and yet taken I shouki be unless a miracle prevailed. To this thought of capture I began, indeed, to surrender, when every stroke of mine was answered by a louder, more thunderous echo of the steamer's paddles. .She was a hundred, lifty yards away, i said. The voices of tho.se hailing me came clear and distinct across the gathering .seas. Oh, wonderful to tell ! They wcie English voices. Dazed to the point of unconsciousness, worn our as much by e.xcitement as by fatigue, I sank lower in the sea and waited for the end. The beat of the steamer's paddles had ccaseil by this time, and in their place I could hear the splash of oars and a steady word of command. Again, I say, it was an Rnglish voice which spoke—the mockery of it!— an b"nglish voice upon the (Calais tug. But I had no longer the strength or the vvill to lesist the man who hailed me. lie litte 1 me as a child liom the sea to his boat ; and as a ciiild I lay half .senseless wliilc they rowed me to the steati er. lO the ^ll■a^u■^, indeed, to a big ship where many Ml ENGLISH VOICES 159 crowded about me, and strange faces peered into mine, and a man with a gold-laced cap brought me a glass of brandy, and others rolled me in blankets to carry me to the cabin below. With wonder- struck eyes I looked at the officer and at those who helped him. The trim jerseys, the name upon their caps, above all (and my hand well may hasten to set that down) — above all, the Enj^lish faces. Great God ! I asked, where was I ? What did I mean ? Whose ship was this ? Laugh with me you who read. I had been picked up by the morning boat from Calais, and before another hour was struck by the harbour clock I walked, a free man, in the streets of Dover. END OP BOOK L M\i ■ •ISLf:' %: '^' ' BOOK IT THE PATRIOT i phantoms and to say to Agnes, " iMy mother is wait- ing for you at Cottesbrook " ? For Harry was coming home and had news for me. He would be at the station that very afternoon. I should see him, hear him, know the best and the worst. There was no lighter-hearted man in all Northamptonshire that day than he who drove to meet .he '• Abb6 Fordham" upon the road to Harborough. For Harry had been in Calais town, and but yesterday had seen Agnes Lepeletier. Thrice happy being who knew so little of his happiness. tl 1 1 1 ^ i t. ■ ■ •' 1 f CHAPTER XV A Lesson in Dreatns I MADE out from Harry's letter that he would pass the nii?ht in London, and come on to Market Harborough by the dismal afternoon train from Kettering, which never but once was punc- tual, they say, and then at the cost of a station- master's reason. Impatience sent my horses at a canter to a rendezvous so well desired. It wete as though Harry could bridge in a moment the intoler- able weeks of waiting I had spent at Cottesbrook. With him I might go back to that unforgotten day when I leaped from th , deck of the Hirondclle, and the packet boat brought me to Dover Pier. A thousand things I must hear from Harry's lips, must ask him a thousand questions. Do you won- der that I pacei) the deserted platform as a prisoner awaiting liberty ? Would that cursed train never be signalled? Should I nevei hear the message that Agnes had .sent ? It was a delay intolerable, not to be suffered, beyond the malignity even of a railway con-pany. He came at la^^^t, boisterous, bronzed, the laughing, I7» .1 /j:ss()A /a- n/y'/i.i.us 17:? active H:irry of old; for an instant we cxchanftca a hand-Klip as of men who meet gladly in some jrood crisis of their lives, but will not speak of it yet awhile. Upon rny part, the excitement of that moment sent me hither and thither, now after his trunks, now gather. ni? up his ru^s, now hurry- ing; the Krooni^, as o.ie all impatient to draji him from the press an^ to have him with me in the Ciirriage, where no trunk-hunters might hear us, nor gaping rustics listen. Yesterday he had seen Agnes, and here at Market H irborough could begin to speak of other subjects. Well, it was the old Harry, after all. I captured my prize and took him with me to the mail-phaeton, and so to the dusty, deserted high-road by which you come to Cottesbrook. He wore a round felt hat now, and had tucked his old Scotch cap in the pocket of his cape. His face was so scarred and bronzed by the suns of Switzerland that he might have come from Africa. But the old Harry spoke, the old Harry who seemed to change the very scene about us, *oVAt the clouds from it and bring the ligh*" again. "There's no going home to-nigh, Harry- you dine and sleep at the Abbey. That's decided." He leant back in the phaeton and clasped his hands. " Behold," he said, " the parson of Cottesbrook, who is asked to the loaves and fishes, and who dis- graces the Cloth by unnatural hesitation." •' But Meo^ wishes it. She won't forgive me." I ^:.^^i^. 174 PRO PATRIA r «* '. A His face softened as it always did at the mention of my sister's name. ** Who am I, to say ' No ' to your sister Meg, Sir Alfred?" " Agreed. We've a full house and a supply of bores to people Pretoria. Do you remember old Arthur Grosvenor, the little General who was recently in command at Canterbury ? " " The man with whiskers and a story of his mother's aunt who was carried to a harem at Teheran! Say not that Le still lives." " He does. We've been treated to the excellent kidy three times since Sunday. What is to be done to a man with one story ? " '* Tell him another." " He doesn't listen." "Then present him with a standard work on harems and paj'' his passage to Teheran." " A good notion ; but I shall have something else to think of now. Why don't you gratify my curi- osity. You know what I am thinking of." I did not look at him, but my hand faltered on the reins while I waited for his answer, and the horses swerved badly. " I know what you are thinking of, old chap, but I have nothing to tell." " Nothing to tell — you ? " "At least, it's told in a word. Lepeletier has closed his house at Calais and gone away." " Qjne away. Where's he gone to ? " "Ah, read me the riddle aright. The story in ytff^m^-tTf'W'^, A LESSON IN DREAMS 175 Calais is that he has gone to Chalons. I followed, and found it was a lie. He has never been in Chalons. Veybum sap. They don't wish us to know where he is." I was silent for a little while. The dusty road now appeared suddenly to be enveloped by the twilight. The friend at my side had nothing more to say. "And Agnes," I exclaimed presently, "she is with her father?" " The liars of Calais say so. I imagine that they tell the truth because it serves as well as the other thing. Obviously, the man who cannot find the father cannot find the daughter. They sent me to Chalons on a fool's errand, and were indignant be- cause I would not go to Dijon on a second. The empty house, moreover, has no secrets. There is only a dog in it." I laughed in spite of my chagrin ; but he began to question me as though to turn my thoughts. "Has Agnes written to you since your re- turn?" " Not a line." "Her father?" " Absolutely nothing." " So ! A silent man and a mystery. Well, you cannot argue with a fellow who says nothing. Did you write to him yourselt ? " " A letter as long as a sermon." "Frank, of course?" ■' Biutaiiy frank. I said iliiil I had seen things M ^£ I 176 PRO P ATRIA at Escalles which he could explain in a word. He has not condescended to explain them." "Not being at Calais, he might well avoid the question. You have forgiven my incredulity, I hope?" " I never blamed it. I am incredulous myself— a man who does not wish to believe what his eyes showed him. If any one listened to me, I should be the most astonished man in Europe." «' But you have found listeners. You said in one letter that you had seen the War Office people." •• Quite true. I told them the whole story without a jot or tittle of ornament or addition. They were polite, but impossible. The man who showed me out said, "There goes a lunatic," as plainly as you can say a thing without words. Kent, at Dover, the man in command, laughed like a clown; he insisted on walking to Folkestone with me to cure the delusion. We saw nothing, of course." "You wouldn't. I tramped those seven miles yesterday, and was rewarded with two tunnels, a coastguard station, old Watkins's rubbish heap, and a pair of chalky boots." " Do you mean to say that you are really suffi- ciently interested to walk seven miles?" I turned to look at him as I asked the question, and the expression on his face astonished me. It had become in an instant the face of a man who wrestled with some problem. His eyes were wide open and strangely serious. One of his hands gripped my forearm m an iron grip. All liie ---'"^ m ^^L^Ms^StiLj^ A LESSON IN DREAMS 177 fascination of my own fear had found another victim. "Interested, Alfred? Great God! how many nights have I dreamed of it all since we parted! Your woebegone self by the Jardin Richelieu, tho^e minutes in the hotel, the morning on the smack ! Do you know that I nearly fell in a faint when the steamer picked you up ? We shall never see a race like that again, my son. The Frenchmen would have taken you in another hundred yards. I began to breathe when I saw the others haul you up. And I think that in the same moment I began to believe." "Why so?" "Common sense. If there had been nothing to see at Esc.iUes, why did the heathen rage furiously because you had seen it ? You were evidently a prize worth catching. I put two and two together and made it four — three Frenchmen in a boat and an Englishman in the water. When I returned to Calais the police were impertinent enough to search my luggage, and Lepeletier was distant. Made- moiselle Agnes, I believe, went to Paris the next day ; I never saw her again. But to the police I said, *We, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoigne Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury ' and they listened." "While \ou went on to Switzerland." "Exactly; to dream of things I haven't the courage to speak of. Oh, my dear chap, just think of it. If the hundredth chance were true, and those iciiows, those burrowing animals were this very i:^^-^ -tl 1/8 PJiO PATRIA }i mr creeping, creeping under the sea to Dover, while England says nothing but ' Holidays,' and you and I are driving along a dusty road to Cottesbrook ! I say, ' If it were true.' Do you know, my son, that I wake in the night as cold as a dead man because you have taught me how to dream ? " "As we must teach each other how to wake, Harry." "A thousand times agreed. Show me how to break your own bonds, and I will begin to live again. Frankly, I cannot master it. "-> amount of argu- ment convinces me that the people of Calais would have done as they did just to punish a man who had seen a coal-shaft. What the truth is, God knows." " And will help us to discover." For a little while he sat in ^ mce, as though, in truth, he saw again the thing that I had seen a hun- dred times since I came home t( Cottesbrook and sought to forget in my mother's house. " Whatever the truth is, I will know it," I said presently, " even if I spend half my fortune. Yes- terday I resigned my commission in the Eighteenth. I shall spend next month at Dover— for the mere satisfaction of being there." He did not protest, but heard me with new in- terest. '• You will need a chaplain, of course ? " " If that chaplain is the vicar of my parish." "Well — there are my people " "And there is Meg, Harry," In truth, I heard my sister's girlish laugh as we ■TWJF'T^!?*--^'")*-- 178 ' I beheld a man's face staring: up at me so savagely, from a bush upon my right hand." (^W^. HI HgUP^ ■,> *>; A LESSOiX IN DREAMS £79 turned into the Abbey drive; but that and the question I had put to Harry were forgotten an in- stant later, when, in the vrry tnickets about the lawn of the house, I beheld a man's face staring up at me so savajiely, from a bush upon my right hand, that I reined the horses back upon their haunches a ad sat for a minute unable to say a word to any one. "That fellow there, in the copse— who is he? where did he come from ? " One of the grooms sprang to the ground and rushed into the copse, trampling the bushes and breaking the boughs. When he came back he shook his head doubtingly. "There's no one in there, sir. I've been right through." '• But I sav.' the man for myself." " Shall I look again, sir ? " " Let the men come out and search the grounds, every yard of them. There was some one lurking about there when I spoke. He must be found." I let the horses go and drove on to the house. Harry asked no questions. I did not tell him, until he came into my bedroom late that night, that the face I had seen in the thicket was the face of one of the engineers who passed me in the tunnel at Escalles. CHAPTER XVI Of Pistols and a Persian MY mother was full of anxieties when she came down to breakfast next morning, for t^e grooms had been gossiping to the maids, and the -naids to the men ; and so the story of a stranger was sent the round until it came to the breakfast- table, and was a fine subject for little General Grosvenor, and a terror to certain young ladies, who expressed a wholesome fear of an early death if the unknown man should be daring enough to walk off with the spoons. But I, in the first hour of morning, had already quieted my mother's fears, pooh-poohing my own fancies and declaring that if any one lurked yesterday in the grounds, he was but a tramp from Harborough, and to-day would be in the casual ward at Kettering. She accepted the story reluctantly ; but elsewhere it was a feast for our guests, who had divers remedies for burgla»"s, and were agreed upon the daring courses they would shape if a strange man passed the doors of Cottesbrook. To me so much, to them so little, the incident meant. I seemed to be the unwilling spec- i8o Ol- riSTOLS AND A PERSIAN iSl tator in a jest-house, a man full of serious thoughts, who, nevertheless, must listen to the boastful quips of idlers and all the meaningless chatter of a com- mon day. But I knew that one there with me shared the burden, and my courage hud grown since Harry came home. He was late at the table, and his freckled, healthy f" e lacked something of its colouring, of that honest pink and white which bore witness to the mens sana and was as natural to him as the blush of a rose. It was good to see my sister Meg's pretentious indifference wlien Harry said " Good- morning " to her, for she did not so much as raise her eyes to look at him ; and yet I knew that there was no man in all England she would so soon have welcomed to her side ; none 1 myself would have seen there with greater thankfulness. Whatever else of content that life may give us, surely an honest man's love for the sister we have guarded is of gifts most blessed. Here was a love-story of childhood's birth; it would go on, I said, as some kindly stream through the fair country of home and children to the distant sea of the eternal rest, and, as I believed, of the eternal happiness. How different from my own case ! What future could I foresee, if it were not the enduring longing for the days I had liv^ed in France? Whereto was the stream ot my life carrying me, if not to hours of darkness and of the mind's distress ? Six months ago they had spoken of me as a man fortunate be- yond my fellows. I could laugh ironically at sucli ■wn •"•Tj. " Ti"*. 7f ■ ■■■ •t^'l 182 PAY) IWTRA an estimate now. Tlu-ic is no mistress so perverse as destiny, none so merciless as we find her in the moods of her hostility. Harry had exelian.ued a quirk glance with me when we sat at table, and takini!; up his letters, which a groom had carried from the Kectory, he asked me to ride over with him after breakfast. Meg looked up reproachfully at the request, and was betrayed into her avowal. " Don't say there's a funeral, Mr. Fordham. All Cambridge men tell that old story. Alf was as bad as the rest. I really thought at last that we ought to bury some one for the sake of being honest. How many times did your aunt die, Alf, when you were at Jesus' ? " " Six or seven, Meg. I was like the man in the book, and used to keep my grandmother for Derby Day. She always died on the eve of the great race." " A common loss in my regiment," said the little General, fixing his eyeglass witl a solemnity characteristic of him. "liiere is nothing new under the sun, sir, in religion, in law, in medicine, or in the arts of mendacity. Here has man been trying or a thousand years to fudge up a decent excuse for a dereliction ot duty, and has got no farther than the death of his aunt. Astounding! Lamentable ! Now, when my poor sister was per- suaded to marry, at the age of forty-nine, a '■ascally Persian in Teheran, they had the imper- tinence to tell me she was dead. Dead, sir — a :J&tf&\t,-Tj'lb^- .-^Sj^vmss. OF risroLS AM) A I'ERSfAN 183 woiriiin xvho comes of a family which lives to ninety and has mirrieJ at sixty-four." Meg whisiXM-ed to me that the Persian was properly punisl.jd; but Harry went on to chaff the General. " It is astonishing:," he exclaimed, " how little kindness the world shows to aunts. An aunt is always a jocular subject. If a man foozles at golf, he does not say, ' Oh, my cousin, my brother, or my grandfather.' He says, ' Oh, my aunt ! ' Pos- sibly, General, the Persian is equally deficient in the maternal instinct. He did not take your aunt seriously " " Oh," said Meg, " but he took her to his harem, didn't he. General ? Wasn't that serious enough ? " The little General refused to laugh. •« She married a Persian, si»-, a yellow fellow who wore black trousers and a fez. When he is tired of her he will take three more wives. They are always hanging over her head— I have told her so." " Poor thing ! Is she not very much shocked ? " "She is properly punished, young lady. The West does not touch the East and come away with clean fingers. Remember that— never marry a Persian. You may be an aunt some day, and will be more kind to the species." " Horrible thought ! " cried Meg, " to be an aunt and to be buried to make a Cambridge holiday." My mother interposed with her more serious wcrd. -T'*^ f84 /Vi'o IWIh'lA "Must you rcaliy go lo-day, Viiar ? " she sjiid. "Can't the parish wait a little while?" Harry turned to me as though in explana- tion. "Master AllVetl rides with me," he answered quickly. " A man who has left his business for tive weeks always protests ruin if you sui,^«ost that he should leave it lor six. Here is my curate in- discreet enou;j;h to «;o and i^et engaged. If I do not J.0 back and release him, he will be taking strange texts : " By the waters of Cottesbrook we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Jane.' I must really try the Vicarage bed to-night, Lady Hilliard " ♦' And miss the burglar," interposed Meg audaci- ously. " Now, really, do you think there was a man ? " "Bosh ! " lid the little General contemptuously. " An umbrella's the thing for him, sir. I went through the A'-hantee war with a duck suit and a gingham umbrella, and there wasn't a bl;ick who stood up to me. Don't talk to me about pis- tols " '• No one mentions them, I think," said Harry. " But you were going to, sir " " I beg your pardon, nothing of the sort." " But you had them in your mind, sir." "Not at all. If I met i burglar, I should recite the verses of a minor poet to him, in a major key. ' Silver and gold have I none,' and he would pass the plate. In that aspect we are men of the same OF PISTOLS AND A PI£RSUN 185 persuasion. I imiisine his objection to buttons would not be less than ray own." The little General, who was never so happy as in the first words of a heated argument, resented Harry's refusal to oblijije him with a measure ot temper, and fell upon dish of strawberries raven- ously. It was always a "go-as-you-please" at Cottesbrook, especially at breakfast time ; and the rest of us, fearing, perhaps, that there would be a resurrection of the indispensable aunt, strolled off to the stables and the gardens— Meg to cut a rose for Harry's coat, my mother to the housckeeixjr's ••-^om, I to the loose boxes where my hunters stood. My impatience to be away and off with Harry prevailed above any interest I could affect for everyday affairs. I admitted to myself, as a natural thing, that the old order of the life at home was unstable and changing. It could not be otherwise. No association, however potent, might recall that spirit of a boyhood which was lost to me when Agnes Lepeletier met me on the Calais raxc' I was as one who realized in a single hour the emptiness of life; who spanned the years and, looking for the first time onward to the eternal goal, < ould see the end and say, " The way is short." A mood, perchan-e a passi. g malady of the mind which time and change would cure ; but while I suffered it I thought that it must endure to the end. It was ever Harry's ti-.sk to recall me from these gloomy paths, to share with me those bountiful spirits which neither doubt nor diiticulty could LT V ' ^ '^^^Vi7 WT^Hki ■£. «L_ V^^K <»£ *. ^^F ** 186 y^/?r} PATRTA abate. And ho did not fail mc upon that sunny morning, when \vc mounted our cobs and cantered awav across the fields, over hedges and ditches as they came, to the Vicarage in the hollow, and the warm welcome which awaited us there. Meg, it is true, argued at great length with bin. before we set out,^upon so private a matter that they must needs go into the orangery to discuss it; but as soon as we were by the gates ho fell to talk of the affair of vesterday and of the anxieties it had left to him. " To me the opportunity of saying that which for many weeks I had thought in silence was as a tonic for the mind. The half of my re- sponsibilities, and more, seemed, as at Calais, .shifted to shoulders which could bear them better than my own. I knew that a strong man coun- selled me, a strong man and a brave man, and one to whom duty was the first and the last aim of life. " Harry," I said, when at length we were alone, ' don t you hink it odd there is no news of the man we saw last night?" " Odd ? Why so ? Did you suppose he would wait to ask after the family ? Blessed simplicity ! He is in France by this time. AVhile your fellows were beating the bushes, I can hear him crying, ' A has les Auglais ! ' on the other side of the hedge. Remember, he was not twenty paces from the high road. And I pay you the compliment of supposing that you have forgotten the fable of the wolf. He was a flesh-and-blood man, you say ? I am ready to believe you." ■fpf?? •"•W " -' '■<:'''«•'■' OF PISTOLS AND A PERSIAN 187 " Flattering, but unnecessary. I am as sure of it as of this old cob. There w is a man in the copse, and I have seen him before — at Escalles, when I left Jeffcry on the line. It remains to ask what he is doing at Cottesbrook and who sent him?" " Supererogatory questions, my oDn. There are twenty reasons. For my part, commend me to the less hysterical, but keep a staff in my hand. Really, I think you would do well to be caretul, old fellow. All this tells me, at least, that you have seen something at Calais which France does not wish us to understand. I think it is your duty to take care that a man in a bush does not make understanding impossible. Here is a case where you must return good for evil, and see you lay it on well. I don't think, if I were you, that I would be out on the road much after dark. It isn't good for the respiratory organs. What is more, when >ou go to Dover, don't proclaim it from the house- tops.