CHAPTER CV.
After the Murder.
The knocking continued without intermission for several seconds, and each blow seemed to Learmont as if it was struck upon his own heart.
“Britton, Britton,” he cried, “you hear. There is some alarm. Hasten, hasten, or we are lost.”
Britton turned his excited face towards the squire, and the dim light of the candle fell upon it, Learmont could not but be struck by its awful expression. The smith had at length succeeded in gratifying the long cherished desire of his heart, namely, to be in some dreadful manner revenged upon Jacob Gray. Wild excitement had caused him to do the deed which he had just committed, and every evil passion of his nature was peeping forth like a bold fiend from his countenance. Crimson spots of human gore were likewise upon his face—horrible evidences of the work he had been about.
“Who knocks?” he said in a low, earnest voice. “Who is mad enough to interfere with me?”
He raised in his hand the cleaver as he spoke—with a dull heavy splash there fell from its blade on to the floor “gouts of blood,” and Learmont turned away his head, sickened at the sight.
“Who dares, I say, to interfere with me?” repeated Britton. “Squire, Jacob Gray won’t trouble you any more.”
“Name him not—oh, name him not,” said Learmont. “Hark—hark!”
As he spoke, it appeared that whoever had been knocking at the outer door of the house had grown impatient, and burst it open, frailly as it had been fastened after the violence that had been used towards it by Britton, for there was heard a loud crash, and then a sound of rapid footsteps approaching.
“Flight—flight,” gasped Learmont, as he sprung towards the door.
“Flight be d—d,” said Britton, as he flourished the cleaver above his head. “I’m not going to be scared now because some one is coming.”
He then walked deliberately to Gray’s cloak, in which it will be recollected the confession was concealed, and wiped the reeking blade of the instrument, by which he had put Gray to death, upon it.
“For my sake, and your own,” said Learmont, “leave this room. What enemy to us can he be who is coming, unless we make him one?”
As he spoke, he seized the reluctant smith by the arm, and dragging him across the narrow landing pushed open another doorway on the same story, and entered an empty room.
Now that the savage smith had dipped his hands in Gray’s blood, he would, with wild ferocity, have defied the world; and it would have given him far greater pleasure to have been hindered in his retreat, and to have had to fight his way out of the house, with Bond’s cleaver, than to escape easily and without a struggle.
In order now to explain the cause of the violent knocking at so terrible a moment at the door, we must carry the reader back for a brief space to Albert Seyton and his lonely walk. Filled with surprise, as we know he was, to see the squire at such an hour making a clandestine entrance into the house in which Gray resided, he remained upon the tip-toe of expectation waiting his re-appearance, accompanied by Ada, in which case he felt that he could no longer restrain his impatience, but must fly across to her, and welcome her to freedom, even if it cost him the reproach of breaking his word, and his future friendship of the rich squire.
But as minute after minute passed languidly away, and no re-appearance look place, Albert’s impatience and anxiety became excruciating, and he could no longer stay within the deep doorway, but scarcely knowing what he did, he walked to the very middle of the road, and keeping his eyes fixed upon the door, with but now and then an occasional glance at the window, which he had all along pleased himself with the idea was that of Ada’s room, he trembled again with impatient excitement.
The profound stillness of everything surprised him, and more than once he was almost tempted to believe he must have been dreaming, when he supposed he saw Learmont enter the house at all. Suddenly, however, the silence was broken by a loud crash at the windows, and, by the dim and uncertain light, Albert saw some object apparently dashed through the glass, and then withdrawn again.
That object was the head of Jacob Gray, for then had Britten given him his death blow in the manner we have recorded.
Excited as he was, this maddened Albert, and the idea seizing him that Ada must be in some danger, he, on the impulse of the moment, knocked loudly at the door and finally with one vigorous rush against it, burst it open, and fell himself into the shop.
It was some moments before, in the dark, he could find the staircase; but, when he did, he ascended it as rapidly as he could, resolved when he reached the top, to make himself known by his voice.
“Ada—Ada,” he cried in a tone that rang through the house, and fell with a disagreeable chill upon the heart of Learmont, who immediately recognised in it the voice of Albert, and could not divine how at such a moment, he should happen to be at hand.
“Ada—Ada,” again cried Albert, and then Learmont laid his hands on the smith’s arm, and whispered—
“Britton, there is but one man there, let us kill him and escape.”
“I’m willing but where is Master Jacob’s money, and his confession, I should like to know?”
“The money I will make good to you, and I am quite convinced of what I always suspected, that there is no confession but what lay in Gray’s own brain.”
“Then it don’t lay in his brain now,” said Britton, “I’ll be sworn.”
“Hush—come on.”
“Ada—Ada,” cried Albert, pausing on the staircase, with the hope of hearing some answering sound, and more alarmed at the dead silence which prevailed in the house, than had he encountered noise, tumult, and evident danger.
“What the devil is he shouting in that way for?” muttered Britton.
“Hush—hush,” said Learmont. “Some cursed chance has brought him here. Let us descend, and, as you pass him, Britton—you understand me?”
“I do,“ said Britton. “Come on, then. Where’s your light.”
“We need none. I would not be seen by him. What you have to do, you can easily do in the dark—kill him or maim him. I care not which.”
“Well, squire,” muttered Britton, “you certainly do leave me all the work to do: but when one’s hands in, it ain’t much matter.”
