"WHEN ROGUES LIE AWAKE."
Up to this time the captain had been making holiday. He had been resting after his exertions for his country in the stone quarries at Portland, enjoying a little quiet repose amid the luxuries and beauties of the Park. But while he had been reposing he had not allowed himself to be lulled into a false sense of security.
He was fully aware that the position which he occupied at Penruddie was intangible and untenable.
He was, though John Mildmay's oldest and best-loved friend, only a visitor at the Park, and a guest of Mrs. Mildmay.
But the captain had determined from the first to change the position from that of a guest on sufferance to one of power and possession.
Captain Murpoint, as he leaned back in the carriage returning to the Park, watched from between his half-closed lids the thoughtful, pensive face of the girl who was usually so light-hearted, careless, and talkative.
"Is she in love with him?" he asked himself. "What a pity it is one cannot pick the secret chamber of a woman's heart as he picks a doorlock! I hope she may be; love is blind for all but the adored one, and Miss Violet's eyes will have no regard for me in my little game while they are fixed on the brave and stoical Leicester."
Poor Violet, it was not until some time afterward that she knew how cunning a spider was the considerate and well-bred Howard Murpoint.
Both the ladies were tired when they reached home, and ascended to their rooms, to which Captain Murpoint insisted upon carrying their silver candlesticks. Then, when he had heard the key turned in their respective chambers, he glided off to his own.
On the sofa sat Jem fast asleep, his head on his arm, and his thick, muscular hands—which still above the wrists bore the marks of the gang-chain—clinched at his side.
The captain looked down upon him, and then laid his white hand—which also, under the broad wristband, bore the telltale mark—upon Jem's shoulder.
Jem started up with an exclamation and an expression of fear so palpable that Captain Murpoint looked at him with some attention.
"Asleep, man," he said, rallying him in a soft, mocking voice. "You have been asleep for some weeks, my friend. It is time you, and I also, woke up. There is work to do."
"I'm glad of it," said Jem, with an oath and with a transient gleam of interest.
"Jem, you used to be able to climb. I have seen you cling to the cliffs like a bat, with your eyebrows. Have you lost that art?"
Jem shook his head.
"No," he said. "I'm pretty strong in this arm and I ain't lost my cheek, captain. They used to call me the monkey, and p'r'aps I deserved it."
"Then I think we'll test your power to-night," said the captain. "Can you get down to the stable?"
"Yes," said Jem, with a frown, "if it wasn't for the dog. He's a beast, and we hates each other like poison!"
"That's natural," smiled the captain. "Nevertheless you must get down, Jem. Reach me two or three pairs of those thick shooting stockings from that drawer."
Jem wonderingly obeyed.
"Now then, put two pair on over your shoes."
"Now creep down," said the captain, "and bring me a coil of rope from the large stable. I saw it there yesterday, hung above the corn bin. Here's a key. It fits it, for I tried it. There's a lantern, too, I shall want—a dark one. You'll find one in one of the stables, for I saw the groom trimming it."
Jem, whose spirits seemed to rise at the prospect of congenial employment, was about to start, but paused, and with a little hesitation said:
"But suppose I'm nabbed, captain? Rather awkward to be cotched in muffled boots shuffling round the stables."
The captain thought for a moment, then drew off a ring and handed it to him.
"If any one turns up go down on your hands and knees and say you are looking for my ring which I lost to-day. While they are looking on or helping, pick it up. That will avert all suspicion."
"'Pon my soul, it's wonderful; that's what it is!" said Jem, with ecstatic admiration of the captain's cleverness, and he departed.
After the lapse of half an hour the captain's quick ears caught the dull, muffled sound of the stockinged feet, and he sprang up as Jem entered with the coil of rope and the lantern.
"You alarmed no one?" said the captain.
"Not a soul," said Jem, with great triumph.
"Then you may keep the ring," said the captain, and he stopped Jem's thanks by adding:
"Now for the gymnastics. Next to this room," and he touched the wall with his white forefinger, "there is an empty room which has been closed, screwed up, for years. I want to find a way of getting into that room on the quiet. I want to creep in there one night and out of it like a ghost——Why, what in the name of Jupiter is the matter with you?" he broke off to exclaim, for Jem's face had got as white as the supernatural phenomenon he, the captain, wished to imitate, and his eyes were fixed with horror and disquietude. "What's the matter with you, you idiot?"