^ You might even suggest—a suggest io falsi, from which I here absolve you— that your destina- tion was Calais. If like cures like, then lies are a hundred times justified in this case. In short, I think very seriously of the whole business." I knew that he did, had known it at Calais, and yesterday at Cottesbrook. It was a relief now to be able to speak freely and with none of those rigmaroles which I had bjen compelled to employ when explaining myself to otiK■^^. View it as we migiu, hailuciiuiiion or ti ull;, ihe ; ?. clever way of doing it, I am not clever encuiii to understand it. But I mean to let our jn^ople know what is going on, and I shall not rest until I have the truth." mmm OF PISTOLS AND A PERSIAN 189 "You will not rest, and you will not leave a good, thick stick at home— excellent resolutions. And I agree with you entirely as to the air of Dover. A couple of months there would do no man any harm. There's golf on the Downs, decent bathing, and plenty of fair roads for a stink-pot. You'll get the East Kent foxhounds, too, later on." " And the best of parsons to preach to me on Sundays." Harry shuok his head. "Flying visits, my son. Look at the parish yonder. It is my kingdom. If I can bring a little joy, even to one poor soul there, how can I justify myself if I lay down the sceptre? But I'll come when I can, and 1 11 be with you always in heart. Yours is the work, old friend. We must leave the field of it to God. And the cost we must not think of— it is a debt we owe 10 our country. Even yet that work may reward us beyond our hopes." He put his horse to a canter, as though he had no wish to pursue that new phase of the subject, and I followed him in consenting silence to the village and the Rectory house. For I knew that he spoke of Agnes, of his own fruitless embassy, and of the hope he had abandoned when he went to Calais town. Nevermore, he would have said, must such a hope come into my own life to be the impulse of it. The price of loss was a price to be paid without complaint for the honour ot my iM,MMM.A 190 PRO PATRlA country, and, it might be-who could say ?-fot- her very salvation. Nevertheless, from all the changing problems of the hour that mystery was not to be shut ouc. Consent as I might to the sacrihce, the face of the woman I loved looked out at me from that mirror of the past, and held me a prisoner of the will, before her picture. In vain I said that it was ended and forgotten, that the -lass of the past was shattered, that the tuture had nothing for me of all he. store of love and content and the harvest of a life. Hope un- conquered tempted me still. "It might be "-my right to say that remained a precious possession. I would say it though all the world forbade. I was not born a pessimist, in truth, and no pessimist rode away from the Vicarage that after- noon, when, leaving Harry at the church door, I turned my horse's head and struck upon the high road to Harborough and my home. Desire of the future, unaltered desire born of a woman's sympathy, went with me upon my way, and, wonder working always, brought me face to face with her I would have gone a thousand miles to see— Agnes herself, driving in a carriage to the Abbey gates. ?:»^«ap: .ipy:-^ l. mi n i i ffy • «r CHAPTER XVII Agnes Comes to Cottesbrook OUR greatest surprises are not always of the unexpected things, but rather of those we have looked for but have not dared to believe in. So often had I, in the idle pleasure of imagination, depicted that very scene— my own home and the little French girl driving to its gates— that now, when the dream came true and imagination was justified of the day, I could have laughed aloud for very irony of the circumstances. Twenty possi- bilities of the mystery I would have promised at the hazard ; but Agnes, herself, in the shadow of the Abbey— Agnes, herself, going to my mother as I had wished it, ay, countless nights since they hunted me from Calais town— what book would have dared such a turn of fortune as that ? No tale that I could think of surpassed the wonders of that day. She was there at the gates of my house! She had come from France to see me— the very last messenger I had loolccd for in hundred years. I biivv her first at the junclion of the road-:, 191 N a IQ2 PRO PAIR I A the spinney which is the ouir rampart of the Abbey • and coming upon the carriage suddenly, aad observing it carelessly, I should have passed it at a trot but for a little startled cry and the sound of a voice which quickened my heart and sent me back in the saddle as though a pit yawned •It my verv feet. Astonished in his turn, the llyman (for k was but a hired fly from Kettering; cried "Whoa!" to his old horse, who needed no reining; and there we s:it, the three of us— two travel-stained, weary pas-engers, the third as astonished a man as ever rode a patient cob. "Agnes? It can't be!" She was very tired; the dust had soiled her pretty French dress and powdered the feathers of her dainty hat ; but she raised a smiling face to mine and answered me bravely. " Is it impossible, then, Captain Alfred ?" "It is astonishing to the last point of wonder. You were going to the Abbey, of course?" She answered me as frankly. •'Yes, I was going to the Abbey to see Lady Hilliard, if I could." " The greater surprise ! " " Lady Hilliard, if I could ; if not, then to ask for I was silent a moment to think of it. She had come to see my mother. Why, why, vhy ? There must be the gravest reason. " Well," said 1, " ncic is a iciiuv. iia= m- o-"--' the bad fortune to spoil your plans. Will you walk AGNES COMES 10 COTTESBROOK 103 up to the house with me ? I will take you to my mother, Agnes." She did not respond, but obeyed without protest when I opened the door of the fly and helped her down to the dusty road. The man went on to the stables readily. He knew the Abbey kitchens. "Have something to eat and then go back," I said to him, and asked, " You are from Kettering, are you not?" " I thank you, Captain, from John Cobb's." " We shall not want you again to-day. Go back when your horse is rested. It's a long drive, remember." He assented at once, but his little passenger protested. " Oh, no, no, you do not understand ; my friends expect me in Tendon to-night. I dare not dis- appoint them." *' Then we shall drive you to the station our- selves. It will be something for a couple of iazy men to do. Let us talk about it as we go." I drew the reins across my arm and opened the spinney gate. There was a bridle-path there lead- ing to the orangery and the Italian gardens. The cob followed us as we went up, like a dog, patiently, but welcoming our many halting-places and the grass he found there. For my part, the surprise of it all was still almost paralysing. I knew not 'f. i 1 1 i I i n. . me back magically to Calais and the jfirdin PRO PATRIA 194 hwi rnme to me from the ends Richelieu. Agnes had come to of the earth I said ^^^^^ .^,^ ^^^,-. " I can't believe it-can t nenc ^.^^ I cried again -^"^;:J, to^Iteps. " There and set out for the ^^^^^ J ^^ ^^^^^ ^, incredulous, are some days so good that the> > ^^ To-day is one of them. Is it lealb you, Ag am I dreaming it all ? " j ^^^ any one else to come, vv ' „ again ; did not believe that *<'"";;'' ^' =^°„o„g*h to but a woman's pnde ts not st.ong en^ g ner a woman;s fear and ^so^ l^ca» ^^J,^ rz:c^^ >n t%:ree:ra"r;:i T , A wppIt affo one of tho en^^meei », a. it Cahfs w ote a letter which brought me to tn.:: yesterday. I came to ^varn you ha ,ou have enem.. in Eng a . O^, ^-^ - ^ ,,„; believe me; they have nc b ^ «>>-' >T ": .:^u They' this that you have rmeren^rrfFi'anc^.anathey-^^ "t/rmrE:Zr?oir™armylther.s rlU'rnd"-our life. You were our guest, our r ■ r„i • tnpre is SO much that wc owe iv^ j u™t'terTiWe to thinU that one day may change •^'J^k;.^'"----*^^^^ ,[<;:: lis coa/es to cottesbroo 105 IS lives unaltoraMy, eternally perhaps, for wiio can siiy? I have lost all that 1 lived lor since those old days in C.ilais. I believe, sometimes, that I have even lost my faith." I heard her without surprise, for I had guessed much of this; and now, drawing her closer to me, I answered her gratefully. " You will never lose your faith, Agnes. You are too good for that. If a man allows much to a woman's heart, be sure that Providence allows more. Let us think it all over and try if we cannot find a way. As for my friends at Calais, who want to hear the last of me, well, don't trouble about them at all. I shall keep my eyes open and see nothing but their backs, believe me. The really serious thing is your father's distrust. Have you ever reflected how many troubles in life come to us for the lack of two minutes' plain talk with a man who misunderstands us ? We might go arm in arm with him to the end of our days if we could but say, ' It is so and so.' But the opportunity is denied us, and then when the man dies we say, 'There is a poor fellow who makes one enemy the less in the world.' Why should that opportunity be denied to me in your father's case ? He knows that I entered the forts by mis- take. He knows that Jeffery took me there to pay off an old score. Why should I not go to him and say, ' It is all a misunderstanding ; you have re.^lly nothing to c,h.Q.rsfe affainst me. Let us forget it all and begin again ' ? Does not common 19^1 /'A'O l'MRI.\ HMMMgl^ ^ \ ^^^^^■J ; jjf ^^^^^^K £' ^ ''■* { i f Kcns.e point that road > I'm sure that .t dors^ I Iccl ahcady that we arc coniinu out into the h^^ht. She listened patiently while I spoke, and then, drawing me back, she stopped to answer me. leaving a new picture of her in my mind, a picture set in a Irame of silver birches and ash and laburnum, carpc>ied with the rich brown loam of summer, breathing an atmosphere of tremulous leaves and woodland solitude, and casting up to me a little white face with two dark blue eyes and such a look of love and fear and pity, that all my impulse was to take her in my arms and siiv, " Let us blot the page for ever ; let the dead past bury its dead; 'cre in the garden ot En»land let us live and rest, as though yesterday had nev.-^r been." But I knew that she would not hear that voice of persuasion which appeals to the imagination and not to the reason. Her relentless lo«.ic had always baffled, nay, sometimes angered me; for how should such a fragile thing remain so obstinate? "Alfred," she said slowly, as one speaking a weighty decree, "you must not go to my father " " Must not go ? " " I say it as you have said it. Is there no honour, no duty left in the world? Do you owe nothing to your country ? " I /as silent as one who had been struck a blow upon the mouth. A "^reat gulf seemed to open between us as we mam -■s^n^ . " 'Alfred,' she said slowly, as one speaking a weighty decree, 'you must not go to my falhei.' 196 m-\ AGNES COMES IV COriESBROOK 1^7 A H^r fice SO near to mine an instant apo trnow":^ r.ace afar o«. What had .he sa.d . "X'^'irn'!":! ,uicUy,-yo« m»s. no, see „y ?. ker, an. . must see you no mor. f honour ^orrow. 0^.;^f^;*'4;'^;;',o „„ch. hoping so rn,:.:; T.: --on.s - when we -^r rr r:3^-- r we ...e an. ;.:o": reserve, our affecUonso-^our count™. into your life will be darknes. lor me it is •- foirc will never wash out a P'l^c ff farrrlte h s no heart. Let us accept it :l 11 Who love; let us at least be true to """■.tna'b'eing true, shall we say tnar an accident costt,; ^our Country nothing, and of no concern to mine is to merit this great penalty . She turned questioning eyes upon me. I am sure ,J:he read "the words ...all their deeper mean- '" "Would you temp, my honour?" she asked , VT ^ncer " Are not my lips sealed? II not the right to question me. _^ ^^ ^^^^ " \ flinched at the words, tor every on. -. •• • - 10< I9S /Vi'O PATA'IA \ I IS' was a new light, a new meaning upon her con- fession. The woman I lov^ed was ignorant no longer. I did not dare to ask how far her knowledge went. " I am wrong to ask, Agnes," was my response. " I will never ask you again. But I would give half the years of my life not to have heard the things you tell me." " As 1 would give all my life if another could bear my father's burdens." " At least you tell me that it is no choice of his." " A choice and yet no choice. He was not con- sulted, all was not told him. I ask nothing for his .sake. At Calais I did not know, or 1 would have asked nothing then. How can he love the English, who killed his brother in Canada ? He will hate the nation always, but not the man. Once I think you made him forget — it was at Pau, when we were happy together. But happiness is a task- master, always asking payment of the memory. We tell ourselves so often that we were happy ten years ago. It is all of the past. Each day we live to mourn yesterday." " We may live for to-morrow, too — you cannot forbid me do that, Agnes. Even yet, out of the unknown we may find a friend. Will not you take that thought back to France with you? " She was silent a little while; I saw the tears glistening in her pretty eyes ; but her courage was unchanged. " It would be maiiness,"' she .said, " madness to ,ir;A7,.S (OMKS TO cor TI'.SB ROOK 109 deceive ourselves. I shall return to France to- morrow; you will forget in r^nr home. One couKl be content in such a hom .s uu>, 1 liv-'ik. Enou will be its mistress. I am * 200 PRO PAIR I A ^' ••■!^'- ' f as sure of it as of the sunshine which is upon us now. Let us go up there and see if my mother cannot find a better argument. We are but children after all." She would have refused me, but we had emerged from the spinney now ; and all the gardens of the house, glorious at the zenith of the summer, were unrolled before her wondering eyes. Never have I known such a pride of home as came to me in that hour, when, pointing to the chapel and the t( wers, and the windows of the Abbey flashing crimson in the f^olden beams, I took Agnes by the hand and led her across the deserted lawn. For I had espied my mother, seated in the arbour by the orangery, and almost dragging my little girl after me I went up to the arbour and said " Mother," and rising she came out to us, and those dear to me were heart to heart in the love which is not of knowledge or of the years, but inborn and foreordained, the love sur- passing understanding. And so Agnes came to Cottesbrook, and she, who had met me bravely, sank into my mother's arms, weeping. " Those dear to me were heart to heart in the love which is not born of knowledge or of the years." 200 T- .v-l^ .■■■-A-,- -•>,;£- -. :--/.v .-w,- ■*::* If -^ CHAPTER XVIII 1 Think of Dover Again . . r. A^ from Market Har- ^HERE is a ^ram at 54^ ^^^ .^ ..^^ Agnes 1 borough to St. Parxra , ^^^^^.^ ^^.^est .„ld return to town, despite my ^^^^^^ ItfeatTeTand my own P^^^^f %,'':;Sld meet her f tiwere expecting ^^^' '^''^. v^er uncles was she said, were f ^^^ of her u Tko again from my '^^f"^„ France would sbe tr Message from Fran".e, and to r ^^^ ^j^^^^ her messag ^^^^^^^ arguments cou. rrresolution unchangeable^ ^_j^^^, ,,„.ot '*":- 1: ,eastyo« «'" -"^^^rd o'e " the stati^ forbid that," I protested, as «^ ^^^ ^ „„ possible '"""^ Thy >"uld not write." reason why >"" 11 'H- 5 T?-^ 1 m sjf^-.l J h '! 202 PA'<9 PAIR I A vShe answcrt'd mc evasively. "Are letters so precious, then? Does anyone write a letter except from selfish motives? We tell all the untruths we can think of, and then sign ourselves, ' Yours truly.' Only very clever people write great letters, Allred." " That is so ; but ordinar}' people may read the greit letters. At least let me have the opportunity. Tue paper from you which says, ' I remember, I am well,' will not lind me incredulous. Have I not deserved as much? " She thought upon it a little while, as one troubled, and then she said — '•I am not clever, Alfred. What could I say to you except that which I have already said ? You have enemies in England. At least you owe me the compliment of acting prudently." " I will go with the circumspection of a judge to his sherry. If I cannot believe much in these enemies, I am none the less grateful to a little girl who comes here ol her affection to tell me of them. Think it seriously, Agnes. You cannot tell me that the French Government would deliberately plot against mj- life ! They have been frightening you — your friends at Calais. If any one were sent over here, it is just to see what I am doing. The fellow has gone back again by this time, to say that I have settled down to squiredom ; the others will all give thanks and forget all about me. We shall for- get all about them in our turn and let them go on with their work." / THI\k' OF DOVER AGAIN 203 I put it so meaningly, for I had a great desire now to prove her knowledge. Her answer told me nothing. It was possible to believe, after all, that I had misjudged her. " They will never forget," she said quietly. " Sadi Martel will compel them to remember." " You believe that he is the man, then? " " I am sure of it ; he almost told me so in Paris last week. A woman can learn anything from a man who professes to love her. Do you blame me if I have used my opportunities ? " " I don't blame you at all ; but I should like to hear that there were no opportunities. The fellow has been persecuting you. You admit that ? " My chagrin amused her. She smiled for the first time that day, I think. " Persecutions are flattering for women — some- times. Sadi Martel is very amusing. And, of course, he is clever." "They are all clever. It is the last apology a woman makes for a brute. You can say as much for most scoundrels. Are you bound to see this Martel ? " " Until his work is done." *' His work against my country." '* And for mine." "Dishonourable work, none the less. That is why I find fault with your father. He is a soldier and gentleman. Why does he stoop to the level of such n rngue as Martel? Why docs he not remember the traditions of the FrencI* Army, and 204 PRO PATRIA i f i ; J ; i\ ' not seek other, newer traditions less honourable. That is the crux of the whole difficulty — not his hostility, hut the method of it. I quarrel with that, Agnes ; it is that I will do my best to defeat. God made him a Frenchman. He made mc an Englishman; there is no logic which forbids us to be friends unless it is the logic of dishonour. Why nation hates nation may be a thesis for the philoso- phers; it is not for us. Tell me that Colonel Lepeletier is doing his duty as a French officer, and I will never complain of him. But show me a fine old soldier dragged at the heels of a drunken engineer to a crafty and despi'Mble plot against my own country, and I will never rest until I have exposed and defeateu it. That is all my story, all that I would have you say in France of me. Am I wrong to believe that you will tell it sympatheti- cally?" I had spoken very frankly to her, deeming the moment opportune ; and she heard me with serious eyes and a little trem.or of the lips which betrayec^ her deeper thoughts. Odd, indeed, that a few weeV s could so change that impulsive, laughing nature and show me in its place one grown old in wisdom suddenly, a woman and yet a child. Nevertheless, I confess, there was no prettier thing in all the world than Agnes serious, Agnes the wisehead, Agnes, the matron of counsel and prudence. The newer mood told me that the secret had been kept " I shall speak sympathetically always, even / T1IL\K OF DOVER AGAIN 20= when I do not understand," she said quietly. " My father's work at Escalles is no dishonour. It is because another is our friend that you and I must speak like this to-night. Sometimes I think that he has the power to ruin my father and would use it if he could. His s >cr.-r igainst your country is his own— it may be yours too. I will not ask. I know that you will do your duty, Alfred, as I know that we shall never meet again." A word of ill-omen indeed, yet one she reiter- ated as we drove on to the station, and the moment of separation was at hand. Nor could I answer it as I would have wished. The greater truth weighed upon me and seemed to forbid that closer under- standing which fate denied to us .^or so many fateful days. She knew, I said, and yet she did not know. Her clever little head could argue as I had argued upon the hidden works at Escalles and those who laboured therein. Some great secret she understood of it ; but the nature of that secret had been hidden from her. And over a'' was the sense of destiny, that birthright of ours, which asked of her a great love for France, as it asked of me a great love for England. Who shall wonder if all the logic of our careless lives could not wrestle with a problem so complex ? But yesterday she was a little girl in short skirts, counting her tennis balls and complaining bitterly that her bicycle was broken. What irony asked of her this courage of ioreboding, this brave surrender to the sacrifice her love demanded? For she was schooled to y>fy PRO PAIR I A ' li Vi sacrifice now. She s:vid " Good-bye " to me ;is one who knew th;it this was the end. Harry was in the billiard-room when I returned to the Abbey, and he lollowed me to my own den to hear the news. Excited as I was by the surprises of the day, I could yet tell him a coherent story and explain a resolution to which I had come as I drove my horses furiously upon the station road. I would ^'O to Dover. The quiet of my home was not good for me. Delusion or no delusion, the victim of hallucination or of truth, I must find work to do. " Harry," I said, " you must concoct a story for my mother. I am going to Dover to-morrow^" " Nice w^ork for Church, my son. The parson lying for the pari^.i. Instruct him in the art, and he will do his best. Is there no story of your regi- ment that will serve?" "My colonel refuses to accept my papers. He says I am to get well. A regimental order. I will obey it at Dover, perhaps." " An idea, 'fore Gad. You go to Dover to study fortifications. Well, I think my conscience permits. After all, it might Ix- a great work, or something to laugh at. Pray God the latter. And, seriously, you don't look well. I am a stranger and I see it. They never see these things in families. You tell a man that his sister is in consumption, and he says, ' Oh, is she?' He would much sooner have a tip for the IVrhy " " Agreed; but I shall not suffer any anxiefie- on 2)6 I / ril/XK Oh DoVlih V .I^.//V -'(.7 my sivtci Mo^'., account. Let them a-e vou. mv clear Harry." " ^ Me smoked his pipe fiercely. " I think r can support them. Me^^ present ail- ments are backhanders and an objectionable habit 01 placniK the hall where I cannot reach it ( )b>erve the folly of youth theoio^ir,]. This mornin- I wrote I sermon on Cenesi^ one to eiunt , this afternoon I played Swiss skittles on youi lawn. The sublime and the ridiculous both e.|ually useful. At Dover you will know one 01 the other -not both. I shall try to run down, a .ily tor four-and-tw, nty hours, in a week or twos time. .Meanwhile, forget the man in the drive. Mademoiselle cautioned you, I think? I hope you will temember it ? " " I shall remcmix'r nothintj so childish. At Dover I mean to leain finally and for all time if there is tlie smallest chance in the world of the French strikinu^ throu-h, unkno^^n to us, with a tunnel to our coast. If there is, 1 don't care whether hve men or hve hundred promenade this drive. The incredu- lous lauuh at my .story— if thev lau-h to the end no one will Iv better pleased than I. Hut I am -oing to prove 11, Harry, if it costs me my life and my luture. Acquit nic of th boast, for you under- stand my meaning-." " There can be no iM)ast in the m.ittcr. How should ther, be? Vou l)elieve in a remote possi- bility. T..at is cnouoh. If I could help, I would i'Ms.1 i\\\ (»!