The Black Abbot
found his wrist gripped. And then his senses left him.
When he came to himself he was lying in the open air. The warmth of
the sun’s rays made him sleepy.
“Where is Leslie?” he asked, struggling up on his elbow.
They looked at him blankly, thinking that he was in a delirium.
“How did I get out?”
“Gilder went down for you when he saw you drop.”
“But Leslie caught me by the wrist,” he said wildly. “She was
there--didn’t you see her, Puttler?”
Puttler shook his head.
“I saw you holding on to the side just as the new rope came, and
Gilder went down for you.”
Dick was ghastly.
“You didn’t see her? You didn’t hear her?”
Struggling to his feet, he passed his hand wearily across his
forehead. Had he been dreaming? Was that part of the delirium of the
death that nearly overtook him? But he was sure, as positive as of any
human experience he had had. Leslie’s hand had come out from the wall
and caught him by the wrist. He had seen the diamond scintillate in
the light of the lantern and then he could remember nothing more. But
it had been Leslie. He could still feel the pressure of her fingers
about his wrist. He had not been dreaming. Somewhere in the deeps of
the earth was the woman he loved, and he was helpless to save her. He
covered his face with his hands and for a while his shoulders heaved.
LVIII
Leslie had no doubt that the wooden bar would hold. She could afford
to sit, covering her ears to shut out the hideous noise above, until
his paroxysm had subsided. It must have been in such a mad fury as
this, after the killing of Thomas, that he had wreaked destruction
upon his room before, in a sudden fit of panic, he had got out of the
window and, taking his books from the library (she saw the torn and
soiled pillow case in which he had packed them) had escaped to this
lair of his. She took her hand from her ears; he was moaning
dreadfully, but somehow she could endure that. Fortunately, she had
put on her wrist-watch when she dressed, and this marked the passage
of the hours. Noon came, there would be people about the estate now,
though it was not likely that Dick would come again to the ruins
unless he was attracted there.
The plan she had made she now proceeded to put into execution.
Standing under the shaft, she fired a round into the air. The third
shot struck the iron grille and ricochetted with an angry buzz that
sounded like the drone of a bee. No sound came from the room above. If
she could only attract Dick to the ruins, she could indicate her
position. But Harry had a rifle! She went cold at the thought. She may
have lured him to his death.
For one mad moment she thought of opening the trap and forcing her way
out at the point of the rifle. But it was too late now. And then she
heard his voice, sounding hollowly and faintly.
“Leslie!”
She went up one of the steps so that she could hear him better.
“They’re coming, Leslie. You will tell them I haven’t hurt you, won’t
you?”
“Yes, yes,” she replied eagerly.
He said nothing after that, until there came a shuffling and stamping
of feet above her head, and then she heard him say:
“Hullo, Dick, old man! I hope I haven’t given you any trouble.”
From below she heard a deep rumble of sound which might have been a
voice, but in her eagerness she was tugging at the oaken support, and
in another second the stone fell behind her and she scrambled up
through the trap. She could see nothing; the place was in darkness.
“Dick!” she called.
And then a hand gripped her, and she realized with horror that all the
shufflings of feet and the conversation had been so much acting on his
part.
She was still holding the rifle, but before she could raise it he had
gripped the stock and wrenched it from her hand. She heard it fall
with a clatter on the stone floor below.
Half swooning in her fear and terror, her struggles grew weaker. He
was holding her in his arms and his strength was surprising.
“We are going below, my sweet,” he whispered in her ear. “At last I
know the truth! So it was Dick you wanted! Dear Dick!”
He was chuckling softly to himself as he carried her to the top of the
steps.
“Will you walk down, or must I throw you?” he asked, in a tone so even
and rational that he might have been uttering some commonplace of
everyday life.
With trembling knees she walked down the steps into the lighted room,
and he followed, pausing to close the trap and secure it firmly.
“Sit down.” He pointed to the settle by the table and immediately she
sat down. Her face was ghastly; her last reserves of courage were
almost sapped. “You have hurt me beyond forgiveness, Leslie,” he said,
his solemn eyes fixed on hers. “Do you realize what you have done? You
have treated with contempt Harry Alford, Eighteenth Earl of Chelford,
Viscount of Carberry, Baron Alford.…”
With the solemnity of a child reciting a lesson he repeated the titles
he held, even to a remote barony of Aquitaine which the Chelfords had
held in the dim past. She had a queer feeling that she was standing
before a judge, listening to an indictment of some hideous crime she
had committed.
“You have attempted to endanger my life; you have conspired with those
who hate me; you have treacherously held communication with and given
comfort to my enemies.…”
There were other charges, that would have sounded ludicrous at other
times, would have aroused her to fury, but she listened now,
husbanding all her strength for the coming struggle.
His rifle leant against the steps, but he barred her way effectively.
Looking round for some weapon, she saw nothing but the lamp and that
was too heavy for use.
“For you,” he said, in tones of deepest gravity, “there can be only
one punishment--death!”
