The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English
and I, Frank, and you, too, missy, my darling--and leave that being on the
bed to some one else. Tut! Don't look shocked! We are all going post to
what they call eternity, and may as well be above board while there's
time. As far as I am concerned, if I could first strangle Huddlestone and
then get Clara in my arms, I could die with some pride and satisfaction.
And as it is, by God, I'll have a kiss!"
Before I could do anything to interfere, he had rudely embraced and
repeatedly kissed the resisting girl. Next moment I had pulled him away
with fury, and flung him heavily against the wall. He laughed loud and
long, and I feared his wits had given way under the strain; for even in
the best of days he had been a sparing and a quiet laugher.
"Now, Frank," said he, when his mirth was somewhat appeased, "it's your
turn. Here's my hand. Good-bye, farewell!" Then, seeing me stand rigid and
indignant, and holding Clara to my side--"Man!" he broke out, "are you
angry? Did you think we were going to die with all the airs and graces of
society? I took a kiss; I'm glad I did it; and now you can take another if
you like, and square accounts."
I turned from him with a feeling of contempt which I did not seek to
dissemble.
"As you please," said he. "You've been a prig in life; a prig you'll die."
And with that he sat down in a chair, a rifle over his knee, and amused
himself with snapping the lock; but I could see that his ebullition of
light spirits (the only one I ever knew him to display) had already come
to an end, and was succeeded by a sullen, scowling humor.
All this time our assailants might have been entering the house, and we
been none the wiser; we had in truth almost forgotten the danger that so
imminently overhung our days. But just then Mr. Huddlestone uttered a cry,
and leaped from the bed.
I asked him what was wrong.
"Fire!" he cried. "They have set the house on fire!"
Northmour was on his feet in an instant, and he and I ran through the door
of communication with the study. The room was illuminated by a red and
angry light. Almost at the moment of our entrance, a tower of flame arose
in front of the window, and, with a tingling report, a pane fell inward on
the carpet. They had set fire to the lean-to outhouse, where Northmour
used to nurse his negatives.
"Hot work," said Northmour. "Let us try in your old room."
We ran thither in a breath, threw up the casement, and looked forth. Along
the whole back wall of the pavilion piles of fuel had been arranged and
kindled; and it is probable they had been drenched with mineral oil, for,
in spite of the morning's rain, they all burned bravely. The fire had
taken a firm hold already on the outhouse, which blazed higher and higher
every moment; the back door was in the center of a red-hot bonfire; the
eaves we could see, as we looked upward, were already smoldering, for the
roof overhung, and was supported by considerable beams of wood. At the
same time, hot, pungent, and choking volumes of smoke began to fill the
house. There was not a human being to be seen to right or left.
"Ah, well!" said Northmour, "here's the end, thank God!"
And we returned to My Uncle's Room. Mr. Huddlestone was putting on his
boots, still violently trembling, but with an air of determination such as
I had not hitherto observed. Clara stood close by him, with her cloak in
both hands ready to throw about her shoulders, and a strange look in her
eyes, as if she were half hopeful, half doubtful of her father.
"Well, boys and girls," said Northmour, "how about a sally? The oven is
heating; it is not good to stay here and be baked; and, for my part, I
want to come to my hands with them, and be done."
"There's nothing else left," I replied.
And both Clara and Mr. Huddlestone, though with a very different
intonation, added, "Nothing."
As we went downstairs the heat was excessive, and the roaring of the fire
filled our ears; and we had scarce reached the passage before the stairs
window fell in, a branch of flame shot brandishing through the aperture,
and the interior of the pavilion became lighted up with that dreadful and
fluctuating glare. At the same moment we heard the fall of something heavy
and inelastic in the upper story. The whole pavilion, it was plain, had
gone alight like a box of matches, and now not only flamed sky high to
land and sea, but threatened with every moment to crumble and fall in
about our ears.
Northmour and I cocked our revolvers. Mr. Huddlestone, who had already
refused a firearm, put us behind him with a manner of command.
"Let Clara open the door," said he. "So, if they fire a volley, she will
be protected. And in the meantime stand behind me. I am the scapegoat; my
sins have found me out."
I heard him, as I stood breathless by his shoulder, with my pistol ready,
pattering off prayers in a tremulous, rapid whisper; and, I confess,
horrid as the thought may seem, I despised him for thinking of
supplications in a moment so critical and thrilling. In the meantime,
Clara, who was dead white but still possessed her faculties, had displaced
the barricade from the front door. Another moment, and she had pulled it
open. Firelight and moonlight illuminated the links with confused and
changeful luster, and far away against the sky we could see a long trail
of glowing smoke.
Mr. Huddlestone, filled for the moment with a strength greater than his
own, struck Northmour and myself a back-hander in the chest; and while we
were thus for the moment incapacitated from action, lifting his arms above
his head like one about to dive, he ran straight forward out of the
pavilion.
"Here am I!" he cried--"Huddlestone! Kill me, and spare the others!"