•,», -ir f,",, ;„ * I- ... .1 1 . _ __ . . -■ ■•"- "• ''■^" ■>»^';iu lu L;u VVilii 3'OU. Hut I am only an old parson, and nou, my dear fellow, '^^^' -3^J6^-m^ m ■-# 1 i }^m^<^:^:j^m:. 208 PRO PATRIA you with your serious views of life and your some- times wild notions of duty, you are the very man I would send to the work. Go, and God bless you! I hope and pray that it is a childs errand. If it should be otherwise, the day may yet come when England will remember the name of Alfred Hilliard." ^ , And so it befell, for the hour was already late, that with no more talk upon it all I said «' Good-bye " to him. And there was this thought in my mind, that to-morrow I should be in Dover; to-morrow, perchance, should answer the strangest question man ever asked himself. Nor did I foresee, as I went up to my bedroom, even the least of those terrible davs I must live through before I might hear the voice of Harry Fordham again. Gladly in the hope of truth I set out— to the unknown and the peril of it. ^^^.a:^^:±i3 CHAPTER XIX A Phantom Cravat IT is the fashion to si^eak of London in August as a deplorable place, full of odours and heats and the dust which patrician feet have left behind them in their scamper for the coast. I lay no such charge agamst the first of our cities. Hot she may be, but there are always cool corners in her clubs; dust there is, but you can forget it in her parks. Those you meet have the air of good fellows left behind They can see the plays now which boasted bookincrs forbade to them in June. It is good to stroll in the deserted streets and snap up the '.' bargains " with which astute dealers tempt John Ploughman The very waiters in the restaurants have leisured moments. A cabman takes you five miles out of your way, and you chuckle when you correct his distances and pay him a legal fare. You may even recall your youthful days and go to the Zoological Gardens or the Tower-a fact which you forget to mention when you return to the shires again. There are worse things to do The hons of the season are not mo.c inieresting voy ,^Ji^'t^ K h t i t, 210 PRO PATRIA ■t. < Ms^- 4 than the animal celebrities of Rep:ent's Park. Those who lived in the Tower wrought for Enjjland and lost their heads. You reflect on the inconsistencies of the new order which does not permit one party to cut off the heads of the other party— but inflicts the torture of the wild debater. A weak-kneed generation, but one which these later days is making strong again. A feverish activity followed me from Cottesbrook to London. I had resolved to pass the night at my club, to " do the Palace," and go on by the early boat express to Dover ; but the silence of the city, the solitude there, the doubt and perplexity which had sent me from ray home, were not to be borne, and no sooner had I lunched thn" I found myself with a newer and better resolution, I would go on at once and reach my goal. A strange hunger for the sea and the white cliffs was not to be resisted. From Dover, I siiid, a man might look out to the sand- dunes of Calais, to Gris-Nez and to E'xalles— to the harbour which the French were building and to those ramparts I alone of Englishmen had trod. There, at least, the hallucination which had come so strangely into my life might find its antidote in that Quixotic mission to which I had been called by the irresistible voice of Conscience. The truth of it, the truth of my dreams, the secret, to laugh at it, to proclaim it before the world if the need were, such I sought. And whoso judgeth me, let him read on Ff;id \ been but :i dreamer, these pages were never written. A PIfANTOM CRAVAT 21 1 I I say that I could not rest in London, could not contemplate with equanimity so much as a single night in the city whence all but the people had fled. There was, they told me at the club, a train called the Granville express, leavingCharing Cross shortly after three o'clock ; and in this, as the old-fashioned announcement went, I might hope to come to Deal s:ife in body and baggage at the express speed of forty miles an hour. Such a prospect of enterprise and management was not to be resisted. By Deal, I could see those low shores of Pegwell Bay the golfers trod, by Deal and thence to Dover first mock my fears and point the fingers at then So behold me booking my place, and, equipped simply with dressing case and golf clubs, taking my seat in a first-class carriage and entrusting myself to that Providence which, possibly, watches over travellers even on the South-Eastern Railway. There was no one in the carriage at Charing Cross, nor did other passengers trouble me at Cannon Street. I began to think that I should be left alone with my papers, when, at the very moment tlie tr- began to move from London Bridge Station, .r of the comp-artment was unlocked, and a ■ •. *2ll almost headlong intc the seat before me. 1 .la I been reading a magazine, and for an instant I did not see the man's face. But when he looked up I recogiased him at once. I ie was the fellow my grooms had chased from the Abbey grounds not forty-eight hours before. There are some grave situations in life we face r; 212 PRO PATRfA with unwonted c;ilm ; others which unnerve us Irom the beg;inning, we know not why. Few, I think, will lay a charue of cowardice against me if I confess that my experiences of that day must be put in the latter category. Judge it as you will, I would not seek to deny that the sudden apparition of the man frightened me as 1 have rarely been frightened in all my life. Rightly or wrongly, I believed that he had come there to kill me. Agnes's Avarnings, the desperate atterp.pts the French had made to take me at Calais, the sure belief in my own conclusions, together justified the wildest notions. I thought that I was face to face with an assassin. I knew that for an hour or more the Granville express did not stop at any station. What wonder if the moment held me impotent, if I could neither think nor act until long minutes had passed, and the train had left the spires and chimneys of London behind us on our horizon ? The man had seated himself opposite to me, but presently he moved to the further corner, and we were then so placed that each could look the other full in the face if he wouid. He had no luggage, not so much as a rug or a paper ; nor did he carry stick or umbrella. His dress was a shabby frock- coat suit ; his silk hat, by no means new, had been all roughed by rain and travel. I set him down as a man of middle age, of forty years, perhaps, but in type and characteristics he was truly French, hji pointed red beard, his shifting; ffrey eyes, his well-made boots, his enormous black cravat " <1^^*3l***W" ' ^^W* >:y A PHANTOM CRAVAT 213 betraying his nationality beyond any possibility of question. And now the greatest wonder was that I had feared him at all. We had left London behind us, and the air of Kent blew fresh and sweet through the open window. The spell which had held me had passed; I sat up in my seat and laughed at myself. He was but a puny customer after all — an ill-shaped creature with whom a lad might have wrestled confidently. Yet what of that ? I asked myself a moment later. If the man meant misc-hief he would be armed. A sudden shot in the darivness of the tunnel, a knife — there were many ways. Reflection moderated my content. I foresaw such an hour as I shall never pass again. We speak of Providence carelessly, preferring the terms •* luck," " chance," " good fortune" ; but I shall always say that Providence, and Providence alone, sent me to the particular seat I occupied upon that amazing journey. For it befell that I was in that corner of the carriage where the electric alarm stood; and, looking up to it, I told myself that the Frenchman must be quick indeed to forestall me if I would pull it. It came to me, moreover, that whatever suspicion of the man I entertained, he, last of all, must be aware of it. Cost me what it might, I would play an indifferent part, fencing with him as he with me, reading, resting, smoking, but never once turning my eyes from his face. So far did I carry it at last that I offered him a news- paper and told him there was news from Paris in it; but he nodded his head curtly, nor <: "^ he take -'"4 PRO /'A TRIA m i ■ll the piipcr. It was to be a silent s^im^', 'I't^'"" '^^'' then! We entered the lon.i? tunnel by Chislehurst, and climbed the bank of it laboriously. There was no light in the carriage, and as we left the sun- shine behind us, and the thunderous echoes from the walls dinned in my ears, I changed my seat stealthily and sat in the opposite corner. The long minutes of waiting, the anticipation of some act, I knew not what, fear of the darkness and of the man, played upon nerves, already overwrought to the point of collapse. Nervously I struck match after match in the make-believe that my pipe would not light; but the feeble rays of flickering light showed me an immobile figure in the corner, the odd, shifting eyes, the huge cravat, the crouching figure— these and nothing more. Until we emerged into the daylight I do not believe that I took a full breath. After all nothing had happened, except that one had played a craven part. There were three tunnels yet to be passed before we came to Sevenoaks ; but the Frenchman, with what design I did not then discover, lit a candle- lamp at the first of them and affixed it to the glass. Moreover, he addressed me — I think for the first and last time from the beginning to the end of it. " You do not l;..'e the darkness, monsieur, moinon plus. We will have the candle, and then we shall see. ii was too giute;-4Uc, mv i :cnv,uini^iii iv^w.^.g, ■■•• darkness! I answered him in a torrent of words, I A PHANTOM CRAVAl 215 the tribute to excitement and to relief. What a phantom had I conjured up — the phantom — of this mere informer sent from France to tell his friends what I was doinp^ — that I should make of him an assassin or a robber ! Of course he had no ulterior designs. He was a spy and nothintj more ; who followed me from Cottesbrook and would follow me to Dover. It remained to profit ol the knowledge, to remember Agnes's words that I had enemies in England. Out on the Downs, I could laugh at her warnings ! Here in the confined arena of a railway carriage, they were remembered more soberly. The man might be a consummate actor, after all. It would be folly beyond words to believe him for the asking. This latest apprehension went with me for the remainder of the journey. I was no longer coward or craven, nor did I fear the man ; but the very fact of his presence, added to that which I had heard yesterday, kept my eyes upon him and my brain awake. Magazine after magazine went through my hands unread. I had a pipe in my mouth, but the tobacco was unlighted. There was always that afterthought that he might declare himself suddenly, and that we two — a Frenchman in a big cravat, and a traveller in a serge suit — might be at any moment engaged in the lutfe pour la vie upon the floor of a railway carriage. So did the idea grow upon me with the miles that at last the very cravat he wore beg;in to tivkc stiangc shapes, to be niugriificd ridiculously, so that it seemed to cover all his body 2lb PRO I' ATRIA ■^■•^- w m m- and to leave but his odd. shifty eyes exposed. The hallucination was grotesque and real — the outcome of nervous strain, if you will. I battled with it resolutely, and began to have a great dread of sleep, even of a momentary doze. Instinct told me that the man waited for this ; that if I slept I might never wake again. And instinct was true enough, as I was to learn presently. We were late at Ashford, and we stopped there ten minutes. I have often wondered why I did not change carriages at that place and end the suspense finally. Perhaps it was that I deemed such a sur- render to mere imagination an affront upon myself, upon my manhood and my courage. True, the man went to the refreshment-room, and I could readily have found an excuse for quitting the compartment, but I stuck to my seat doggedly ; and, as though to convince me of my mistaken judgment, the fellow appeared to sleep between Ashford and Canterbury, and was still asleep at Minster Junction. Now, I think for the first time, I put aside all doubts and read in comfort. Upon my left hand were the lonely dunes of Sandwich ; beyond them the pier of Deal and the fresh seas of the Channel — those waters of which an Englishman never thinks but to remember their masters in a dead day — Drake, Frobisher, and Hawkins, and their unnumbered sons — who singed the Spanish king's beard, as many a Jack would singe a kingly beard to-day if England's need should ask it ol hini. In truth, I would re- member the man no more, and, assured that he was A PHANTOM CRAVAT 217 siccpinu, I lit my pipe and read my paper and waited for the end. Deal ; and beyond Deal (for I had no mind to linger there) the tunnel to Dover town. The Frenchman roused himself when we entered the tunnel and shut his candle-lamp with a snap. We were in utter darkness again, and I, who had stood up to lift my bag from the rack, sat down as suddenly. Not for one instant did I imagine that here was the moment for which I had waited so long. The loud report of a pistol, a stinging sensation in my cheek, a flame of fire, the vision of a devilish face, of staring eyes, of the phantom cravat, all these together as in a flash, left me for an instant without word or understanding. Slowly, misshapen, and reluctantly the truth of it all came back. The man was an assassin, after all, then ! The very knowledge sent the blood leaping through my veins and called me to myself. Crying out in the excite- ment of it, clenching my hands, I sprang at the corner where he had sat and struck at him, angrily, madly, with all the blood-lust which passion can awake. But my fists beat the cushions, were bruised against the door ; the devil within me could not restrain the blows. He had cheated me, I said, had leaped from the carriage, was dead upon the line, perhaps. A second report, a crash of glass, a sudden rush of air brought me to my senses. The man was behind me in my own seat; he had stepped across the cushions to reach nic iriorc surely. I threw myself upon him again, felt his hot breath, 2l8 PRO r.\TRL\ ;ji*; ?'?i^, touched iho steel of his pistol ; hut, and here was the mystery, he slipjx'd inexplicably from my touch, was not to be held. In vain I tried to j^rip him by the throat, in vain to prison him with m}' knees. He was lithe as ;in acrobat, clever as a clown; and cryinji: out in his turn, defiantly, triumphantly, he eluded my touch and was ^one from my ken. In the same moment we came out to the li^ht of Dover station, and I saw that I was alone in the carriage, and that I held the man's coat in my bleeding hands. He had opened the door of the compartment behind him, as we struy:yled toj^ether, and j?one, God knew by what trick of his. There was blood upon my cheek, but I said that I stood unharmed for the work's siike, and for that which my duty called upon me to do. CHAPTER XX Pursued who had been Pursuer THERE was a crowd at Dover Station, I remember, and many people to put questions to me, and a buzz of voices, and an extremely un- profitable wagginp: of tongues. It is always difficult to tell of such moments with precision or to give any useful account of them. I had a plain story to narrate to the inspector of police and to those who helped him to write it down ; nevertheless I told it incoherently, with all those unnecessary words which betray the speaker's nervousness. A man had fired a pistol at me in the tunnel beyond the station ; he had ridden with me from London Bridge ; he w;;s a Frenchman with an absurd cravat and a deplorable aat. Possibly he was a mauman (the police applauded lunacy), possibly he was merely a thief (the police did not think so) ; but, in either case, he had scarred ,._ cheek with a bullet, and I had flayed my knuckles in an attempt to knock him down. If he were to be caught, I imagined that no time was to he lost ; in which the jwlice agreed with me after many \^w qu -srions, and much scraping 220 rv.'i A'O PATRIA of quills, and an a^hui ic^ that the man must cer- tainly be taken o-morrow, it not to-nighi ~a promise of less meaning to me than the unwritte i story 1 could have told them sr .rag: ally. Ah ' that was momentous, truly. Ami : it > as the ^tor I carried to my room in the Lord W ttx ^ n Hotel. It had been a glori u. t\i" of summer, anu the night fell soft and b uv rs ^ovo- nii^ht of an Eastern spring-time, fiilt t t: u^ges on of warmth and life and of lands n note from tli. winter world md the knowledge of the snovv b ver hers<:lf, always an active town, was bu > now with the c oming and going of those who " m ■ ie the tours ' and were marshalled, as so many si ep, fot thnt^ n or fifteen days in the butchers" shops of I»al_. or Switzerland. The Lord Warden I foiel bubbled over with its merry huma (locks, ful, of ;he wordr of Lucerne or hungry for those of Grint U\ald. Uut in the town the mere suburl an son oi t ■ lodii no. house listened to blaring bands, or wns i. awn uh dancing feet to the mysteries of halls I y the " .sih er" sea. All about me as 1 sat at table vere the ;> pes I knew so well — the anxious parson wi rhc wide- awake iiat and the wideawake daus^mcrs the solitary spinster given to psalms and " hun ; th- old traveller disdaining haste ■\^C\ proud f hi> peaks, mamma with an eye up^ ; the m r and another for her dauglncr (who flew not abo.. captains); the distressed cj hulv who is si that siie will lose her brown-paper pa eel pi „>(•! y , the aristocratic family travelling anstocratit v I'Uh'ni I) WHO H.-1?y fiEI V 'fJRSUER !I wiihoui lirth; the reading part> from 0> ird whose Heck> ir nn« uder t^an its voice —a hcterou neons np'' '\i 'f summer and e jk in va II whc the u.itesof md the bird are . allinu ^t ellow d;! . 3 ol Au u^ j^ea, a ir lOp ye Swit/erla' J ar " pTfhw ird " i For =y p rr 1 Jesi ^f ' -nurmui oi shut h 1; :d nds he t ices an cln^ ho -It 'in p it«^ u|X)n nei ve pn hea. H th '^e per le of I IV dn er r ^' woi to-r mswci ei over roi ■, I ask...' ii le n i^' re .. \Yv -he^ .uld b V ' \\y me erest or the -room, with its .cted 'Strangely urioi' ly high- V one of purpose man or row, or lid ad, me n istihed to-m Ti e day alone coi'ld ir of the question was not sed i ore . n t u friend in the Lord Warde- I )tel iu told hi'^ .vhy I came to E)over. And t.illeu '^ nei^b one name nor the other; hi l^ neu sy ">; al v^ with an interest I had not 00.. ed for. I found h ^^alh, in, t le ureat way a h^ 'St id ,v rittt nrematurely of years, a man of he early Tties, ;n thoughtful and full of cleverness, i knew no ,ii it were not Harry) I would have named beiuie aim as a confessor ibr that night. And he met me with a like enthusiasm. The tie CO ridor of the notel — Charles jnginoei , now a great figure in a nter prise; always a master of his I master o; men. Tall, lithe, showing an mlish face upon which th'. mns of India .*W.:Sj«t^H^!«?::.. m PRO PAIRIA anxious parson, the ancicyit traveller, the solitary spinster did not interest him. He admitted that he was going to bed to avoid them •' An hotel has always one redeeming feature," was his defence when we had shaken hands heartily — " you can go to bed without making excuses. It's not so in a man's house, Avhich they call, ironically, his castle. Let's strike a climate where we can't hear that piano. I'm sure they will play pianos in Hades -loud pedal down and the ' Kaiser's March.' Are you game for a stroll ? " I was as willing as he to quit the hotel, and with- out further ado we put on our dustcoatsand strolled towards the Castle hill. Bands were still playing on the front ; the basin, awake to the tide, opened its gate to ships and to the wrangling voices of the seamen. From the Channel there came a gentle, easterly breeze, sending long, rippling waves upon the rolling shingle and little jets of spray from the new harbour works. But that which first en- chained my eyes was the distant light of Cape Gris-Nez, casting its panoply of flame to the starry heaven ; Gris-Nez, from whose shadow I had snatched the secret ; Gris-Nez, the beacon of the ramparts I had trod. So potent was the memory which the scene awakened, that my friend spoke twice before I heard him. In imagination, I had already spanned the seas, and was running upon the beach by Escalles again. Mallinson's voice recalled me as from a stupor of sleep. " They ieii me there has ixen a shindy in the rURSUHD WHO HAD BEEN PURSUER 223 Granville express to-cUiy — man shot at, or some- thing of the sort. Did you hear anything of it?" I told him, undramatically .hat I was the man. He cried " Impossible ! " and walked on a little way silently. I think he waited for me. " Yes," I went on, " the man certainly fired a shot at me — hence the blush on my cheek. The police say he is a lunatic ; but I know that he is n He shot at me because I got into the new Fiench fort, ov'er yonder, by Cape Gris-Nez. He or some one else will fire another round if I give him a chance. Not pleasant, you admit ? " " Are you serious my dear Hilliard ?" " As a judge — wh:- has made a joke. I'll tell you all about it if you like. A m.T^ who talks the past does not think the present; and the present is not particularly pleasant to-night. Let's st -oil on where there are not so many people." We turned from the front up the hill toward the Castle; and while we went I began to speak to him, as one brother to another (for to this his kindly character compelled me) ; and though at first I siiid nothing of the graver story, he drew it from me at last, line by line, until he had the whole of it, and there was no longer anything to tell. " Gad I " he exclaimed at last, " what an idea to get into your head ! You really mean and believe all this?" " On my honour, I mean and believe every word of it. You know me well enough to admit that I am neither a dreamer nor a fool. I saw the tunnel ii MM 224 PRO PATRIA "3 at Escalles, went a mile down it, and was sure that I was only at the beginning of it. The rest is imagination. It may lie there at our very feet; it may be half-way across the Channel and no further. I have come to Dover to try and find out. You could help me, if you would." We were up on the heights then ; and the moonlit sea rolled below us as some unstable carpet of silver cloth tossed restlessly by untiring hands. Gris-Nez shone out majestically above the looming low cloud which made our horizon; and to it the Foreland sent an answer, the answer of the "coast- wise" lights of England. There was the same thought in both our minds, I am sure, as we looked down from that high place upon our country's shimmering ramparts— defiance, delight, and, war- ring upon these, the great uncertainty. What was below that sheen of the waters ? Was there a pit dug by French hands, a tube which presently would fire a mighty human shell against England's liberty— nay, against her very existence as a nation? The mere contemplation of the problem could thrill the nerves as a story surpassing all stories that war had ever told. I wo'dered no longer that I had left Cottesbrook. Until that ques- tion was answered I knew that life had no other interest for me. Mallinson heard my appeal, but was silent upon it for many minutes. Just as it had fascinated Harrv, the parson, so did it fascinate this man of brain and steel. He made the third victim, I said. rch'sfVin WHO had buen I'Ursuer 2 • o " Help you, my dear fellow ? " he exclaimed at last. " Why, a man mic:ht well give up everything else in life, if what you tell him is not mere imagi- nation ! " "You think it is that ? " " I pronounce no opinion. Undoubtedly, such a thing could be built if you find the men and the money. We proposed to build a tunnel to France — why should not the French try to build one to us? Assume that they consider certain things — the possibility of mad politicians in this country sanctioning such a scheme some day ; or a tem- porary triumph which gives them a footing near IJover and enables them to complete the tunnel on this side. Their groat bunkers tind some of the money, the Government the rest. Clever engineers might do 1-; • the dilhoulties of levels which some of us have foreseen on this side. They get their direction by the theodolite and push their tube across, say, to within a mile of Dover. When a mad Parliament here says 'Yes,' they are ready to complete before our people begin. It's all as plain as A B C — to me at least. And it's the most fascinating thing I ever heard." " That I grant. I have hardly slept since I knew of it. And now I am here, looking for a F"rench- man's head to come up through the shingle. Non- sense, of co'."se, but the kind of nonsense that gets h lid of o ■ lie l;iu^,. in .lurri'm-ont. " You need not fear that. If thov cimo out a' 226 iRO PATRIA -.