His voice trembled. She felt that, in his queer, crazy way, he was
sorry for her, and regretted the necessity. She tried to rise, but her
limbs refused her office. She put out an appealing hand, and then,
with a sudden leap, he was on her. His hand closed about her throat
strangling the scream. And then, up above, there was the unmistakable
sound of footsteps and a deep voice. It was Dick. She tried to call
out, but he held her tight. With one hand he reached over and
extinguished the lamp; and now, in a final desperation of fear, she
threw him backward and for a second he released his hold.
But before her tortured throat could utter a sound he was at her
again; pressing her back against the edge of the table. She tore at
his hand, but it was immovable.… This was death! A loud ringing in her
ears, a fiery light before her eyes; she was losing consciousness… and
then she felt the table move, at first slowly and then so rapidly that
she lost her balance. The big refectory table was sliding lengthways
toward the end wall. His grip relaxed and in that instant he dropped
away from her, and, reaching out her hand, she could feel nothing. She
heard a thud and a groan and stepped forward--into space. She did not
see the yawning cavern before her. One desperate effort she made to
recover her balance, caught at the hard edge of the floor as she fell,
and went slipping and sliding down stairs that cracked and broke
beneath her, until her feet struck something soft and yielding.
Overhead there was a deep rumbling sound, a soft thud, and silence.
LIX
Harry was unconscious. She felt his face and her fingers touched
something warm and wet.
She could see nothing; the darkness was impenetrable. No sound came
from the room from which she had fallen. The floor was thick, the
heavy oaken base of the refectory table gliding, she guessed on
rollers that worked as truly as they had when, hundreds of years
before, the Black Abbot found this exit so valuable, had slipped back
into its place. If she only had some sort of light! It occurred to her
to search the unfortunate Harry. Presently she found a silver box
containing matches. She struck one and looked around. They were lying
at the foot of what had once been a wooden stair. The treads were
broken, the heavily carved handrail had rotted, leaving two wide gaps.
Half the treads had vanished, the other half were now broken by her
fall.
Harry was lying in a recess carved from the solid rock, and left and
right ran a narrow passage streaming with water. She left the alcove
and struck another match. The passage curved and twisted so that only
a few feet in either direction was visible. Pools of still water
filled the hollows of the floor; long bunches of gray fungus,
grape-like in its formation, hung from the roof. Yet the air was sweet
enough. She felt a gentle draught coming from the left-hand passage,
but as yet she could not explore and she returned to Harry.
His eyes were closed, his lips bloodless, and through the grime his
face was gray. With a gasp of horror she thought he was dead, but when
she put her hand under his waistcoat she could feel the faint flutter
of his heart. He had an electric torch somewhere in his pocket, he had
told her, and she began to search. It necessitated moving him slightly
and as she did so he groaned. The lamp was in the tail pocket of his
frock-coat, a square, flat lamp, of a type usually to be found in
every room of Fossaway Manor.
She thought at first that the unconscious man carried two, but found
that the second package was a spare battery. Switching on the light,
she examined the roof above the broken stairs. She saw it was the
underside of a slab of wood. From here she could see the rollers on
which the table ran; stout things of wood. Near the head of the stairs
two large wooden grips projected downward, rather like the butts of
huge Browning pistols, and she guessed that by this means the table
was drawn back from below.
When she looked at Harry again he was staring upward with wondering
eyes.
“What happened?” he asked.
“We must have fallen through a trap,” she said. “Do you think you
could reach those handles?” She pointed to them.
He rose unsteadily to his feet, replaced his spectacles which had been
knocked off in his fall, and looked at the butts. Only two of the
treads remained intact. He tried one, but it broke under his feet and
the supporting posts were sagging.
“I can’t reach that,” he said. “It must be twelve feet high.”
Then she noticed his wound and made him sit down while she dressed it
with a strip of silk torn from her skirt.
“How on earth did we get into this beastly place?” he asked,
wondering. “Where are we?”
“We’re under the Abbey,” she said, and his frown ended in a grimace of
pain.
“Where is Dick?” he asked.
“He is up there, I think,” she said.
And yet why should Dick be there? He would not know his way into the
lower chamber, she thought, with a sinking heart.
“Do you think you can walk?”
He looked round in dismay.
“I can walk all right, but whither?”
“Let us try the left-hand passage first,” she suggested, and he was
agreeable.
The left-hand passage, they found, was a steep ascent which turned
continuously to the left. It was like one of those corkscrew tunnels
through which she had travelled in Switzerland, where the train
burrows its way upward in the heart of the solid rock. Was it above
Montreux or on Pilatus? She was too tired to think.
At the first turn she stopped. She had seen a glimmer of light, and,
making an inspection, she found a square hole, cut apparently in the
rock; the further end was covered with hanging weeds, and through
these she saw the light distinctly, a faint yellow glow. They
continued their climb, and presently came to another small opening.
Here, then, was one of the sources of air supply, though little came
this way, for when she lit a match before it the flame scarcely
wavered.
“How much farther are we going?” asked Harry faintly. “I’m nearly all
in.”