Albert, in the excitement of his feelings, when he got as high as the second floor, paused, uncertain whether or not he had arrived on a level with the room of which the window had been broken so violently, and he stood for several minutes calling upon Ada, his voice, each time that he uttered her name, betraying the great anxiety which he laboured under, and which was momentarily increasing.
Suddenly, then, a voice answered him faintly, and guided by the sound, Albert pushed against a door, which, yielding to his touch, presented a dark room, into which he stepped, saying,—
“Whoever you are here, for Heaven’s sake, let me have a light.”
“Oh, spare a poor old creature, who hasn’t long to live,” said a voice.
“I intend you no harm,” said Albert, “but for God’s sake get me a light.”
There was a great creaking of an old crazy bedstead, and then the voice said, in the tremulous accents of old age,—
“Are you the man that lives up stairs?”
“No, no,” said Albert, “but get a light quickly.”
The old woman, after stumbling over every article of furniture in her room, at length found a tinder-box, and commenced striking a light with a particularly small bit of flint, which, produced, upon an average, one spark to every half dozen blows.
Albert Seyton, in his impatience, little suspected that the very circumstance of the old woman not being able to get him a light quickly saved his life, for while she was endeavouring to procure one, Learmont and Britton were creeping down the staircase with the expectation of meeting Albert and taking his life.
As they passed the door of the room in which Seyton was, and heard the hacking of the flint and steel, Britton muttered,—
“There’s some one getting a light, squire. We may as well move on, or shall I go in and smash whoever it is?”
“No, no; come on—come on,” said Learmont. “I know what it is, and there will come a time for rendering him innoxious. Come on—come on.”
They passed the door, and Albert was saved. In a few moments more the old woman procured a light, and then peering at Albert from her deep sunken eyes, she said,—
“And who may you be, young gentleman? I don’t know you, I’m sure.”
“Ask no questions,” cried Albert, as he took the light from her, “but on your soul, tell me, in which room of this house resides a young girl, by name, Ada?”
The old woman was alarmed at his vehemence, and tremblingly muttered, that she did not know who he meant, for there was no such person to her knowledge there.
“One Gray lives here?” said Albert.
“Oh, yes,” said the woman, “I’ve heard there’s a Mr. Gray up stairs.”
Albert waited not another moment, but bounded up the staircase with the light in his hand.
“Ada—Ada. ’Tis I—Albert,” he said, as he reached the top landing.
The echoes of the old house were the only sounds that replied to him, and shading the light with his hand, he walked into Jacob Gray’s room, the door of which was partially open. Everything appeared in confusion, and the first article that Albert trod upon was the cloak, which had fallen from its hook at the back of the door. A feeling of awe crept over him, which he could not account for. His blood seemed to creep through his veins, and there was an anxious flutter at his heart, as he again, but in a lower tone, pronounced the name of Ada.
All was silent as the grave. Albert stood a few paces only within the doorway, and his heart misgave him, that something dreadful must have happened to her he loved.
“Ada—Ada!” he cried, wildly. “If you live, speak—Gray—Learmont? Where are you all? Am I dreaming, or is this awful silence real? Ada—Ada—God of heaven? Where, oh, where are you, my Ada?”
He felt something soft and slimy under his feet. He stooped with the light—deadly sickness came over him—for a moment all objects swam before his eyes; he was compelled to hold the back of the chair for support—he was standing in a pool of coagulated blood!
How long it was then before he recovered full consciousness he knew not, but gradually his perceptions returned, and then he shrieked the name of Ada, with a tone of anguish, that would have saddened any heart, and lingered in the ears for months like a death shriek.
“They have killed her—they have killed her!” he cried, “Ada—Ada—I should have flown sooner to your aid—God help me, I am heart-stricken now for ever—she is dead—she is dead. My beautiful Ada—oh, God—oh, God!”
He reeled further into the room, and when he had passed the bed, which partially concealed the window he stood like one suddenly transformed to stone; for there lying in a ghastly heap, in a pool of blood, the features horribly disfigured, and scarcely a trace of the upper portion of the skull visible, his eyes fell upon what once was Jacob Gray.
All his air-drawn schemes—his deep resolves—his cunning—his cruelty—his avarice, and his ambition—where were they now? What had he reaped as the reward of his great selfishness? A death of horror. May Heaven have mercy on his soul.
Albert Seyton felt like one fascinated by the hideous glare of a serpent. He could not withdraw his eyes from the ghastly spectacle for many minutes, and while he so gazed, his very heart seemed to shrink within him, and a feeling of horror crept up—up to his brain, till a clammy perspiration broke out upon his brow, and hung there in heavy drops, while each breath he drew, was laboured and heavy.
It was frightful, but by the crushing blow of the cleaver, one of Gray’s eyes had been forced from its socket—it hung by a bleeding filament—round—glassy and fixed—it seemed to glare upon Albert like a thing of life—he could almost fancy it moved. The young man covered his eyes with his disengaged hand, as he said,—
“This must be a dream—God of heaven, this cannot be real—when oh, when shall I awake?”
Distinct sounds, as of many voices, now suddenly came upon his ears, and he started, as if the tones of a human voice had removed some spell from off his faculties. Louder and louder the sound came upon his ears. There were evidently several voices. Then he heard a confused trampling of feet—heavy footsteps were approaching.
“Thank God,” said Albert, with a feeling of inexpressible relief, as he felt sure now that some human beings besides himself were at hand. He withdrew himself with difficulty, from the awful-spectacle in Gray’s room, and proceeding to the head of the stairs, he said,—
“Help—help—murder—murder—murder.”