^^ all, it would not be on the beach. I should place the head of ihoir tunnel three miles, at leas^, from the shore " The words came to me as some tremendous reve- lation of the night. I stood still and gripped his arm; he must be held to that admis.sion. " Three miles from the shore ! Do you mean that, Mallinson? Three miles from the shore. They may be working here, after all, then. Great God! Suppose they have taken a house and are using the grounds ! Suppose a hund-ed things. It's enough to set a man's h;ain on fire." He released his arm from my grip and began to descend the hill quickly. " Let's think about it to-morrow," he retorted " I don't share your alarm, though I share your interest. The tunnel ma}^ be there, under the sea, but by God's providence it will remain there to the end. I have confidence in the national destiny, and I am going to smoke a cigar. But I shan't sleep to-night. You have my night's rest on 3-our con- science, if that's any consolation." I did not answer him, and we went down to the hotel together. Imagination, awakened again, showed me a lonely country house and peopled it with an army of Frenchmen set upon the strangest emprise that the hatred of one nation for another had begotten in the history of the world. CHAPTER XXI The Veil of the Darkness MALLINSON had left Dover when I came down to breakfast on the following morn- ing ; but I found a scrawl from him saying that a " breakdown " called him to Lincoln, and that he hopod to see me in London when I went north again. " If it is any satisfaction to you to know it," he added, " your idea kept me awake all night, as I promised you it would, and I don't doubt that it will be a long time before 1 get the devils of your imagination out of my head. At the best, it is an idea which makes a man ask himself ques- tions. I will ask myself many in the next week or two, and put the answers down for t'ou*- edifica- tion. Meanwhile, go and look for your house, my dear fellow— go and look for it, even if you laugh at yourself afterwards for your pains. I would do the same in your place, and I am no sentimentalist. Chance has put up this sign-post for you, and you have no right to pass it by." I read his letter with iniorest. for it was orne- thing to win the approval of such a man ; and I 3>7 2_'8 I'h'O f'Alh'IA knew that if he be^an upon the problem, the solu- tion of it was not distant. Reserved, retieent, that odd life of his, canyinj:; him hither and thither as some aecumulator of human enerj;y, to be called for wherever difficulty or danger was, had achieved much for humanity, thou h humanity had 3'et to thank him. That he, of all men, should be a victim of the hallucination was the greater miracle But his friendship was well prized, and I found .ayself the stronger for it when I rode out of Dover very early in the day, and told myself that where im- pulse led me, there would I follow. It was a gloomy morning, generous of cloud and echoing the lingering voice of storm. There had been thunder at dawn, and heavy, sheeted rain, which swept the decks of the ships as with a natural hose, and left a film of glistening spray upon the dewy grass, and bubbling burns where dry ravines had been. Close and breathless as the atmosphere became, forbivlding the outlook, ten o'clock, nevertheless, found me upon my horse ; and by eleven I had come out upon a devious route, skirting Elm Wood and West Houghton to the Warrens above Folkestone, and so by the main road toward the town itself and to the Pavilion Hotel liiere. The object of my journey, I im.igined, was a remote or lonely house wherein the French engineers might do their work. Oh, I had it all so plainly now that Mallinson had spoken. Of course. 1 s.aid, Robert Jefi'ery would not seek an opening for his tunnel in the precincts of Dover or upon ■ '-i IllE VEIL Ob THE DARKNESS 229 ihj ;idioining shore. Just as at Escalles the work- ings were laid three miles from the beach, so at Dover must I look three miles inland for their counierpiirt. None but a child in mechanical knowledge would have neglected so simple a truth or turned to the 'lore for his justification. I would laugh at myself for my very ignorance as I cantered over the splendid turf and said that I did not care if one month or six found me still at the task ; for I was up and working, and a good horse went with me, and the sea breeze blew upon my face. It was a vain pursuit — you have imagined that — and many a fruitless day followed upon it before the terror of the end and all the strange events of which I now must speak. They learned to know me, I think, those simple folk of the downlands; and, knowing me, I got much from their gossip and their gratitude. Great, houses I saw in those days of searching, farms, cottages — but no house before which I might draw rein to ask, " Why does such a man live in such a place ? what work is doing there?" Eastward, westward, upon the Canter- bury road, the Deal road, to Windgate Hill, to Alkham, often enjoying a splendid gallop across the stubble, picnicking in solitary places, gossiping, questioning — so the weeks were passed until that great day came when Harry was to leave Cottes- brook, and Mallinson would be in Dover again as he had promised. And that day was the day of days, though I knew it not at dawn. m^'it 'im. £^ 230 PRO /'AJJ^JA I had risen betimes, I remember, for I was full of the excitement of seeing my friends again; recollecting how much and how little I had to tell tl:em, and wondering if, after all, those weeks of waiting would not find their end in laughter. Then, for the last time, perchance, I rode my good horse over the Whinless Downs toward the Abbey road ; then, for the lasf time, sought a house which should harbour the men of Calais. For I had ceased to believe in myself or my mission, and I said that to-morrow I would ride no more. The way was to the Abbey, be it written, to St. Radegund's and Coombe Farm, and, beyond that, across the easy country to Swingfield and Wootton. I lunched in the quiet village ; and being mindful that Harry's train reached Dover at half-past five I did not linger, but returned at an easy pace, fol- lowing the high road until it brought me out at Little London, and so coming to Alkham and thence to the Abbey ; whereby I got a cup of tea and gave my horse a breather. Hitherto, I had always fol- lowed the high road, that which they call St. Rade- gund's, in such an excursion as this; but to-day, finding that I had still an hour to spare, I chose the other branch, which goes round by Rixc Bottom Wood and so to the main London road by Evvell. It was a pleasant way, well-wooded and shady ; and I had not been ten minutes upon it before I observed a low, red brick house peeping up pic- turesquely from a bc!.: of trees and sn firt about with plantations that it mnde an oasis, pleasant to rill- VEIL Oh' THE DARKNESS 2,']i I sec, in the vista of tolling downs. To claim thai the house interested me alx)ve the common wouKI be altoi^ether to misrepresent the circumstance. 11 the truth be told, I was so set upon Harry's coming, so full of the thought of meeting Mallinson again, that I might as well have passed the house at a canter as a trot, had it not been for a chance which changed me in an instant from an indifferent man, jogging homeward indifferently upon a tired horse, to one awake, alert, with every faculty quickened ; a man who knew in that moment that he had stumbled upon the truth and might pay for the knowledge with his life. As God is my witness, I came face to face with Robert Jeffery at the gates of the house, and, drawing rein, I sat there as one deprived of all power to speak or think or act. He was dressed in a knickerbocker suit of grey cloth, which contrasted ill with his bronzed face; there was a hammerless gun under his arm ; I saw him turn to call a pretty spaniel which ran from him towards the woods of the house. That he had all the mind to shoot me where I sat, I have never doubted. Ilia expression Avas the most malignant I have seen, the expression of a man who meant mischief but would not dare it. That tiie effort to master himself cost him much was plain to be seen ; yet that he so mastered himself I am sure, and when we had faced each other for an instant he took a step toward the house and whistled a loud, shrill whistle, calling, /V.'0 I'AIRI.l :it the same time, to his dop; again, and linn running back to the road to >|xak to me. I heard him with an intUlVerence ill-feigned enough. If a man had oflercd me a thousand pounds, I do not K'lieve that I eould have ridtlen from the place. "Soho! my boy, you have found me out at last ? Heen grubbing about this country a long time, haven't you? Well, I thought .so. D-n me, but I'm pleased to see you. You're stopping to take tea with me, of course-— tea they brew down Scotland way, and right good stull, too. Say, you're coming in for three tingers." He look a step towards me, and put his hand upon my bridle-rein. I gripped my crop tightly, and touching the cob with my left spur, edged her away from him, despite his attempt to hold me. " Thanks," I said ; " but I took tea with you once before. There's no need of reminiscences, eh ? Just stand out of my way, or I'll have to whistle my dog. He wears a white choker, and can bark loudly some- times." He drew back sharply at the words and looked down upon the road, upon which no human thing was to be seen. The suggest to Jaisi did not deceive him. "Oh," he said, "bringing the chaplain along, too, eh ? Let's see — what was his name — Ford — Ford ah, Fordham, siime as the jockey who won my first Derby. Well, I'll be glad to have the pair of you— two at a bag, and nice birds, I know. First of Sep- tember eh. Captain ? Close time over — you know." ■:■-> l > lll llj» > ln ll I JI I f^-I l . l ll ' lil ll il 2\2 " He took a step towards me, and put his hand upon my bridle-rein. ).W '■' ^ '^ 4 I t ! w--: 11 i\ //// 17 //. OF THE DANK NESS " Anil a d.injjorous season tor those who don't know how to handle guns," s;iiJ I, till edjzin;; the cob from him ; but he attempted to hold me no longer " Well, as you like, my boy —thirsty or lull, I don't care i cent. Guess we had some lun, hoaxing you ov^er yondir. They're laughing there still at the mad An^/ais, who took , coal shaft for a tunnel. My ! you were scared, sonny." '• And you ? " I asked, fur I could not keep it back ; "they've put you together again, I see. Don't for- get the lesson, Jeffery. There are some men it does not pa> to s are." An antrry tiush of blood coloured his face at the taunt ; but he passed it by with an airy gesture and stood ii. the middle of the road to watch me as I went. Why he did not draw a trigi^i-r, 1 could not then understand. I know now, auu i!ie reas'm was as sinii as most reasons ar«' .V ;s not sure it Radegund's ;,ny one iv^Uowed me upon ^he n that day. " .' > long, if you -.vill go," he i . •"- rien I began •o trot the horse away from the gates of the house. " If you're this way to-morrow, I'll show you another shaft, old chap ; I know you're fond of 'em. Giw my love to the threepenn '-hit in the '\ ilte choker and tell him to keep his pecker up ' il come and put a buttor' in his bag some day." The word were lost as I turned the corner of the road and the avenue hid him from my sig it As- tonishmcni that I had escapeJ him so easily \. " my first thought; but ipon that there came the in tant i^di ■:.^ Ti i ! I. :i I' ■• I j 5' I 2.14 /VvV) PAfRlA question, "Why had ho let mo j?o? Why had he shown himself at the t-atcs of the house at all ? Why was he, of all men, in England that day ? " Turning in my saddle when the umbra^rcous leaves save an openinj? to the vista, I could distinguish his lithe, sinuous figure out there in the roadway; and I made sure thpt he was waving a hand to me to call me back. The very sense of freedom was un- real and strange. .So suotle was the fascination the man exercised upon me, that I began to wonder it he could compel me, after all, to go back to hiri His whistle, echoing shrilly in the trees, seemed to strike a discord in my very marrow. J was afraid and not afraid ; excited in thcu-ht, yet cool in act ' desirous of hearing him and escaping him in the' same breath. While, at one moment, i seemed to me that the wood by the roadside was peopled by veiled figures, at the next I said that I had only to ride on and in a quarter of an hour I iniylu h^ in Dover. And yet Dover appeared so far away, the woods so lonely, the peril so undefined and male- volent, that at last I could sufie/ the spell no more and striking the cob sharply I sought to put her at a canter. But she rolled headlong i rom beneath me and coming to the ground heavily, I lost con.scious- ness; and the sky and the trees and the men who ran out from the wood vanished from my eyes in a loom of darkness. i i CHAPTER XXII A Remote Farmhouse I HAD gone down in darkness, as the old phrase goes, and from darkness I came back to life and consciousness, painfully, laboriously, through a maze of dreams and the oddest figures of the imagination which a mind abroad could furnish for me. Aware of the light at last, I had no knowledge of any event that had brought me to a scene so strange or thus had changed the sunshine to the gloom of the place wherein 1 lay. For that which my awaking eyes beheld was a low, vaulted room, with boarded loop- holes for its windows, and great buttresses of the bare stone for its walls, and such an oddity of old- time furniture, that I might have been in the cell of a forgotten monastery rather than in the garret of a Kentish farmhouse. Not for a long while could my groping, mind put the links of that chain together. That I had ridden out of Dover, that Harry was coming from Cotie>brook, that this was to be the last day of the search — these facts we reiterated in a whirl of contused thought which left no objective impressions but those of aching head and bruised »J5 ^^*^/jr 236 PRO I 'ATRIA \\ n limbs, and the knowledge of fatigue such as I had never known. The room and the meaning of the room I might not realize, until, as it seemed, long hours had been lived through. I could remember only that I had left Dover after breakfast, and that Harry's train was due at half-past five o'clock. But I knew that the sun was shining in the world out- side, and the desire to be up and upon my cob pursued me as a fever. A man's voice recalled me to the truth, and I started up from the bed to survey the room more closely, if possible to discover who occupied it with me. Dim as the light was, making evening of the day, 1 could yet discern the he;ivy, time-stained walls, the massive buttresses of Mone which gave to the place its air of a monastic cell, and seemed to chill its atmosphere as with the breath of a dead and mouldinu- past. Shadows, too, were then' in the glow of the filtered light— the shadows of quaint, high-backed chairs ; 01 bureau and bench and bo.x which the Middle Ages had used, but this age had despised. A turret-room it had been, I saw--a lum- ber-place built when ma,on was monk and monk was mason. And tliey had carried me there—from the road where I fell? Thus, by fact and question, I linked mv chain of memory ; and now, as in a flash, I recollected it all —the meeting with Jeffery, the stumbling cob, the figun.' in the wood, the sudden darkness. This 'was the house, then ; the clumsy cob had sent me here • one of the men watched me as I lay u|wn the bed. I I! A REMOTE FARMHOUSE 237 could follow his eyes, peering from the shadows as the eyes of a cat which sees where others are blind. But he did not utter as much as a single word after the first, nor had I any fear of him ; and for a lorn? while we two rested thus— I upon the bed waiting for him, and he staring at me out of the darkness. To this day I do not know if he were Jeffery or another ; for when I began to struggle to my feet he opened the door very dexterously and was gone from the room in an instant. Then I breathed again and stood up. I was glad to be alone. A remote farmhouse in Kent; Frenchmen peopling its grounds; an engineer, who had served the French Government, the apparent master of the house; myself a prisoner in a garret of it, for that which 1 had seen across the sea at Escalle.s — is it profit- able to Siiy with what varying emotions I realized my own justification? Three months had p;iss<.d since a day at Calais, which had taken me to the strangest sight the sea ever showed to a soldier; for three months I had been the scorn of those who won my confidence, the suspected of friends, the dreamer who seeks to siiy, " The dream is false " ; and now this new day could answer for ever the questions I liad asked myself. True, before God and man, the dream was true, then ! Here, tluce miles from the shores of my own country, in a place where no spy — no, not the shrewJest that ever breathed - might have looked tor it, here were those who would go down -or, it might be, already had gone down— to meet that road of steel which, minute by (t; ^m..x..'-:;^'wm. 2::8 p/eo f'.HRjA '^A t ,->f, r \ \ I "'I ll minute and hour by hour, France thrust out beneath the Channel-bed until it should touch the jjardens of England and make her mistress of them. No dream, no hallucination, I said, but a truth so terrible that every other impulse of being— my hope of career, my hope of love, my hope of home— was lost in it. For I was a prisoner in that house of mystery when I would have given all my fortune to have cried out the warning to my countrymen. The dream was true, and I had not dreamed in vain. Beyond it there remained a burden of reproach which might well have crushed a stronger man than I. To know and to be impotent ; to say that any chance, the most trifling, would have sent me back to Dover, free and ready that night ; to remember what might have been if others had but listened to me— I wondered that I weighed the.^e things and did not lose my reason. Nevertheless, even at the crisis of it, some better instinct guided me, some surer hand of my schooling held me back from the folly which neither courage nor desire could have made- good. I said that I would play a man's part— and, so saying, I turned from the door which my hands would have struck and sat upon my bed again. The day v/as waning then, and from the fields without there came the music of the dusk— pigeons circling to roost, the lowing of kine, the crack of the harvester's whip, the rumble of heavy wheels upon a hardened road. Within the house the silence was broken by the gong of a clock which struck im ^^^mm .^^^^i^"^- A REMOTE FARMHOUSE 239 seven ; unci, anon, by the footsteps of many men, who, as the sounds would tell, flocked together to the staircase below and came up in numbers to some of the rooms about my own. I heard many voices, loud, free, unrestrained ; and so clear were they that I knew they spoke the French tongue, and imagined the speakers to be what they were — workers at Jelfery's command, those chosen servants of his who had passed me in ilie tunnel at Esealles. Yet what their number was, or what work they did here by Chilton in Kent, I could but surmise as my know- ledge helped me. They were here, I said, to thrust down an answering shaft to the one which Escalles pushed out towards England. While the greater burden must fall to the F^'rench shore, while the tunnel must be almost completed from that side, here in Kent the head of it would be built, the shaft dug out. It might even be that in a week or a month ihe straight high-road to our coast would be opened, never to he shut again ; that the day was near when England would be an island u) more, but linked by this mighty passage to the Continent which so long had feared her enmity. For in this shape did the tear of it come to me, that as our own Government had l->een blind at the beginning, so would it be blinded to the end. .\nd I, who could have spoken, was tor ever silenced! A miracle alone could >natch me from the vengeance of the man whose path I had cros.sed. To him the lot had fallen, and with him now my de-tiny.or it might be the destiny 01 millions, lav. 240 PRO P ATRIA \ V i 3 ll i! \i I could reckon thus with it — ah, as man never reckoned yet, while the light drew back from that cell-like room, and the obscurity about me began to turn to the deeper shadow of the night. I was in sore straits enough, God knows, for my head throbbed with the fall, and my limbs were stilTand cold, and faininess and hunger came to share the lot with me ; and, above all, there was sure knowledge that these men would show me no mercy nor risk their ends again that I might benefit thereby. Escape, indeed, or perl'.aps the desire of escape, was early in my thoughts; but that was not the hour of it, whatever might come after. I would not deceive myself with any foolish bravado nor belief in luck which once had served, but miuht well forget me now. That the house wou'd W watched as a prison I never doubted. My life could l>e nothing to these men who had staked all on the boldest emprise in the story of their nation. They would kill me when they pleased — and wiio should name the hour of it, to-nighi, to-morrcw, when the clock next struck? Cowardice, 1 said, even to debate tiie thing. The grea^ gong of the clock in the room Wow me struck eight, and the door of the room opened with the last beat of the hr.mrner. 