"Captain, I'd climb the cliff, or walk a hundred miles, or—or—anything you'd ask me, but I can't go near that room! I've seen—there, never mind what I have seen! I won't go near it, and that's flat!"
The captain rose and walked to his bureau, from the drawer of which he took a neat little revolver.
Then, as if Jem had offered no objection he continued, in a smooth voice:
"I want you, Jem, to drop from this window onto the ivy beneath and to climb up to the window of the empty room. I will hold the one end of the rope, the other you shall tie round your waist. When you get to the window—which has no shutters—you will throw the light from the lantern all round the room and ascertain in what direction the door lies, what furniture the room contains, and its condition. In fact you shall give me a complete description of it. Do you go?"
"No," said Jem, with an oath. "I know what I've seen, and don't go interfering where a human being shouldn't. I don't go, captain."
The captain took out his watch and chain and dropped them on the floor.
"Very good," he said, raising the revolver with calm but suppressed passion, "this is the only thing I have asked you to do in return for all I have done for you. You cur, I saved you from the chain-gang. I have fed you, clothed you, made a man of you, and like an overfed dog you turn, do you? Move a step"—for Jem, stung by the truth in the taunt, had with a scowl advanced a step—"move an inch and I'll shoot you without further parley! I'll shoot you as it is," he continued, taking accurate aim.
"If you dare to disobey me, I'll shoot you and summon the house to hear me tell you attacked me for my watch. The watch lies there, where it fell during our struggle; my ring, which you stole from my finger while I slept, is in your pocket; you are muffled like a burglar, and you have burglarious instruments in your hands. You see, Jem, you die, shot through the head, and everybody believes I shot you in self-defense."
Jem gradually grew white with mingled awe and fear.
He flung his hand down upon the table with an oath.
"I'll do it," he swore. "You're worse than a ghost, captain; you're worse than the very fiend himself. Sometimes I do believe you are him. I'll do it; I can't stand agin you, it's no use; ghost or no ghost I must cave in. Ring, watch, these 'ere stockings on—s'welp me, you planned it all!"
The captain smiled, but instead of retort uncoiled the rope, and by a gesture bade his tool fasten it round his waist. Then he oiled the window sashes so that the window might go up easily, lit the lantern, and after a long, breathless pause of listening motioned to Jem to let himself down.
With intense interest, which was perfectly hidden under a calm, almost indifferent bearing, the captain watched his accomplice, as Jem, with monkeyish agility, dropped onto the thick boles of the ivy and clung to the stems as they in turn clung to the old walls.
Then he saw him rise hand over hand toward the window.
He gained the broad window ledge and, summoning all his doglike courage, dashed the cold perspiration from his brow and turned the light of the lantern full into the empty haunted room.
There was, however, nothing supernatural or ghostly to be seen.
It was an ordinary sized room, smaller than most of the modern rooms in the Park, and furnished in the style of a study or library.
There was a large old-fashioned bureau, an iron safe, half a dozen heavy, leather-backed, oak chairs and some shelves loaded with books.
A waste-paper basket stood under the table, and on the blotting paper upon the desk were some papers, as if they had been left by some one who intended returning within half an hour.
Upon all, table, desk, chairs, bureau, safe, lay the dust scattered by the hand of time, half an inch thick.
Jem took in all the details and then turned to descend.
In another moment the captain held out his hand and helped him into the room.
Jem, at first sullenly, but presently with some interest, described the room.
The captain asked question after question, all the while drawing on a piece of paper. At last when he had got all the information which Jem could possibly give he held out the piece of paper.
"Is that like it?" he said, with a smile.
Jem stared.
"It's the very room!" he exclaimed, wonder struck. "The furniture ain't quite like, but every bit on it shows in the proper place, and, s'welp me, captain, you must be Old Nick!"
"Perhaps," said the captain, with a smile. "And now you may go to bed."
Jem, without further parley, slipped off the rope and the stockings, and, still in a maze of fear, cunning, and admiration, departed.
The captain lit another cigar, and sat smiling at his paper until the dawn crept up from the east.
"When rogues lie awake," says an old proverb, "let honest men beware!"