His sudden appearance daunted, I suppose, our hidden enemies; for
Northmour and I had time to recover, to seize Clara between us, one by
each arm, and to rush forth to his assistance, ere anything further had
taken place. But scarce had we passed the threshold when there came near a
dozen reports and flashes from every direction among the hollows of the
links. Mr. Huddlestone staggered, uttered a weird and freezing cry, threw
up his arms over his head, and fell backward on the turf.
_"Traditore! Traditore!"_ cried the invisible avengers.
And just then a part of the roof of the pavilion fell in, so rapid was the
progress of the fire. A loud, vague, and horrible noise accompanied the
collapse, and a vast volume of flame went soaring up to heaven. It must
have been visible at that moment from twenty miles out at sea, from the
shore at Graden Wester, and far inland from the peak of Graystiel, the
most eastern summit of the Caulder Hills. Bernard Huddlestone, although
God knows what were his obsequies, had a fine pyre at the moment of his
death.
IX
I should have the greatest difficulty to tell you what followed next after
this tragic circumstance. It is all to me, as I look back upon it, mixed,
strenuous, and ineffectual, like the struggles of a sleeper in a
nightmare. Clara, I remember, uttered a broken sigh and would have fallen
forward to earth, had not Northmour and I supported her insensible body. I
do not think we were attacked: I do not remember even to have seen an
assailant; and I believe we deserted Mr. Huddlestone without a glance. I
only remember running like a man in a panic, now carrying Clara altogether
in my own arms, now sharing her weight with Northmour, now scuffling
confusedly for the possession of that dear burden. Why we should have made
for my camp in the Hemlock Den, or how we reached it, are points lost
forever to my recollection. The first moment at which I became definitely
sure, Clara had been suffered to fall against the outside of my little
tent, Northmour and I were tumbling together on the ground, and he, with
contained ferocity, was striking for my head with the butt of his
revolver. He had already twice wounded me on the scalp; and it is to the
consequent loss of blood that I am tempted to attribute the sudden
clearness of my mind.
I caught him by the wrist.
"Northmour," I remember saying, "you can kill me afterwards. Let us first
attend to Clara."
He was at that moment uppermost. Scarcely had the words passed my lips,
when he had leaped to his feet and ran toward the tent; and the next
moment, he was straining Clara to his heart and covering her unconscious
hands and face with his caresses.
"Shame!" I cried. "Shame to you, Northmour!"
And, giddy though I still was, I struck him repeatedly upon the head and
shoulders.
He relinquished his grasp, and faced me in the broken moonlight.
"I had you under, and I let you go," said he; "and now you strike me!
Coward!"
"You are the coward," I retorted. "Did she wish your kisses while she was
still sensible of what you wanted? Not she! And now she may be dying; and
you waste this precious time, and abuse her helplessness. Stand aside, and
let me help her."
He confronted me for a moment, white and menacing; then suddenly he
stepped aside.
"Help her then," said he.
I threw myself on my knees beside her, and loosened, as well as I was
able, her dress and corset; but while I was thus engaged, a grasp
descended on my shoulder.
"Keep your hands off her," said Northmour, fiercely. "Do you think I have
no blood in my veins?"
"Northmour," I cried, "if you will neither help her yourself, nor let me
do so, do you know that I shall have to kill you?"
"That is better!" he cried. "Let her die also, where's the harm? Step
aside from that girl! and stand up to fight."
"You will observe," said I, half rising, "that I have not kissed her yet."
"I dare you to," he cried.
I do not know what possessed me; it was one of the things I am most
ashamed of in my life, though, as my wife used to say, I knew that my
kisses would be always welcome were she dead or living; down I fell again
upon my knees, parted the hair from her forehead, and, with the dearest
respect, laid my lips for a moment on that cold brow. It was such a caress
as a father might have given; it was such a one as was not unbecoming
from a man soon to die to a woman already dead.
"And now," said I, "I am at your service, Mr. Northmour."
But I saw, to my surprise, that he had turned his back upon me.
"Do you hear?" I asked.
"Yes," said he, "I do. If you wish to fight, I am ready. If not, go on and
save Clara. All is one to me."
I did not wait to be twice bidden; but, stooping again over Clara,
continued my efforts to revive her. She still lay white and lifeless; I
began to fear that her sweet spirit had indeed fled beyond recall, and
horror and a sense of utter desolation seized upon my heart. I called her
by name with the most endearing inflections; I chafed and beat her hands;
now I laid her head low, now supported it against my knee; but all seemed
to be in vain, and the lids still lay heavy on her eyes.
"Northmour," I said, "there is my hat. For God's sake bring some water
from the spring."
Almost in a moment he was by my side with the water.
"I have brought it in my own," he said. "You do not grudge me the
privilege?"
"Northmour," I was beginning to say, as I laved her head and breast; but
he interrupted me savagely.
"Oh, you hush up!" he said. "The best thing you can do is to say nothing."
I had certainly no desire to talk, my mind being swallowed up in concern
for my dear love and her condition; so I continued in silence to do my
best toward her recovery, and, when the hat was empty, returned it to him,
with one word--"More." He had, perhaps, gone several times upon this
errand, when Clara reopened her eyes.
"Now," said he, "since she is better, you can spare me, can you not? I
wish you a good night, Mr. Cassilis."
And with that he was gone among the thicket. I made a fire, for I had now