1 had expected to see a strange face, but the hght of a small lamp showed me the figure of jeht ly ; and I was not surprised that he shoulJ come there. Never at an\- iime had I feared this man; I did not fear him now. Curiosity to hear hini -it may be, curio^itv to see what he would lio -mt nu- to mv leet I 3 ■A 240 ' I had expected to see a strange face, but the light of a small lamp showed me the figurejof Jeffery." i f /I Rh.MOTh: FARMHOUSE 2 t J m^^cn he entceU. We were f.ce to n.e. He carried a lamp in his rij^ht hand, a ci^jar in I had rem u Iced at the j;ate. An old oaic bc>nch tood opposue my bed; and here, when he had set i. mpdown on a dusty bureau, he seated him- self and lM..q:an to smoke quietly. The unlatched door upon h.s left hand, blown open by the drau-i on mtn rt tT'"^" """ ""^ '^^"^^^^ °^ ^^ 'i"-'"-' h"s ^all " "''"' ''''''' '^^'°^> '--^y at "Well, Captain," he cried a little boisterously and how do you like your quai'ters '^ - I^sai upon the bed and answered him in the same ''In t!,e matter of li^ht and dirt they are iust what I should have expected - ^ " Ah satirical, I see. A nice job, my boy. isn't it-you m the box, and ue not knowing wh- t th dev.1 to do w.th you ? Wei,, you arent a cons der- trouWe' ! '' "^ •^''- '--^ P"^^'"^^ P-Ple to this " ^''"^' '"^' '"y '-^W Slid I, - and you shall be put to no troub at all." He chewed t' end of his ci.ar for a little while and surveyed me with a glance half-cynical ha sau.he. Hi. odd, ill-,..,.,,,,, brain „-^,b,^l^^ ^ ''■'"-'"' ^^-'^'^ ^' i"'"'^'--' Hi-., and intentions • '*-.M'!*i "A»»j},. -V-' -M-' PRn I ATRIA i: 1 ^1 "Ah," he said " I'll take your f'...Np^'l oaih on that, Captain Ml red. Makt youf minJ ea^v, my boy. We aren't uoinu to put with vou easy — no, I reckon not. /^«s s/ bt'te, as mv b.on.ers down- stairs would say. Youre one of em now. You're an honoured Ruest at River liottoiu !' > m ; and we've boarded up the windows of your Kdroom so that you shan't catch cuid It vou want anything, ring the lx-11. I 11 send a new roix' up some day, for 1 see there isn't one. Say, boy, what a game tor the pirson chap who's waiting for you at Dover ! He'll have to turn up Job to-night and six;ll out a chapter. It's as good as a play to think of it." He laughed at his own idea ; but I could think ol nothing to say to him. Presently he continued, less pleasantly, — " What did you come here at all for— after my machine, eh V Doni tell me different, because I should call you a liar. You came to steal my j,rains— there's been many on the job, but you're about the best of 'em. .-\nd now you're under lock and key. Well, Providence helps poor men some- times. When you go out oJ this house you can take he " corkscrew " with you. The cork will be out oi the bottle then, and the wine in the glass- good red wine, by the Lord. Does it strike you that way, sonny? " I tried to answer him quite coolly, as a man de- batinLC an opinion The notion that I Ilk; come, not to seive my country's interests, but my own, wmmM I RIMoTE hARMIloUsF. 243 am.i/cd mo iilrnost to the ix)inl of silence. Only such a brain as his — the brain of the engineer whose child was a thin^ of steel and brass, to be lovctl as no human child mi^jht be— could have looked thus over the supreme fact of the situation to so i^itilul a complaint. I believe to this hour that the question of a tunnel was less to him than the invention which bored his tunnel. He thought that I had contrived all to rob him of his child. Impossible to ar^ue with such a mind. " Come now, " I cried impatiently, " you know thai I don't care twopence about you or your ma- chine. I got out of Calais to tell my countrymen a plain story. .Shall we go into particulars?" " If it amuses you, talk all night. I shan't be- lieve a word of it, so that's understood. What the devil was it to you what the l'>ench were doing at Calais? Your people never asked our permission when they started to bore on this side ; why should we ask theirs because we're coming here? Fine times, my boy, when the shaft is through! We'll have a French Lord Ma) or of London by-and-by, just to show 'em how to do it ! And I'll be even with some on this side—you first of all, for sneak- ing round after my brains." Temper began to play with him ; but I bent my own to his mood. '• Don't let's have another brawl," was my plea. " Am I the man to care for threats ? My friends will be after me to-morrow, and will want to know something about this house. I think you had better ■■a % * If m^:^w/.,. ^' ^.JflHT'^ r^Wf- .-' iMafei MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART lANSI and ISO TEST CHART No 2) 1.0 I.I lii 111112.8 13.2 m [ 2.5 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ APPLIED IfVMGE Inc ■■o.-^este', Ne* 'ck "ttir'a uSA -••6) 482 - 0300 - Phone '161 288 - "itlgq - Fa> 244 PRO HATRIA ■^1 let some one else show ihem rouud. They miuht not be civil if they found you here. .And the police will ask questions," fie laughed ironiealh'. " The police be d— d ! What do they know about it ? Do you think we're children with pap- bo, iles, or what? Let em come, and I'll do the honours myself. C.in't a yemleman make a lake in his grounds if he likes. I'm ihe master in this house, and I'll do what [ please with it. My present fancy is for a lake. Siiift lots of ground, siree, and go a long way down. But I wish I knew what the devil to do with you. You're just a bad egg, and no doubt about it." The words surprised him to a confession I had not looked for. It was evident that he did not then contemplate the surer way of shutting my lips. " No," he continued, and temper spoke again, " I can't kill you, sonny — I haven't got the pkick, and that's the straight truth. There's plenty here that would, and, maybe, will by-and-by. But I'll give you time to think of it, any way. Make your mind easy— Robert Jeffery is an honourable man. We're all honourable men, so help me thunder ! and no kid-gloved butterfly is going to steal my brains, I'll take my oath." It was odd to see the way this supposition of a theft kept cropping up at every turn. It would become a mania later on, I foresaw. Who would answer such arguments seriously ? " AVell," I said, " oaths don't help a man much ma A REMOTE EARM HOUSE 245 nowadays. A little common sense goes much farther. Why dont you think it all over? If I were in your place, the first question I should ask myself would be one concerning Alfred Hilliard's friends. Are you quite sure that he was alone this afternoon ? " He looked at me under his shaggy brows, and I knew that I had not frightened him. " I'll ask that and more to-morrow," he said de- terminedly ; " it's about time you were thinking of bed, sonny. Hungry, did you say? Well, we've got some good bread and cheese in the house. This old universe wouldn't be such a bad place if we were all fed on bread and cheese and good ' cold spring.' Say, you're doing a service to humanity when you eat it, and don't forget your grace — it's bad manners. Good-night, my son — if the coffee is poisoned, let me know to-morrow, and I'll hold an inquest. And, by the heaven above me, if you raise that voice of yours more than a whisper, I'll knock your brains out ! " He flung open the door at the words, and, snatch- ing up the lamp, permitted me to see the upper landing and those who waited for him there. They were Frenchmen, eight or ten of them, in as honest corduroy as ever ploughboy wore. I understood his new courage when I saw them, and why he had not feared to keep the door unlatched. A fool alone would hope for liberty by that road. "Pleasant C ams, chum," he cried again, as he went out and locked the door after him. " Don't ?4f> PRO PAIR [A "^i 111 i If frighten \-oursclf- -we shall hear if you knock. And I'll send the bread and cheese up by-and-by. An rezoii', my boy, and mind you're up early in the morning- I did not reply with as much as a single word, but sat, in utter darkne.-s, while I could hear his footsteps and the footsteps of others upon the stairs below. When all was silent again I began to grope for the bed. A great sense of fatigue and loneliness came upon me. and I had the desire to sleep. ;■■! CHAPTER XXIII A Silent Army THE nif?ht was long, the longest of my life. Sleep refused to befriend me; nor sleeping had I any rest. What food they had sent up to me at nine o'clock (for I heard the great gong again) lay untouched upon the plate. The steaming cup of coffee frightened me. I did not dare to drink it, though I had the thirst of fever. The jest had made of it a death-draught. Such light as two inches of candle gave (that much they set upon the tray) failed at last and left me in utter darkness. I dreamed of an army of Frenchmen, an endless army coming up out of the pit in the gardens of the house. The day of doubt was passed, the night of truth was with me. I was justified of the dreani : twice justified. For who, but those who made it, could say where the tunnel from Escalles began and where it ended? who in England knew one word about it ? If it had been carried one mile under the Channel, why not ten or twenty, or even twenty-three? I had set foot In the first tube of it, and had heard a distant sound of throbbing, as TT^ 248 PRO PATH r A fi^,' ■/ ! of an enjrjne working many miles away. But I knew no more than the dead how many years the Frenchmen had been at work at Escalles, nor at what speed the boring machine, of which JefTery boasted, could cut away the chalk of the sea-bed. It might be that the beginning of this mighty labour was to be found in the record of the last decade, when we, ourselves, spoke of a tunnel to France and the French were silent. It might be that their task was almost accomplished, and that they hod but to break through the door Ox" earth to the very grounds of tlie house which prisoned me, to find their passage free, the road for their outposts ready. And what then ? what then ? Ah ! the brain burned when I put that question. The dream showed me a lonely house, and in the gardens of the house a great shaft, and from the shaft a silent army emerging silenuy. Elsewhere, said my soldier's instinct, a feint ^f landing upon English shores had drawn our forces from the place. There had been an alarm at Pevensey, at Lowestoft, in the marshes of Essex. No English general so much as thought of Dover, of its har- bour ur its deserted down-lands. And while our ships were steaming eastward, westward, to Ply- mouth and the Nore, these mighty, unnumbered hosts came up out of the very earth to the gardens of my country and th homes which lay beyond them. It was as though som hand of iron closed my mouth and held it dumb w le the desire to cry the tidings became as a raging fever. Again and w^'^-^Hs^. A SILENT ARMY 24Q again, in that terrible sleep, I counted the serried companies which were n'er vomitc\' trom the earth and poured over the [)o\vns, there to en- trench themselves upon the heights and to wait the day with confidence. To-morrow these outposts would, in their thousands, hold the camp for those that followed after. Day and night, day and night the rolling trains steamed below the frothing waters of the Channel to cast out their human freight upon the grassy down, and to make sure this surprisir „' treachery. One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, more and ever mere, who should limit the number of the men or say. Here is the last of them? In a single night an r.dvance guard strong enough to hold the hills could pass up from the tunnel's mouth and make good its foothold. And once the key was held, what force of ours might hope to shut the gate again? Never did a man know, in the face of defeat, the mental agony which this picture of the dream could compel me to suffer. Neither sleeping nor waking, I watched for the lingering day and the first message of the light which the boarded windows might give me. I was impotent, dumb, caged at an hour of hours when a man would have gi\ en all that life had for him to have uttered but a single word to England and the cities. God ! it was a terrible dream, which I must live through many a night yet before the end could be. I knew not, I say, how far their tunnel was car- ried, neither bv what authoritv this work in Kent „,"4\,., 250 PRO PAIR I A J ! was djiie, nor what was the progress made in the ii u-dens of < he house. In the uncertainly lay the torture of the dream. Sooner or later, ".said the voice of Hope, your friends will discover you; to whom the voice of the Dcspairer answered, They will never discover you, for these men will kill you. 11 I feared death, I can say it on my con.science that I feared it less for myself than for that silence which must follow upon it. The hazard that the tunnel mi^ht < ven then be an accomplished fact began to be a mania of the mind, thrusting it- se''- between every brighter ray of argument, for- L .mg even that factor of time and the chances of time which alone could help me now. For why should a house be taken upon our shores at all if the work from Escalles were not so near to com- pletion that days rather than months were necessary to finish it? Even a child's logic would have read as much of the story cS ^he house and of those who occupied it. Whethe , invitation of private individuals or of the .. .,„ent in France, Jeffery and his chosen engineers r^ad come to Dover to join hands with those who pushed under the sea from Cape Gris-Nez. One word of alarm in England would shatter that ambition, even at this hour. I said that the word would never be spoken by me and, saying it, beheld the dawn-light winging into my room ; and I knew that the day had come at length-it might be the last day that I should live to dream or to awake. They brought me breakfast, good coffee and some A SILENT ARMY 251 fish, at ei^ht o'clock; and ravenous hunger drove me to the meal. If they wouUl have done with me this way, well, let it be so, said Resignation; for a man can die hut once, and when they wished my death they could accomplish it at their leisure. So I ate recklessly, seeking to draw the Frenchman, who served me, into talk; but failing ignominiously ; for he was silent as a judge's clerk, and when he would ask a question a grotesque gesture helped him to it. By-and-by he left me, locking the door behind him ; but shortly before twelve o'clock Jeffery him- self came up to the room and, entering it without any ceremony, began to bargain with me for my silence He was quite sober now, curt, taciturn, and very open. I answered him as briefly as he questioned me, for I had expected something of the sort. " Now, Captain," he said, throwing himself upon the bench and crossing his legs impatiently, "what's it to be, light or dark? a first-floor parlour or this dog-kennel? You've only got to name it, you know ? " " Put plainly, you want my parole?" "Exactly. Give us your word to behave as a gentleman, and not to go away from here even if you see the door open, and we'll do the handsome thing by you. Is it on ? " " It's very much ofT— I wonder you waste time." "Oh, I'm always glad to play the good Christian. What says the proverb .- An eye for an eye, e\ cii -252 PRO PAIR/ A if it's a glass one. You can't mend matters hero, not if you'd the voice of the great iMumbo Jumlx).' Why not reckon it up? Good food and good quar- ters until we're through with it. We shan't be long, my boy— a month at the most, perhaps. If the gin'g on the other side were ready, I'd be quicker. "^Bu^t that's the way with the Fro-gies. Give 'em an incli and they'll make a hell. 1 hey can't even manage my old "corkscrew " if I t m my back for twenty hours. Say, you thought ycu'd got a bead on me there. Some day I'll show you her ladysliip when she's bored this bit of a rat-hole. I'll be a rich man then, Captain Alfred— a rich man, suvez} And you'll be— well, God knows. There are gentlemen across yonder who'll have a finger in your pie for what you did at Hscalles. I'm sorry for you, young man." "Keep your sympathy," said I. " You'll want it by-and-by. Have you asked yourself svhat your chance is worth ? A new farthing! Not more. I'd as soon believe in a machine for flying to the moon. To-day or to-morrow your friends, the police, will be in here. It will be my turn to do the laughing then. He passed the threat by and repeated his first question. "Leave the police to me, young fellow. What they learn at the River Itottom House fney're wel- come to. It's you that I'm thinking of. Are you going to suffocate up here, or try your luck in a Waldorf-Astoria downstairs? N;.me it. and be ^$M^BM^fM.'--''i ■mem^- A SILENT Ah (Y 25.1 quick, for I p;uess I can't waste my breath on you. Is it Oil or or ? " " It is off— absolutely, finally." "Tiien look out for yourself, Alfred Hilliard. We'll make it warm for you — oh, you bet." For a moment lie stood as thoutfh hesitating, and then left the room abruptly, slamming the door afier him. I saw no more of him that day nor for many days after. The old Frenchman, who brought my meals, came regularly to the room, but spoke only in gestures. Within the house itself I could iiear each day at dawn the tramp of many feet, the chosen going out to the works. At dusk they came again as they had gone, and silence— utter, pro- found—reigned in that world of mystery. Con- vinced now that I should suffer no greater harm than that of the close and debilitating confinement, I began to think that some hand more discreet was controlling even Jeffeiy and 'inse with him in the work. I had been txiv^r^d, :tnd houM be held to the end; but my life w ^ not ' leht .r would ii be while I remained ! e acqui< oin^ oner of the garret. And, you may be sure, ih( -'^ of escape, no plan or plot or hope my mind did not turn over in those of despair. How many hours I sou;sed him, to light and air and all the excitements of his surprise. Even out there, upon the threshold of liberty and the day, I could not so much as imagine one fact of that astonishing truth. What conjurer had done this? I asked myself, as I stood, hesita- ting and doubtful, on the broad landing of the house. Who was there to give an order which old Bois- deffre obeyed ? Had Harry come at last, or Mallin- son, or one of the men who had laughed at me in London a month ago ? As I live, I could scarcely walk or follow Boisdeffre, for the amazing hope of it. Long days of the twilight, nights of darkness, and the dreams had so played upon me that I had neither nerve nor strengtn left. I went as a man groping lor the way. Who could be in the salon below ? It was a wide staircase, oak-panelled and very old. The columns of the pillars were worm-eaten, scratched, and decayed ; but the stairs were thickly carpeted with felt, and pictures, chiefly portraits, hung in many of the niches. I found myself at last upon a broad landing, over whose banisters I could peep to a square entresol below ; nor did I fail to remark the figures of two men who sat upon a bench by a great stained-glass window, and appeared to be talking at hazard, unconscious of my presence. As they guarded the staircase, so did ochers watch the doors and gates below — the inference was elementary. Even old Roisdeifre read that which was in my mind, and would have recalled me from it. "/ REMEMBER' ^ol " The salon is here, monsieur; please to enter." He knocked upon the door of a room by his left hand, and a soft, well-modulated voice cried " En- trez / " I should have recognised the speaker any- where by that single word, uttered so pleasingly • and I knew that Colonel Lepeletier was the man' Hope went out with the knowledge, but a certain pleasure (for there was never a truer gentleman) followed me to the interview. At least, the Colonel would seek to talk of justice and of honour, for these were known to him. It was a long, low apartment, once a bedroom, I imagined, and now turned to the purposes of a gen- eral living-room. So bright was the sunshine of that September day that it blinded my eyes when I entered there, and gave me confused images of heavy oaken furniture and garish windows and green trees beyond them and the figure of a stoop- ing old man sitting at a writing-table. When I could see more clearly, I recognised the Colonel, in spite of his sober frock coat and the glasses which helped him to write ; but that which was the unex- pected thing, so unexpected that a thousand guesses would not have found it, was the presence of an- other, of Agnes herself, sitting in a low chair by one of the windows, with such a look of despair upon her pretty face that I forgot my own story upon the instant and was all curiosity to hear her. "Mademoiselle Agnes!- I cried at last; but >,hc stopped me with a little gesiuic, inviting me to I'll I 258 PRO PATRIA speak first to her father. Colonel Lepeletier stood up at the same moment and held out his hand. " Captain Hilliard," he said, " believe me that I deplore the circumstances of this meeting." I hesitated a moment, and then shook hands with him. After all, he was the creaiare of trickery and not of malice. " Deploring them," I said, " you have, doubtless, come here to change them. Colonel ? " He retorted honestly, neither flinching nor excus- ing himself. " To the point where your interests and my coun- try's do not engage, I am here to serve you, Captain. Beyond that I cannot go. Let us begin upon such an unders mding. I have come to help you if I can. It will be your own fault if I do not succeed. Please to sit down ; you are tired, I see." He indicated a chair by his table, and so placed me that my eyes were turned away from the window by which Agnes sat. But her face haunted me even though I could not see it; and I thought of her and of the gardens beyond the window, and fell to wondering if I should ever go out with her to the world again. "Colonel," I said, beginning as I should have begun at Calais three months ago, "you refused me your confidence once- do you refuse it here at Dover? " He waived the objection aside with the air of a man accustomed to command. ■rMi^iLiJifcM^li^llji:^!^^ "/ REMEMBER'' 259 " Let the past be the past," he cried earnestly " We were both the subjects of delusion— you, in believing that I was as these people who own this house ; I, in attributing to you motives upon which you did not act. Much has happened since then, Captain Milliard —much that I neither wished nor foresaw. The work, which was begun by the enterprise of a Government, has been almos' ^m- pleted by the money and the daring of private individuals. Understand me. When the Ministry at Paris permitted the engineers to carry their shaft under the sea, they did it as a tentative experi- ment, to be pursued some day when nations are governed by reason and justice, and England fears no longer to be linked to France." " She fears nothing of France," I said, ineptly, perhaps, but in one of those outbursts of a soldier's pride which I am ever unable to control when my country is named. The word of Agnes alone saved that maladroit challenge. " Oh, I beg," she cried, speaking for the first time, "hear my father now." The Colonel continued, oblivious of the interrup- tion. ^ " My daughter is wise, Captain Milliard. Hear me to the end, and then judge me. Our Govern- ment, I say, permitted an experiment at Calais • but the intrigues and the money of those who hope for a king in France and a throne in England have made that experiment a fact, and have done a work which, I know not, may carry my country ■^n: 260 PKO PATRIA l! % to ruin or to n position she has never occupied amons the nations. The work that is done in this house, is done, not by France, but by men of France who believe that they work for her none the less surely because they work alone. It has been your misfortune and mine, God knows how greatly, that you have come between the worker and his am- bitions. But ambition prevails, and your own task, which I, as a soldier, may call a very noble task' is become impossible. Accept the situation which you cannot mend, and agree that you have done your best." " I will never accept it— while I live, Colonel." I looked at Agnes when I answered him, and saw that she had turned away to sit with her face hidden from me. But I knew v.hat the ^vords meant to her, and I thought I heard her voice when I had done. The Colonel, nevertheless continued t*^ speak. ' " For the outrages offered to you here, I apologise and will atone. A clever man is not necessarily a gentleman, though his cleverness should make him one. You have been badly treated, and re- paration must be made. It i? to see that all is carried on here in a way that shall not prejudice my country's name, that the Government has sent me with such limited authority as the circum- stances can give. In such a sense, I am no longer the ally of those who own this house. If it rested with me alone, I might even ask mys-lf how I could open these doors and let you free. ■ but ther **7 REMEMBER' 261 are those who would call me a 1 raitor to France, and that, by God's help, I will never be. Give me your word as an officer to remain here— until I can consult with my supc-iors, at any rate— and I will see that you are treated as a soldier and a gentleman. Frankly, and as man to man, it is the onK ourse. You have done all that your country coulu ask of you, and more. Let Reason have her turn and accept the inevitable. I can give you no better advice in your interests and in my own. Some day these clouds may lift, and you and I may begin a happier friendship. I would change much that I prize of life for such a day and such an opportunity." His voice sank almost to a whisper, and I saw that he Avas greatly moved. His plea was as much for himself as for me. He did not dare to open the fate to me ; France would call him traitor. * "The day may be nearer than you think, Colonel," was my reply, when moments of silence had passed. "As for your question, there is but one answer to it. I go back to the garret. But I shall go with the knowledge that you, at least, are blameless. For the rest, ask yourself as a soldier what you would do in my place Would yon give your word or with- hold it?" He stood up and held out his hand to me. " I salute an Englishman," he said. He would have gone on, I believe, to have spoken more intimaiciy to me in that moment; but tnere 262 PRO PATH I A came a knock upon the door, and his look of alarm was nr to be misread. I understood tha : he wished to terminate the intei view, and spoke to that end. ''I thank you for your sympathy. Colonel," I said; "there is only one word more, and it is thio. Those v. ..o come to my country on such a work are madmei and not soldiers. I pay you the compliment of distinguishing you from them, both in act and word. When you need me in England, you may not find me less ready than you have proved. A bon entendeur. And to Mad'^moiselle ' ' I turned to Agnes— she was still looking down upon the old walled garden and the tangled flowers which gave it a sheen of gold and crimson and all the fuller glory of the autumn. For a moment she did not seem to hear me, but when I was about to pass on she caught my hand suddenly in hers, and bending her little head, she kissed it. "I remember," she said— that and nothing more. And I left her standing there, as a figure of the spring-time caught up suddenly in the sunshine; and this picture of her I carried to my darkened room and thought that it was dark no more. ' uT.,'.'' •^ !M.,': V. 262 -^•«v If i t i I I ""TVs^'*' '^w: w: CHAPTER XXV I Quit the Garret /^LD BOISDEFFRE waked me early on the Vy following morning and began to be very busy, bustling about as one who carried great tiJiniis and was glad to tell them. " Monsieur," he said, blurting it out at last with a splendour of gesture which delighted me. "they have prepared an apartment for you downstairs. Permit an old man to oe happy. I am to follow you, monsieur." I went with him, very readily, you may be sure, and glad as he was, both to leave that dismal prison of the garret and to justify Lepeletier. After all, Agnes's father was a soldier and a gentleman; and I had less to fear now that my case was in his hands than when it hung upon the caprice of the sometime madman, Jeffery. As for the new "apartment," if the outrage of my presence there were passed by, then had 1 little to complain of. Two small rooms, their windows heavily barred, their doors clamped with iron bars, were henceforth to be my lodging. They gave rfC^JL" •:T. 'A^^ ' i'-.v -"'1 r//o />.///,■/. I ' i' upon , he willed R.r.lcn ^,•i.h ihe horUcr of the K.lly(lowc.r.s ; „„d 1 ,„ough, ,1,,,, r ,|,o„|j of,,„' ^cnunel ol my hope, as -hose, ,he Frenchmen ■"t the gate, were the sentinels of ray liberty But this was a note of fantasy, and elsewhere a L h' '• , '^'•■'™'"'-- ''^ ' '"i«'" ">e new ng of the change came early to trouble me Lepeletter had spoken of a month yet "o te Ptssed by me as a prisoner of the hottse. I„ a month, then, Jefrery's work would be done-the ve,l cast aside. And in a month my country would be in peril as she never had been befor? Judge how rarely my thoughts were of myslt^ or of that which I, one of the least of the se^ms of England, n:ust suffer. Ay, in all verity iyo„d 2, :^!:\°i '«■" °' '''^"y ''f " -eri'noffor that which liberty misht win), beyond even thoi conceits of my love which pictured Agnes in tte garden, and would wing her voice to me upon he breezes of the day. was this terror of the tru h this belief that an Englishman's genius ha^ at Ts^ Permitted France to achieve her victory Itot the p.. mdeed was digged, the sea thrusf bac^ he ramparts of my country cast down, it might te for ever. No long.r could I doubt the way or tte means, or those truths of the conspiracy which so ong had baffled me. The Nationalists of France said those unresting madmen who cried everTn' the French capital for change and ferment and *? -t* / QUIT THE GARRET 265 revolution; who had never ceased to remember Fashoda, who had condemned Dreyfus to the living de:.h; who would stake all to destroy the Republic when their own time came-these irreconcilables were the secret power; feeding Jeffery and his schemes with their money and their pledges; compelling the Government to perm. the workings at Calais; themselves responsible U this surpassing hazard upon our shores; believin. all, hoping all of the wildest scheme one nation ha devised for the conquest of another— these vv. the true enemies, these the plotters, the Jcv haters, the empire seekers, the dreamer, ti fanatics, the unresting rabble of a dead sociei which ever asked for a new order, and, winni- it, were dreamers and ftinatics still. And I v, one against their intent and agency, one to cry t tidings to my country, one to lay down my if thereby the secret might be known. For > t hope had I of these powers, before which n the Cabinet of France had compromised and ost courage? My life to them was not more precious than a leaf falling from a tree in the gardens ■ the house. To-day, to-morrow, they would k. me if they willed it, though a hundred Lepeletiers were sent from France to watch their emprise The mercy they showed me was the mercy of their ccrfidence. Their work was done, and I was impotent to undo it. A month, and my dream would be the terrible day for England and her people. I say again that I did not dare to think "7 TP ^^^ J.- .ttfe; j^^i /Vi'O I'ATRIA th +f f p: ^f! f^f It, feared to admit the tiuih, lest I should lose my reason. For the Channel was Rn^land's ram- part no more. Deep down beneath the waters the seciet lay m darkness; to-morrow the doors of it m.Rht be opened and the dayli^^ht shine therein -et me pass the thought and the suffering of it lad I to l.ve such days a^ain, I would account death a mercy, even now, when one stands heart to heart with me in the knowledge ot that love by which life is. I could see the gardens of the house, I say, from the wmdows of my rooms, and beyond them a belt TH '"?' 'n^^ u^' •''"' '^'^^'"'^ ^"•^' "^he highlands of 1 naner By he. . and there, through remote vistas workmen passed with wheelbarrows, and picks upon their shoulders; and sometimes, when the day was very still, I could hear the clanging chams of a crane, the snorting of some little engine, and in the hush of mystery, the mighty thiobbing which had awed me long weeks ago at Calais. Whatever the work that was being done in the garden, many hands contributed to it ; for I saw fresh workers always, and they were French for the most pirt, in spite of the honest corduroys they wore. Imagination sho.ved me these men at their work in the dell ,f the thicket ; it showed me the open shaft -.in-j downwards to the tunnel which Prance thrust out from Escalles; it shaped forme d^e excuses uhich Jeffery made to the iLw neigh- bours who could trouble him with their inquisifons . -■■'■" "I'll uieirinqu;; A nch man building a lake in his grounds ! TT i.l.\J ..f^^Wl^^ I QUIT IHE GARRET 267 would forbid, who say him nay? If the |x)Iicc> came to the River Bottom Farm, what story eould they carry away from it? Would they, lookini^ down into a pit which these Frenchmen had di<;p;ed, so much as imagine one paltry possibility which came of such a labour, or find in it one shadow of excuse for act or word against the owner of the house ? I kn^w that they would not— I knew that one mr. -le, Harry, my friend, might make his \o\c .a; and he was silent, he must be silent, oi ny did I remain there, a prisoner of the farn. Ay, I had a hundred excuses for Harry, but never a guess at the truth. He would not forget me— perchance the same hand which had struck at me had struck him down. I could but wait and hope on, as men will, even though the hour is the last they have to live. They were sunny days, those days of *he terror in that kindly month of September ; and I began, I think, to count them at last as a schoolboy counts the days which intervene before holiday must come. That Jeffery was no longer in Kent I felt assured; for old Boisdeffre did not so much as name him, and the better treatment Lepeletier had ordered for me was pursued and even im- proved upon by my honest old jailor. I had a longing for the sun and the air, it is true, and the torture of the conP • .,. «ras not to be mitigated ..\ ..ir- ., ... !ji .^^j{_ .-..'.m ■ . KiLiiing wouuianas seen from the win- n\o of tny ? om ; but the food ^fl^if^^mm. ':-mwm^>.^jst 268 PA'O PAIR I A was good, and old Roisdeffre and I would -ossip, and he would tell me stories of the Commune, and ! the stories of my college days; and, neither under- standing wholly, we would laugh together and say that nations quarrel while the peoples are friends. Once, I remember, I sought to beg a newspapei of him— a step toward a Lkxper design which began to come into my mind ; but he excused himself with the old plea, and his gesture was as delightful as ever. "Do not think of it, monsieur; there are those who seek an excuse. Do not help them; they watch always; there is no hope for that; they are too clever ; they would be glad of it, monsieur glad as I should be sorry. Let us go on as we go now. It is wiser, safer. And the chief comes back to-day. For God's rake do not anger him monsieur." ' I expressed no surprise, nor pursued the argu- ment, for I knew that he spoke of Jefferv's return and an hour had not passed when the door of my room was burst open violently and Jeffery himselV came staggering towards me with an incoherent word upon his lips. He wore a travelling ca-- and a little cap to match; but his face had the old malign expression, and I understood that this was one of those moods of anger and of madness which Boisdeflre so greatly feared. But I was not afraid of him, neither then nor at any hour of It ; and to my contempt I hold that mv salva- tion IS to be set down. ^■^mi^^^ 'ii£i^t#! W^tT / QUIT THE GARRET 269 He stood before me, and for a little while his temper was so masterful that he could not utter a coherent word, but swayed from side to side and clenched his fists and looked murder, if ever a man looked it in this world. When at last he could speak, a tremendous effort brought him to the old manner, and he was like an animal purring with pleasure of his prey. " So, my son, you've changed your quarters, eh ? made yourself nice and tidy, have you ? By '- , you're a man that don't care much about your life,' do you ? " I said not a word, but stood close up to him, for I thought that he meant a blow. The defiant at- titude kept him at arm's length. He took a step backwards and turned to Boisdeffre. " You hound ! " he cried savagely. " What do you mean by this ? " Old Boisdeffre was as white as death, but he could speak for himself, nevertheless. "The Colonel's order, monsieur; the Ministry sent him to England; he is at Folkestone still Write to him and ask." " I'll cut his tongue, by ! Who's master, do you thmk ? Whose house is it ? Did he do the work or did I ? The Lord blind him who sent him this road ! " He raised his cane and struck the old fellow a heavy blow across the forehead. As the v closed to- gether, locking arms nnd hands, they rolled through the open door, and it was shut in my face as I ;7o •'"•'fe. f PRO PATKlA sprani:: to the old man's help; but in the same moment, looking down into the garden, I beheld Lepeletier himself there, and I knew that he and leftery would meet and that the understanding would be then or never. And as God witnesses it came to me suddenly that by the an-er and mad- ness I might come to the light; and that, before the hour was passed, the questions I had so often asked would be answered for ever. For it was life or '.eath for me then ; even as it was life or death for one of the two that met in the garden. f'tt '^^^m:^^s^<^^mm§^'m^mm CHAPTER XXVI The Meeting in the Garden 'T^HE men would meet, the one youn^r in anger A and savage mania ; the other a broken old man, who, willy-nilly, had been drawn to this mad emprise. As I watched the Colonel, standing there m the -arden with the sunshine upon his kindly face, the fatality of the hour fascinated me beyond all words. Jelfery, the madman, would kill him I said. And he, all unconscious, was coming on 'to meet the assassin, a pathetic figure of that autumn day, with all the old gentleness and courtesy of deed and manner that had won my friendship at 'the first Desire and will to help him began to prove stronger even than any hope fo, my country that might come of that encounter. For how could I remember any- thing else but this fact, that a soldier walked blindly there to insult, if not to death? One word might save his life. I took a heavy ornament from the mantelpiece, and, the window of my room being bolted to the casement, I smashed the glass with a blow. Then I cried twice to Lepeletier to look out for himself-and JefiTery entered the ien. ot 'i^^mj^i^^ii^ji JL m ■i 11 I af y I 272 P/?0 PATRIA There was a Frenchman at my elbow fone I had never seen before) almost with the crashing of the glass, and others stood in the doorway ; but high words in the garden arrested them, and, it being plain that I had made no attempt to es. ape, they all stood with me to watch the scene below the windows Colonel Lepeletier himself, a bent figure no longer but one upright and bold as that of any trooper,' listened to Jeffery's angry complaints with a disdain which every gesture made more sure. The half- caste, in his turn, trembled with rage and anger un- controlh 'e ; and his speech, at the first wild and blasphemous, became anon almost a scream of defiance and insult. To Lepeletier, as to me the mad plea was the same. We had conspired to rob him of his machine, we were allies together to that end. The Colonel, he cried, had betrayed France was the traitor in their camp who should hang m Pans presently. It was then that the soldier raised his cane and struck him. A loud cry, an oath, a scuffle, and the men were locked as in some devilish embrace from which death alone should deliver them. I saw them reel- ing, bending, striking; I heard Jeffery's savage oaths— I knew by a sure instinct what the end must be. For it was youth against age, madness against sanity, the knave against the gentleman— and the knave must win. Impulse to go down to the aid of a brave man surged up at last as a force of will irresistible ; but there were two of the guards upon ''-■" -"'-i-' '•-''''• -liu tiic uoor, and when the m,^'MM^. V^ i^v: Tf/E MEETING IN THE GARDEN 273 throe of us staggered to our feet again, bloody and dusted from head to foot, one man alone stood up in the garden. That man was Robert Jeffery who held an Italian poniard in his left hand, and cleaned the blade of it with a wisp of the grass. The Colonel had fallen full in the sunli-ht his head halt buried in those very gillyflowers he tended not an hour ago; his cane broken beneath him- his collar torn from his throat. A crimson stain spread and glistened upon his linen and made a black patch upon the right slee^'e of his grey coat. He did not move nor appear to breathe. The men with me in the room remained there a little while, as thouo-h robbed of their faculties ! but presently a bell rang loudly in the hall below, and they went away all together. In my turn, I stood at the window as one afraid to see or to know. God, what would come of It ? how would their crime be cloaked ? what would little Agnes say or do to-night? For my first thought was of her-a thought of sorrow so great that even a man might have sanctified it with tears. She stood alone now-a child against the world. And I should never see her more. The body lay out in the sunshine, and no man came near it. There was confusion in the house the tramping of feet, the angrv note of voices a going to and fro between the farm and the woods The work in the grounds appeared to have ceased upon the instant. I beheld many of the engineers coming guicklv out of fh^ ^^l,^.l-p«- o„.i .,11 .'- .. they went to the rooms below. F.ut to the pleasure- ■| I , .iaiAfo/c'jte-^ 274 /Vi'O J 'AIR I A -^vL .i,Mrdcn no one turned; nor did anv appear to remember the dead or seek to hide the body. Some ii:reater, graver peril menaced them, I said. For one instant, beyond the veil of the doubt, I perceived a light to shine, but would not look at it. It could not be that -that ultimaie hope which should send me to the world again ! A thousand chances stood against the thought— it could not be! I breathed the quicker for daring to think of it, and tried to shut the bloodv (igure of tlie garden from my eyes ; but ail unavailinglv Some evil power of the desire to see kept me pacing the room, unre.tingly ; driven now to the shadows Avhere the thing was hidden from mv sight; now to the window again to Iv- sure that the bodv had not moved nor life returned to it. What cruelty lef< the dead man there, those below alone could answer Did they fear nothing that iheir victim lay in the grounds, uncovered, untended, unburied, for the hrst stranger to discover and to rush affrighted with the tale upon his lips? The greater witness I said, that the garden was \vatched as no garden of Kent before or since. Even a blow upon my window had fetched the watchers to mv side-no word, [ knew, could be spoken in that 'hor.se but some ready ear would catch it. What follv then to believe that the secret of the garden would be read by hos-ilc eyes. There was no liopc of that • on.y the enduring pi,y of death; the pitv which tho>e must ever win who go before us to the eternal »i-» IT .(....;,.. . ill} .^iv-i ;v.->. liSiX IHE MR F.TIM, IN THE GARDEN 275 I im.i.-incJ that the scvrct lay .safe, I say; but, nevertheless, the desire of its diseoverv made the hours of that fateful day the loni-est I had endui-d in all those weary weeks of doubt and waitini,^ There was no minute of the lingering afternoon which found me willing to think of food or rest, or even of the danger which Lepeletier's death might bring to my door. I, at least, had been a witness of the deed, and sooner or later they would silence me ; but for the meantime their loud voices, their hurried footsteps spoke of panic among themselves; and in their panic all my hope of safety lay. When, a bout the hour of sundown, a new stillness fell upon the house, and the clamour of the voices ceased, I was as much afraid of the silence as erstwhile T had been of the outcry. What new turn had stilled their tongues? I asked; why did none come near me? Were they contemplating my death, or was the greater peril at hand— the final peril as I had witnessed it in my dream ? As I live and write it came to me in that dreadful hour that the work was done which linked England to France, and that the armies ot France might even then be marchin- below the Channel seas. In fear I heard the phantom steps ; the earth below me quaked as with a new sound which man had never heard before It was the end, I said, the end inevitable-the last day ot the dreams which had come to me since hrst I passed the gate at Escalles and knew tije secret. Darkness fell a little early ,t afternoon, and t^. 276 PRO PATRIA !,-;• after a j;lorious red-gold sunset, which made the leaves of the creepers about my windows seem to drij with blood, and struck upon the face of the dead man as though to shroud it with a pall of tire, I quitted my window lor a moment and went, I know not why, to the door of the room as though I would go straight out to the garden and there do that which others had feared to do. Not for an instant did I imagine that the door was unlocked, or that the sentinels were not, as ever they had been, upon the landing beyond; but when, without a thought of it, I put my hand upon the latch, the door opened at my touch ; and there was the house before me, as still and silent and un- peopled, it appeared, as any house of the dead. There is no word at my command to express the mingled emotions of prudence and joy to which this discovery moved me. Freedom ! My God ! was it that ? Had the French, indeed, withdrawn covertly from the house and left me there with the body ? or was it but a trap, after all, and were those, who wished my death, in the shadows of the darkened hall below? Caution (and many have charged me with that) sent me back to the shelter of the room headlong. I thought that there were men upon the stairs ; many men waiting in the darkness for my passing. The desire was rather to shut myself away from them ; and I closed the door of my room and set a heavy chair against it. Outside in the garden the twilight fell quicklv as the cloudc. of storm gathered in the fleecy sky above the down- Wf^f^'^'i t3*#f •»?k' -wi3".iri3^irw^^ f/J/-: MEETING IN THE G Ah' DEN 277 Kinds. I could scarcely discern the body of Oscar Lepeletier, and long 1 strained my eyes, peering out over that lonely garden ; but the bod> was gone — I was sure of it at last. They had carried the dead man away while I stood wondering upon the empty staircase. This n'^w discovery, the open door, the enduring silence which made the moaning wind the melan- choly cry of the night, which set me starting at every leaf that beat against my window-pane, were the last blows upon my courage and my purpose. Remember that I was long without food or drink — old Boisdeffre had failed me since the morning, and for now I sat, fearful as I had never been, helpless, without idea, in the gathering darkness of my room. Who, then, had carried the body away ? I asked. There were men in the house still, or the work would have remained undone ? And those men waited for me in the silent corridors below. Or had they, indeed, gone to the tunnel's mouth ; and, anon, would those gardens awake to the tramp of count- less feet ; be alive with the presence of the hosts of France ; witness the beginning of the dreadful day ? Ay, think of it as I thought then. The open door ! Liberty so near. Death at hand as I passed the danger by. Do you wonder that I shrank back, more fearful of the truth than of the peril which surrounded me. For if the truth were this, then had England's hour of trial come at last to '' liver her for ever, or for ever to cast her down. A full hour passed, and I did not move from my ii 'I ,il»r:-T,.- . ,i.^ji. J^^^^jt^w-:^. I II A»a ^ J7S /VvV; IWTRlA prison or sock to dare the darkness of the hall below. There is a silence of a lonely house unlike any silence th;it you may find even in the remotest country or the thickest forest ; a silence which makes minutes of th ■ hours; in which you can number every breath you take; when the tick of a clock is like a human voice ; when you ima^ine other sounds, muted steps U}X)n the stairs, shadowy tiRUres about you ; the shapes of those who have lived and died, hojX'd and schemed in the very room you occupy. Such a silence I knew in the River Bottom House in that hour of vi-^nl which came with the ni-ht. A hundrcl times I thought to hear men upon the stairs and even to detect th'eir movements as they waited in the darkness. Every whisper of the wind carried a new warnim^— the note of a weird voice crying to me from the world without. Sprained ears, seeking the truth from the wood beyond the garden, sent me again and again to the broken glass of my window to listen for those whom any minute might betray— the first of the armies of France debouching from the very earth to the shores of England. What matter of sur- prise if I peopled those woods already with the fitting appa'itions which a brain overwrought could shape for me. I believed that I saw the hosts of France, and, believing, I said that all was lost. And thus it was for a full hour at the least— this overmastering dread of the house and the silence of the night. Long without food, enervated by weeks of close confinement, the neighbour oi ap- THE MEFTIXG IN THE GARDEN j;9 prehension often, I marvel how it mme at last tiiat I had courage to quit my room and to take a few- steps, hesitatingly, down toward the myst"ry and the darkness below. Yet so it befell ; and when the hour was over, a.d the gong below struck nine o'clock, I found myself driven by some new im- pulse away from the window and the moonlit garden (where I fancied still to see Lepelelier's body), down to the hall, and to that knowledge which could not surpass the terror of the doubt. If men waited there (as the voice of Prudence argued), the voice of Curiosity said, Better the men than the silence. That wiiich I had to fear from them was as greatly to be feared in the room as face to face with them in the hall below. And so I went, stealthily, with a heavy hand upon the balustrade and a heart pumping like an engine. Remember what I h d seen, and judge me with generosity. Stair by stair, step by step, now drawing back when a banister creaked, now starting at the toucji of a figure of stone, anon taking courage and going quickly, I came down at last to a floor of flags where the fanlight of a door showed a ray of the moon's beams, and the clear heaven above the gardens had all the aspect of a vista of stageland. Here I stood for a full minute, listening with a good ear for the sound even of a man breathing- it may be, beginning to believe in the tremendous hope that I might be alone in the house, the for- gotten prisoner of those who had fled. And while k^x:~. S*kii54ii«tt».*^-i. 280 mo PAmiA I stood, the ultim-ite fuar came upon mc, for I knew at last .hat I was not alone ; and when I put out my hand, the hand of another, cold as death and clammy to the touch, caught my fmgers in a grip of iron, and I was thrown suddenly backward upon the flags. And so for a full minute I lay half stunned, nor could I hear the breathini,^ of the man who had thrown me. The minute pas>ed ; there was a shufiling of feet m the hall„ the clang of an iron door, and then light. I looked up to find myself alone with Jeffery who carried a lantern in his hand. ' i if CHAPTER XX\TI A Jangling Bell HE held a lantern in his hand, and wore the rough clothes of his callintr, smeared with mud and grease, and white with the chalk of the pit. Feeble as the rays of the candle were, they showed me many doors giving off the hall ; and the greater door of the house, barred and bolted as the gate of a prison. I lay within a foot of this door, and beyond it was liberty. The man read my thoughts, and they pleased his drunken humour. " Going to your friends outside, eh. Captain ? Well, I guess not. If it's hell, we're on the road together. Get up, my boy — I want a word with you." He whipped a revolver from his hip-pocket and covered me with it. I could see the reflection of the light running down the barrel as a jet of golden water. Elsewhere there was utter silence. For a reason I had no measure of, iiis friends had fled the house. We were alont togetlier; and I knew that one of us would not be alive to-morrow. 2S1 ?82 PRO /'.im/A " A dozen words, if you like," ssid I, pl-iying his own part while I could. Me set the lantern down and openet' \ Mc- npoi liis left hand. When he had closed the r iter . upo the windows he came back and invited a.c lo ^Vl'W Jiim. Within the room there was all the confusion oi a flight— drawers tuined out, chairs at hazard rubbish upon the table. ' "So," he cried (and his air was that of a man who had a hundred thinj-s to think of and all of them pressing), " so you got the story out, eh, my boy ? What did you -jve Boisdeffre— the hound !— what did you give him ? " I sat down upon a sofa, for I was still dizzy with the tall, and tried to hide from him all that his con- lession meant to me. But in m- ears the words rang loudly, "The story is out." Great God! what had he said ? "Charge Boisdeffre with nothing." I cried- "he knows as much about it as you do. ^ }{e was always iaithful to your interests. You won't be able to say that of many to-morrow." "To-morrow, good God! All my life has been to-morrow ! " I did not pity him, but understood that de'-perate " Whose fault is that?" I asked unsympathetic ^illy. ' Vou had your chances; some of us don't get them. When you came over here you knew what you risked. I told you so at Calais ; I tell you Sn .'l«rnin t4~-nirrUf T .1 , _ -^ '" ••■'%=,".. i-c.ive liic piace and forget it. // JAXr.LIXG BELL 28?, You have no choice. To-morrow others will have their say. I shouldn't wait for them if I were you." He looked at me cynically, cockinu; and uncock- ixxix the pistol as tliou^^h he had lorgotten it. " ^'ou'd have made a <,^ood parson, Alfred Ililliard, by the Lord, you would. When 1 tirst saw you at Calais I took you for one of the whisky-and-soda sort— wine and roses and women, and more clothes at home than your man could steal. You went one better, I l" less. You've a d d obstinate head of your own, I'm thinkino-, and you're like the rest of 'em, quick enouii^h to dance when the drums begin. Will it help you, boy? Ay, ask that. The shaft's down there below Dover. If we don't open it to- day, we'll open it to-morrow. What's the gain to you ? One year or three— I'll bring the French up on Dover cliffs yet, if I give my life to it." " A good many have done that— Napoleon was one of them. I'd find another vocation, Jeffery— it would pay better. You were an Englishman your- self once. Do you never remember that ? " A hard expression came i pon the man's face. He rocked to and fro upon his heels as a man half dizzy. What his true thought^ were that night, God knows. " Yes," he said presently, " I remember it, Alfred Hilliard — an Englishman, hounded out for being as God made him. Well, we'll write it off some day. You and I can do something that way to-night. Say, boy, did you think I was going to open the uOOi . ' f M JS4 PJiO PAIR i " I thought you would be wise to." "Ah, for you to walk right out to the little French girl at Folkestone ! Nice and retty, Cap- tain. The pair of you billing and cooing while I go under. And my brains to find the money, Oh, 1 like that, Captain Alfred ; that's my line all over. Say, do you know the police are outside this house now ? " My heart gave a leap ; I could have shouted at his news; but the will to risk nothing kept me passive before him. " What else do you expect ? " I asked. " Do you suppose this sort of thing is to be done without raising some one's curiosity? Of course they are here. I wonder they didn't come a month ago. If you hadn't been blind, you'd have seen it from the first." He nodded his head as though acquiescing. " 1 told them it would not be the first time. We shall find another story next turn and another house. And you won't be alive to draw a woman into it. No, by , I'll look after her when I'm through with you." I could have struck him down then, as much for the unspoken insult as for the manner of his threat ; but all the overmastering reaction, the knowledge that the story was told, that my country, for the day at least, was saved, kept my mind at such a tension of fever that I had no other wish than to hear his confession to the end. "Alive or dcid T dnn't f-r>iin«- " ^"r,^ _.,. n--^-- A JANGLING BELL 285 " Remember that you are at Dover and not at Calais. It makes all the diflference to-night, Jeffery. There is still the sea to cross." The taunt awakened him to a new outburst. " How do you know," he cried loudly, " how do you know that the French are not coming through this very minute ? Listen, lad ; what sound is that ? Is it troops or the night wind? You can't tell — gosh ! you play the pretty fool when I wish it." He raised his hand for silence, and I listened with ear intent. There were me a moving in the gardens; you could count their footsteps. The house was surrounded ; but by whom ? I knew no more than the dead whether the man I tr ':ed to were playing the jester or the madman. Yet what suspense and fear hung upon the truth ! " It appears," I said at last (and, I am sure, with as white a face as ever woman carried out of church), " it appears that the police are before their time. Don't you think you'd better anticipate them?" He treated it with a gesture of defiance. " When they come," he snarled, " they'll find a pair of us, sonny—you on one side the fender and me on the other. Pretty picture, eh? Do you think I'm fool enough to live over the day that sees my work go under ? No, by the Lord above me, I've a. -mpted the biggest thing man ever set his hand to, and I've shown my masters that I can do it. If it's nothing to have done that much, very well; but the world may call it otherwise. What .'f IS jS.'> PRO PA/h'IA are your idlers worth-your sin-ing birds, who never see the scissors on their hair ; your fiddle scrapers, who kiss the women; your ranters in Parliament and your ranters out of it' What -ooddo they do:^ Is the world richer for them > 1 ^^uess not. Wipe 'em all out to-morrow with decent tombstones, and you and I won't mi^s as much as a postage-stamp. No, sonny, it's the workers, the men who think in iron and steel who make countries. Look at it any way-what's the sea against me and my shield ? We roll her up as Pharaoh and the boys did wilderness way Give me three days yet, and I'll land a hundred thousiind men on >^ur shores. Free or taken, I don't care a d-n for English or French or chimpanzee. I've done the work, and it'll stand your generation and vour son s and your grandson's after that. There's no other living man that could have done it-and thev called me ' black,' the swine. Well, I'll wipe the ground with them some day, as I promised you I did the work, and look at it-this house wouldn't have been searched until the day of judgment but for you and the petticoats that you couldn't keep clear of Why did you cross my path— old 'Panther' of Webb's, that didn't love you sixteen years ago and don't love you any more to-day? Why did you come in with your blasted curiosity and your lamb's mug and that bulldog tooth of vours which h.xed at Escalles? Weren't there two roads in life- or did you find my road the prettier? Ah, Robbv nui.j u.kc- ^c.onu jnaee; ne i.Mi t oQod enough A JANGLING BELL 287 for the white man. There isn't one of 'em living that could do his work, but he isn't good enough for 'em — too fond of a sip, like many another that has brains to feed and isn't pig's-meat. The drink did Hobby Jeffery, did it? But that's a lie, pal, a lie, ;is sure as you hear the boys in the ^arden yonder. Haven't I lived? Why, yes, I've dene that; lived ill what I saw and worked for, and the drink helped me. Say, sonny, have a glass now — it'll help us in what's to come. I never thought of it — God's truth! I was reckoning up your friends all the lime." Now, he had dropped into this strange, maudlin self-appreciation, for all the world as a man talking to himself with the sentimentality and candour of a drunken argument ; nor could I interrupt him, for he told me a page of the story of the stn :est life I have ever known. And never surely was tale related under circumstances so weird, or to a man with mind so confused. The wan light, the dark hall beyond the door, the shuttered room, the figure of the man, his bloodshot eyes, his hawk-like hands, his woolly hair — the maze-like labyrinth of his thought, now going straight to a heart of reason, now blindly to a cul-de-sac of self-appraisement ; and upon all this the sure knowledge that at any moment he might seek my life, and that there were men in the gardens without — all this, I say, made an hour which neither I nor any man may ever find again in the whole book of the conspiracies. Wonder not that henceforth I believed no word of T ill 288 PRO PATRlA his, was not surprised at any threat. I could but wait and watch with a resignation which amazes rne when I recall it. Even when the man had his pistol upon the table and turned to a cupboard for glasses and a bottle, there was no thouj^^ht of escape in my mind; though I sat up to watch him. But he read the movement otherwise, and turned upon me sharply. No Westerner in a tavern brawl could have whipped up his revolver so deftly ''Nor he snapped, "not that, Alfred Hilliard. Play the game. VVeVe going through this thing together— play it as a pal " ^ eoipact'!'''^ ''"'' '"""''' "'"^'^^ ^' ""'' °°^*°° «f ^ "As you like," I said. - Your friends outside are not so patient. The game had better go quickly, or it will be a draw. Hal they mean fo come in, it appears." A loud jangling bell rang out suddenly in a remote corridor of the empty house. I started to my feet at the sound, and could have counted my heart beatmg while we waited. He had a decanter in his hand and he stood, without word or move' ment, listening to the sounds. "Well," I asked at last, "are you goinff to on^,. to them, or Will you let them bea^ th! Zr.Z They will be mside in five minutes. What thin > If It s worth anything, I'll do the best I can fo you but you haven't much time." ^ ' Again he did not answer me directly, but poured hunself out a qunnHtvof --••••- 1 i pon-ea ^ - '^^ ->■'' "- ii"d drank ic at a i I A JANGLING BELL 289 p:ulp. Some one beat loudly with a truncheon upon the great hall door, and Jeffery spoke as though in ansver to the signal. "Ay, knock awi.y, you blasted idiot— there's more than a club wanted to raise my hinges. And Where's the rest of you ? Down under, maybe— ay, down under digging for ny brains. Well, you shall find 'em, my boys. We'll go to hell together, every swine that com -, here ; we'll take a parlour-car, and no differences. Say, Alfred, laddie, did you think I was to be taken like an old hen sitting? No, you didn't think it. The black man's something in his head besides that— he was an Englishman once, eh ?— well, he's going to be an Englishman now. He'll die quiet, sonny, as quiet as the best of 'em. And he'll take his brains with him. They had no room for 'em in this blasted country— they made a Frenchman of him ! Well, he'll show 'em something yet— by the Lord who made him, he'll show 'em where his pals are coming through." A louder knocking upon the outer door, the sound of a hatchet striking one of the windows close by my chair, cut short the almost incoherent threats which fell from the man's lips. For one long moment he stood, sweat on his brow, the glitter of madness in his eyes, a helpless, hunted expression upon his malign face, as of one in a terrible torture of doubt and fear which almost paralysed his facul- ties and would over hrow his reason before it h.-id done with him. Then, anon, a> thou-.-h the crash- it 290 PRO PATRI.i W I ing blows brought him to action, he turned swiftly, and his t embling fingers were stretched out to take my life, and his, and all that were about that house. There was a little cupboard upon his right hand, a cupboard resembling nothing sc m-.icl' as a letter- box ; and this was now the resting-place for his trembling fingers. Unaware of his purpose (and this a thing beyond all my reckoning), I stood, held to the place by indescribable excitement, while he unlocked the cupboard door and showed me, within it, the brass clasps of an electric switch and the twisted wires which ran from it. In a tremendous revelation, as the truth of death brought to the mind in a flash, I understood the purpose o*" those wires and what he would do with them. They linked his hand and the mine prepared in the thicket of the wood. As he had promised that his secret should never be known in England, so would he perform. He had but to touch the button of that switch, and the tunnel's mouth wou ' ' be no more. The victory was his ; the victory ot the mind over men; of a will indomitable in the one purpose. No one who had dared the thicket where the secret lay would emerge any more to speak of it. And he would live to make it a secret anew ; the terror re- habilitated; the peril which carried me to this house and might nc er carry me fiom it. I say that he opened the door of the box, and stood before it with the glitter of madness in his eyes, but odd words of sanity upon his lips. Though l^ KSHHWaSSKSBSrew A JANGLING BELL 291 I Kiiiw whnt he would do, thoui:h dcvith was at my very elbow, so potent was the spell of amaze- ment and discovery that I stood there, unable to lift a hand or raise a cry or do anything but watch liim in dumb despair. When freedom came, when ihe voices of those without quickened my faculties as they had quickened hi , I sprang upon him with all the strength God has given me, and sought to pin him by the throat. But he shook me off with the fury of a n.adman, and, stumbling in my mala- droit attempt, I tell headlong at his feet, and he touched the brass and sparks flashed from the wires. **To hell together, Alfred Hilliard— to hell together ! " The words rang out as the lingering cry of a man cast from the world suddenly to darkness and to death. Slowly at first, anon with a terrible force which seemed to turn the very brain, the ground began to quake beneath us, to roll and pitch as the waves of the sea. I heard a dull, sustained roaring as of an avalanche falling; the house itself rocked to its foundations; split as a whole thing shattered at its hea^-t ; was rent at last from roof to cellar ; came down with thunderous crashing of beams and splintering of glass and blinding dust of mortar and of brick. God ! did man ever live through such an hour or such a scene? Cast downward, pitched headlong, conscious of no sure loothold. the very floor bending in beneath me, the great beams of the ceiling bursting from their s { ' r 202 PRO I'ATJx'fA welts; tloorsami windows, jrnitc and cliimncy fall- ing inwards; the awful sonnd^ of ivne'- igvvood and devastating iron and glass all lx\at to powder —I say that I heard and saw these things as in some day of God's judgment, of the last hour of mv life and the beginning of the mysteries. And I must live that agony out, there was no mercy of it. The beams fell about me, but none would kill me • the darkness was of the grave, impenetrable. A lantern, caught by the brickwork and still burning shone as some fitful ray in a pit of death. But it gave me light to see Jefferys face, bloody in suffer- ing and the sweat of death ; and I knew that he had paid the price and that his work was done. And so to the silence, with the crashing sounds afar, and about me the terror of the tomb. „,.. ^^ s-.«j n CHAl lER XXVIII The Pit THE sound in my ears was like that of rushing^ water, or of the gathering wind surging to a tempest and always waxing louder. I was con- scious of life, but had no xDwer to return to life not so much as to raise .i.y head or lift a hand to help myself. As one in a trance (but the trance which is of the instant of waking), I lay for so long a time that days and nights appeared to pass; the sun to rise and set ; the stars to turn about me ; the voice of storm to fret and sob and falter. And from this I must have passed to sleep; the sleep of weakness and of Nature at her ebb. For the silence was profound when next I knew that I lived ; and I opened my eyes in darkness so un- broken that even the very ground would take no shape. Looking back to that dismal hour, it is astonish- ing to me to remember how slowly my mind would gather up the tangled thread of that story, or allow me to remember where I was or why I lay in dark- ness at all. Remoter events I could recall— the 293 1 \ i 1'' HS 294 /•KU PAJKIA Co^nr „"""■ •^«""'-'" ''"•; her coming ,0 Cottesbrook and mccl,,^. ny mollKr there- th, quarrel a, Calais, ,he b.,yish a„«er of i, ani he herccs which Tullowed alkr. Hut the t"t , n'^'t.er, the shait K-low tlie ..*a, the weeKs''o 1' Joubt at the River Bot.cn, „ouse, the las, t-rim -one w,th Jellery, were gone so complc.lv, wh" hrst I ,ame to e-mseiousness, that I had not'a Klim- mer,„g o, thera; and, lackin,- a slarting place, could take no argument ,0 begin or end it. .LniJ morTof ,o""'"I '■'-■■■'"• •'^'"-■""i-- «h,eh had more of logie than the common, fc: : ved i.pon this dead man seeking the light from the shades (> hii ), I beheved that they had buried me whde i darkness of vault or catacomb. There was •, mtehTwe'iihr''" "'■■'""''' "' «-- "yh, whic I would ,i"hf ™" "" "^^' '■''"^O"- I -™'-'= ">"' f I dug the earth with my naked hands The thought that I had Ken de^rted by al, the world that men trod the grass ,a,ove mv head, that my votce would never Ix- heard .hough a hu d ^ Z tened for ,., drove me with woeful s.,v„g,h to a m ,d batt,e against a rampart of brick and s^me an iTle mould wh.ch fell chill and sodden upo,. my a But I was bound ,„ the g, .nd as though a ch' ^n engtrdled my body. ,M1 ,„y eHor, (so mud, ..ea It seemed, rh.m w-i" - ... . -.'<-an(, • ••-.=:•..-.- ,,ouiu id Li L)cj would not 1III-: PIT 29- V i.ii-r me, nor livo my limhs hom the unyiel.l- iiiu wiijilit wliieh prisoned them. The very siru-ule to be free but made the i^rip the surer. I eoulU not move a hand; .scarce had the strength to cry out from the silence of that pit. Weakness followed u|X)n this ciuleavour; reason upon my imi»tence. When, at la>i, 1 came to hix quite still, because of the lesson which had been tau-;hl me, the events of the day and of the fmal hour recurred to my mind one by one ; and I could start fro'ii that last scene of the cataclysm, the falling hou.se, the crashing beams, the splintering glass; and from that (the mind ever working back- ward) go on to the silent hall, and the jangling bell, and the blows upon the door ; and so, quickly, to Lepeletier's death (if, indeed, he were dead), and to the sudden flight of those who worked in the thickets beyond the gardens. Ah, I had it all then, and wanted my story no longer. We had gone down together — the man who wrought and the man who would have destroyed— to this darkness, tliis pit which France had digged for us. And of the two, life was for me ; for I had t I be until my friends should hear me and answer as they would. How Parson Harry would work, I thou-ht, and old Mal- linson, ,f he were there ! I imagined the few words that Mallinson would speak-the sharp, brusque order, the splendid purpose of the man. There would be nothmg done without old Mallinson. The ray of light waxed stronger ; the water dripped more abundantly, the day waxed to its zenith, and still I heard no message from the world without My own voice, raised loud in a cry for help, sounded to me as odd as anything I had heard ; such a lame cry, so afraid of it I was-afraid as the raf^ whom silence emboldened and the halloa sent pattermg again. And what were those above doing that they did not answer me ? I railed upon their indifference, their cruelty, their desertion of a comrade. If me of them had been in my place, I wouki have worked for him until the flesh fell from my fingers. But no one lifted a hand to save me • or, it he did, why did I hear no blow upon the earth, no tramping - ^t or spade-thrusts sent n^ell home t Once the an hour when I abandoned hope utterly ; dete d that Harrv and Mallinson were not there at aw, .hat the house had been sur- prised by the police ; perhaps upon some other errand altogether, l^y men who knew nothing of its secret and cared less. Hut this was untenable, and I could reject it even in the pit, and begin again with the p.oture of Harry in the dehri,. and Mallinson by his y'^.....'imw^.^ ^^w^-- ■ '"^vmmr^'^mm.im ■:^i^--w^-''!!^mm&^mi THE PIT 299 side, and good picks falling, and the earth thrown back, and hope of it— ah ! my God ! as fev/ had hoped. I should perish, I should be saved, I should die of starvation, should live of friendship. The reckon- ings that I made would have filled a book. In mines men had lived a week with neither crust nor sip. Ah, said the pessimist, but their limbs were not paralysed.' It would take a day to dig me out, the better spirit argued ; but the complaining voice cried, A week will not do it. They are working now, whispered the one fellow ; the other mocked, Silence— silence. Certainly I could not hear them. Not a stone moved in the rubble; not an ounce of the earth. The rats, more bold, came creeping to my side and crossed my body in their path. I had a thirst be- yond bearing, a dull sense of pain which never left me; but still the good fellow s/oke. They are working now, he suggested ; hark to them ! I scarce dared to breathe while I listened for new sounds. It was— it was not; I heard nothing— heard some- thing; was afraid to move a limb, even to shut my lips; put it away from me; took it back. Merciful God, what torture ! And yet, and yet- there was a sound ; you could hear it as an echo of something that fell and fell a^^ain, so remote, so faint, that my own heart's beating was louder still and could silence it. And yet there was a sound. I clenched my hands on the earth and lay back, eyes closed, ears intent, to listen and be sure. The sound was to be heard no more— would it ever come again ? The day ebbed so swiftly that it would soon n 300 PJiO PATRIA Hi! f be night again ; and I must live through that th. gurgling ana the rats at my feet T thn„ori,^ *u that death was the .or, and wished for death , Z be as he shorter way, the end of all the que ttons and an the answers, the one road to mydelheraice And then I heard the iron's voice agaln-a d„n' heavy clanging, a sure blow, many of^em stm and often together. Jly own cry i„ ansTer wl arae no longer. Thrice I raised it as thev Tad taught me in the open fieV. and thrice it was an swered in clear blows upon the deaden njearth" They heard me at l.-,st-at last I The moment of reaction, thev sav i< ,h« ^, ous moment of a crisis. , hltd S^'Ugh so mu'ci" .mag,ned so much, sulfered so much in that^irtha; .t may be I le.ped from e.«reme to e.xtrente 'and hearing the blows upon the earth sni, .rV ! ' was salvation, this tlfe end oflt A^' .""' *"^ What did it matter if old Mallinsot wer^ 'tthe;^ and Harry at his side ? No lack of win in/ hand! now I made sure. Still as a mouse I lay to coun the heavy b ows ; no music was ever fc^f a swee? ' To-morrow I should be up a-ain out ,„ '"."'''=' ' the sunshine. I should h^J^til ' r^oMt lould Witness, perhaos somf» r.r m,« • ' ^"^"^'J ' *^ "'^P^ some o{ the excitement of th^f day of wonder and deliverance Who^T^V said ? I asked. Had the t "uTh h. ^ ^^^^"^ a half of the truth as wiT '"• ''^"''^' °^ ^"^ of the nation pt-n. We?: T ^? "^"^ " ^^^^^^ mongers, the C ' h.^r : ^J^:!':^'"^^^ ^"^^ ■^* il. U'Wi ftiitl^R ]ki^^ THE PIT 301 already coming forward to cry, " There is no warn- ing here. We must trust France ; this is not the work of her Government, but of a mad engineer " > I diymed, even then, -.at few of my countrymen would admit the truth, or believe that out there below the waves of the Channel, the tunnel lies,' and that to-morrow may unlock the gate of it But credulous or doubting, the work was done' We had barred the road to Fnince. We had barred it with our bodies as we lay there in the pit they had digged ; and no hand should ever undo what we had done. I would live henceforth for that. Old Mallinson was up there, and Harry was with him, and many worked to save me. To my shattered nerve be the charge of the fears which returned again as I heard the falling picks, and began to say they were raised too late. For what, urged the coward's argument, if the earth fall as they dig and the great beam be loosed, and the pit close in,' and there remain a cave of it no more ? They would sweat and work in vain, those friends of mine if that befell. No more Alfred Hilliard to shout up to them, and be answered with eager— ay, with des- perate blows. An off-chance I made of it after- wards; but then, when the darkness was coming down, and the water dripped, and the rats pat- tered across my very limbs-ah. it was so real so sure, that I waited for it-the oscillating beam] the gliding earth, the mould upon my face, and that last fight for breath which must be an agony Would Mallinson take account of it; would he re- ':T:C/1:^ '• 1 f ml Jl 1 ill 302 /'/PO PATRIA Zr^g.^^ZaT "" ''"" """•" --« "" trouble came hirl- ,„ '"^ '"S"'. the dreamer's Aanes firsHf -.n /*^'""- ' ■■-umbered little FolKesto e LfVl'Tr^' '''^"^ ""^ ^•■« « come to the house n L^' '""' ""'■ ^^e would who st«Ki in 'he ' dnn^ k'"'"' '"'' "* "''" '"ose wished that hey had tnrrr""" ' ^""'"tave there was an .fterthoth^*^," T """■ '"' ^^ When they got me out -h r f^het- "'f ' ^ I'"' see; hers the fir^f hm. 1 t u ^^ ^'^^^ ^ should the'^reater^u^ftiort r'futr:"- '^;"''-''^ in desperate deliberation as Z k""'' *"'■""'' present and ignore tt fin.Uy h H .'" ''''''' ""-' death changedlhat word others ?w, f. "'""'^ birth and nation impasslt s ill f 1 ^""'' '"' carried us far on i . j ' Destiny had and now o the tourt 7 f"^" """S*^" ">^ "■'«' ^ beensogreatah"pl i.e'lTrm-r """=" "'"' iMOok and of mv hn , » ^^"■**^ °' Cottes- -^he had comer-nrmotr"^-!"""^ "«'•""■ ^ weeks ago. The ,4^ .^ """ " '^'«' ^hort were music to my ea« „\ '/""' """-"^ '""ours had they but kno^^it " t' ^ ^'"1 ^^ '^-. woman's heart md « „ .J' ^^ "'°'*'''' for a ■he past, to w iilatur"' .l'' "°'^' '" ""« <"" word Of a „ati;"ro r :t%*"'<""'- - ' "" ^'^"^^ '^^ pages. Let u THE PIT 303 be no wonder that I listened to them, and could be- he ve that never were hands which worked so slowly They would be too late now-too late, too late Earth rolled in the pit, water gushed out from some hidden pipe and washed my feet, was splashed in muddy drops upon my face. I heard the great beam oscillate and slide, and thought that now it was falling to crush the very heart out of me But It caught 'igain upon some cranny of the stone, and movmg, did that which I never had been able to do for myself, for it freed the prisoned limbs, and I drew them out of the earth and staggered up, with ann and leg bloodless, pulseless, cold as death, but •vith a desire of the reaction which could hn^e set me leaping. Ingrate had I not said that those above were working like giants now. The blows fell louder, surer; the earth quaked beneath them ; the roof was shattered in morsels which be- spattered my face and struck sharp upon my hands ; the water gushed in one unbroken torrent I had not thought of the water before that moment ; but now it was all my thought. Was there any drain to carry it off, or would it flood the pit and choke me? Away I went again to imagine old Mallinson's anger if he came too late, Harry's distress, the tale that must be told at Cottesbrook. It would be in one hour or in two at dawn or sunset-yet it was odd that none answered my impatient cry, if, indeed, they struck downward through the quaking rubble. Always the silence and the blows, always, always.. Impatience charged u 'i 304 PRO PAIR r A i-.i them at the moment when imrutience should be gratified. I saw the thing and would not see it • shut my eyes and opened them. Ah, God it was true, then ! They would save me even yet A light struck down through a crevice of the roof and glistened radiantly upon the black pool of the water, i uttered a loud cry, as a child in welcome ; a d far, so far above it seemed, the answering voice cr ^d back. Oh, who would have dared to believe h 2ars or to play his part indifferently at such an hour ? Was it a voice or sound of the falling stone ? Agam I listened, again, again. Old Mallinson was there ; I would doubt it no longer. My friends had heard me ; their hands would touch mine presentlv I was sinking down, down in weakness, but thev would drag me from the pit-old MalHnson w2 of tgon^ '''' '' ™'"'' "^'"" '' J°^ ^^ 'h«° it was i ! A ikii r ^VQ-r^ J ^ i^ !i' ;imii^.i':;ik^$iiiiisst.^i^^ CHAPTER XXIX The New Day Dawning 'yHEY dragged me from the pit to the garden A ot the house, and many strange faces peered mto mme, and many carried lanterns, and many cried, " Thank God ! " I was conscious of a cloud- less heaven and a clear world of stars glittering in the darkened vault ; of the figures of horsemen moving in the shadows, and the sweet wind of the night blowing freshly upon my face. But, above all, I knew that Harry himself held me in his good arms, and that old Mallinson was at his side, and that I should sink back to the darkness no more For they had saved me, these friends of mine ; and I could neither speak to them nor answer them • but must lie as one helpless in the ecstasy of de- liverance and of gratitude. The air— ah, God ! to breathe that again. The voices of men-to hear them ! To see the sky above, the trees about me, to know that the night was over and that I had lived through it! What page could tell truly of that ? i was saved. Harry held me. Old Mallinson was there, as black as 305 '■%J^. 306 PJfO PATRIA any sweep, and sweating until his very shirt was limp. There was a gentle wind upon my face, and gentle har to lift me up, and a bed as soft as down to cany me from the place. Oh, they had thought of everything, those wiseheads. And all the bustle, all the sweating figures, all that fore- thought and care, they were for me alone, the tribute of brave men to one they loved. I lay back again, and thanked God that friends had been there that night. I knew that there was nothing else to think of; a fretting brain began to rest ■ there came upon me a delicious drowsiness as of a child's sleep ; and yet I did not sleep, but listened to them as I lay. " Gently, now, gently. Good God ! have you no eyes? All hands under and lift when I say 'Three' —the doctor afterwards. You, lumberhead, can't you back the cart— are we going to walk to Dover? Lanterns up, and the others go away. You can come to the Lord Warden co-morrow. Now, gently and all together." It was old Mallinson husLiing them. Black, be- grimed, dirty as he was, Lis eyes shone like stars and seemed to take in twenty things at once I could have laughed at the figure he cut. There was never such energy in one man b-'.. - and never will be again. The " lumberheads ran at his words as at the lash of a whip. "Tell old Mallinson to take it easy,^^ I said to Harry— the first word that came to rae since I was out ; •* there's nothing much the man^r, only a few ■o.i.f.;'-!-; -. THE NEW DAY DAWMN. ,7 bruises. I'm glad it's you, Harry ; ,t . ., , have been any one else. Don't let them n:.ke a fuss." Our eyes met, I think, in a glance which said, from the heart of one to the heart of the other " Thank God ! " They had laid me on a mattress then, and the hobbledehoys were about to lift it to a farmer's cart which waited at the garden gate. Harry would not answer me, but began to call for the doctor, who came up on a bicycle almost with the words. I recall his face, his figure, as I saw It that night— the figure of a tall man, with a brusque, imperious manner, but all the skill and the quickness of youth in his method. •' Come, now," he said, as he knelt at my side and many held lanterns for him to see my face, " and where is the pain, Captain ? " " Any where— every where. I went under with the house, and a beam fell across my right leg and arm. They're not broken, for I can use them. You needn't trouble much, doctor." He smiled at the volubility of it, and, passing his hand quickly over m^' body, he touched my right side presently, and I could not hold back a sharp cry. "Ah," he said, "crushed there, I think. Take off his coat, one of you; we must look at that." They obeyed him quietly, stripping me until the night wind fell cold on my body as a spray of water. Some one in the crowd said, **Poor fellow!" The doctor's face was pursed up and severe. He I :io8 /wo "AiA/J '• f rejiiemhM- ihat I called lor water nd ;j t< laughed \n • ,; i he d h "Pourasupof brandy, vvn hi- tlror' - sier ' cned . tat man iu the .rowd, no r.pe:ae ! the exor. -nm at intervals. TI. rus ,cs ^aj d .ith ■ -^'n mouth, old M.M-rso- was .i.li wi in- he ' i> shini! -Very wis. ha- much uschiet n- -sweat fro! t^e doctor's i* woman's. '■ lb t*ier The doctor answere ' •' J ar Mil Vinson came up . i. '*hich a clumsy yokel un^, recollect cdd wai' r u, m ; which some on.> p; -ssea ^,. ^^ ^^ ^ ' lifted u- up; tne m bey, loiuU the heavens above - ; . .j^^.v th. there, that we wer; lea r ^jj^ House; and, rocKed ts n a ciac which was un. onscioasness. mi d heai hi suri 'dy cer ant 1 I n I tin cup '1 I was id swim in Harry was ^r Bottom -t sleep, f J 11 ' ;;■ The b — n sui dazzlin beams udd :rk S'nj'~V )f ty rauui *ierein es of , 'V;-m in ? roon where I awoke 'g. in. o the white blinds a - ^n. findin; ma- y a path of v-as ain of gold, and ''^ ^ r and com- ming ed I did nui ao- the r ho^ - vsu V. UK I ^^ ,j, the ornaments of it came to '^ THE NEW .)AY j AWNING 309 my knowledge one by ono. as a picture from wluch a cloth is turned. There, to ^egin with, was a ^.cat brass pole with hangin; of dimity gay in pink roses; and there ui armchair in rep; and there a dressing-tuble in mahogany ; and n onder a wardrobe; and by them a table with ;i vase of roses and a bowl of fruit. No one seemed to stir ir' the room. Distantly, from the sea, there floated " an echo of the wind's cumplaint ; the music of ^■es upon the shingle; even the cry of a ship's man and the shriek of a siren. But I was alone, I ^ald ; no one watched me, and so my eyes went roving to the picture again; an 1 anon, they seemed to show me something that I would never have oked for in twenty ycars-the sweetest figure that God has made, the gentlest hand, the face of -' liUle Agues, so wan, so wistful, so brave, as it nt over me, and those white fingers touched my and hot tears fell fast upon the lips which i for them. No word was needed, no word t ider ; only he deeper silence of mntent, the surer message of the heart, which might not speak m that hour of her surrender. r was there in the room and Agnes was with me Her lips were close to mine, my hand clung to hers as though neveimore to release it. The' miracle had been wor' .d. Out of the place of darkness and of death this vi ion of light had con^ * --. Oh, God be thanked I cried at las Agnes." She laid her pretty head close to 3IO PRO PAIR I A pillow, and began to speak in whispers of the wonders that had befallen. I heard her as in an ecstasy ; impossible to believe that the drean had so rewarded me. " Alfred, dearest," she said, " they sent me to you— they wished you " " And you, little girl, did you not wish it too ? " A flush of colour gave roses to her cheeks ■ it went travelling up nil it touched her little brown curls; and they, winning gold of the sunshine, seemed as a halo of the purest silk set about her childish face. Thus was my question answered— thus she confessed that which I had waited so many weary months to know and to o.^lieve. •' I wished it, yes ; I have wished it always. \ >u will not send me away now, dearest ? " I drew the little head down to me, and tried to tell her all that I would have spoken in that hour of the miracle. But the words failed me; I could only say " beloved." And long moments passed, I think, before she spoke again of that amazing cir- cumstance. " Where am I, Agnes ? What is this place > " "The Lord Warden Hotel at Dover." "Yes, I remember, Harry spoke of that. And Harry?" "He has gone to Lady Flilliard— to bring her here to-morrow. The other, the black one, he will return at one o'clock." " Ah, old Mallinson ; what a friend to have • And your father, Agnes?" .wf^m,. THE NEW DAY DAWNING 311 " He is here, in the hotel. If he could have left his bed, he would have come to you." I lay back and thought about it. There was something missing in her news, a piece of the puzzle which a fagged brain could not place. Why had I spoken of her father ? I could not remember why ; nor, upon the spur of it, recollect anything of the last scene in the garden, when that fine old soldier seemed to lie dead before my very eyes. Ultimately, as in a flash, memory came back ; but I scarce dared to speak of it. Good God ! what had I said ? "Tell me the truth, dear girl," I said at last. " Is it well with Colonel Lepeletier, or not ? " She sat by my bedside and told me all the story. Our hands were locked together, her parted lips almost touched my ear. " Jean Boisdeffre saved him," she said simply ; " he has always been his faithful servant, and he carried him from the garden on that dreadful day. My father had fainted, but he fell upon his arm, and it closed the wound. Oh, you can believe how thankful I am that he has been the means ! They told me that he was dead, and I came to Mr. Ford- ham and spoke. There was no longer anything to forbid me. I told your friends that you were in the house, and they went there that very night. My father is not angiy. He says that I have done well. He would have found a way if it had not been this. You blame him, but you do not know him. He has lived many years since we were at L-j^-jl BS-aprj 312 PRO PATRlA Pau together, dear Alfred. Let us help him to forget ,n the years which remain " I drew her closer to me and kissed her lips. o England „, ,„, ,„,,„„.^ ntarmea at the marf emprise to which 1 1 I AN EDITOR'S NOTE 315 the Nationalists had set their hands. He came, if possible, to turn the men from their purpose, to bring them to prudence and to sanity. Compelled at Calais, by the half-caste's threats, to reject the friend- ship of . Ifred Milliard, here, in England, fear of that which friends would say, forbade him to open the gate or declare the secret. The rest is a story of a woman's devotion ; of the unresting labours of a friend most faithful. That France attempted to build a tunnel under the Channel to England is no longer denied. That her engineers had been engaged upon the work for many years is equally well known. Her prospects of success, should such an attempt be repeated, are variously esteemed. We have seen that the 'more daring capitalists and fanatics of Paris, having compelled the French Government to thrust out a tunnel from Calais, sought to open that tunnel here by taking a farmhouse in an Englishman's name. Furthermore, they gave out to the world that the workings in the grounds of the house were the fruit of the owner's desire to build an ornamental lake. The vigilance of one man defeated this great scheme; he shut the gate, as he says, in the face of France. But the tube of steel still lies below the sea. No living man, outside the purlieus of the secret, can say how far that tunnel is carried, or where the last tube of it is riveted. It may come even to D(n,er's cliffs; it may lie many miles from them. Ex- 316 PRO PATRIA cavatton at the River Bottom House has shown that the dead man Jeffery carried his shaft upon our side no more than a hundred yards towards the sea: but distance throws no light upon the matter He had but to cut a gate to that road Mch France earned aver from Escalles. He may have been a boaster, or he may have been upon the very thres- hold of success when the last great scene was played. And there is no Englishman reading Alfred Htlliard^s narrative who will not ask him- self tf this be the beginning and the end of that surpassing conspiracy. To whom we say The sentinels of England must answer. In conclusion~an item. The Captain^ s many friends will hear with interest that Parson Harry Fordham was busy at Cottesbrook in the winter of the year, and having married Alfred Hilliurd bachelor, and Agnes Lepeletier, spinster, put them m a tram for London, whence by easy stages they appear to have come to Abbazia, in Italy, and there to have been met by Oscar Lepeletier himself Parts already has called that venerable soldier a traitor. He has lost a country, he says, but has found a son. mm mmm ^^vmtj.'^'^An*^^^ . n ^m.^^-^^>!! tA ►<■ J^,gVo2o33C3 9 1 F^i^ '\ j_' 1 -A_«B«M^