CHAPTER XIV.
MONA FINDS FRIENDS.
When Mona awoke again it was dark.
The lamps were lighted in the saloon, however, and shone dimly into her stateroom through the glass in the door.
She at once became conscious that the steamer had stopped, while the confusion and bustle on deck told her that they had arrived in port and the vessel was being unloaded.
She hastily arose and dressed to go ashore, and she had hardly completed her toilet when some one rapped upon her door.
Opening it she found Louis Hamblin standing outside.
"We have arrived," he said. "How soon can you be ready to go ashore?"
"Immediately," Mona replied, then asked: "Where is Mrs. Montague?"
"Waiting for us in the carriage. I thought I would take one invalid at a time," he responded, smiling.
"What time is it, please?" the young girl asked, thoughtfully.
"Nearly ten o'clock. We are very late arriving to-night."
Mona looked blank at this reply, for she felt that it would be too late to go to Mr. Graves' that night. She would be obliged to go home with Mrs. Montague after all, and remain until morning. So she said nothing about her plans, but followed Louis above to the deck, out across the gangway to the pier, where a perfect babel prevailed, although at that moment, in the excitement of getting ashore, she did not notice anything peculiar about it.
The young man hurried her to the carriage, which proved to be simply a transportation coach belonging to some hotel, and was filled with people.
"We have concluded to go to a hotel for to-night, since it is so late and the servants did not know of our coming," Louis explained, as he assisted his companion to enter the vehicle, which, however, was more like a river barge than a city coach.
"I do not see Mrs. Montague," Mona said, as she anxiously tried to scan the faces of the passengers, and now noticed for the first time that most of them appeared to be foreigners, and were talking in a strange language.
"Can it be possible that I have made a mistake and got into the wrong carriage?" said Louis, with well-feigned surprise. "There were two going to the same hotel, and she must be in the other. She is safe enough, however, and it is too late for us to change now," he concluded, as the vehicle started.
Mona was very uncomfortable, but she could not well help herself, and so was obliged to curb her anxiety and impatience as best she could.
A ride of fifteen or twenty minutes brought them to the door of a large and handsome hotel, where they alighted, and Louis, giving her bag and wrap to the porter, who came bowing and smiling to receive them, told Mona to follow him into the house while he looked after the trunks.
Without suspecting the truth, although she was sure she had never been in that portion of the city before, the young girl obeyed, but as she stepped within the handsomely lighted entrance, she was both confused and alarmed by the fact that she could not understand a word of the language that was being spoken around her, while she now observed that the hotel had a strangely foreign air about it.
"There is something very wrong about this," she said to herself. "It does not seem like New York at all, and I do not like the idea of Mrs. Montague keeping herself so aloof from me. Even if she were sick, or angry with me, she might at least have shown some interest in me. I do not like Louis Hamblin's manner—he does not appear natural. I wish—oh, I wish I had gone home by rail. I am sure this is not New York. I am afraid there is something wrong."
She arose and walked about the room, into which the porter had shown her, feeling very anxious and trembling with nervousness. It was very strange, too, that Louis did not make his appearance.
Even while these thoughts occupied her mind he came into the room, and
Mona sprang toward him.
"What does this mean?" she demanded, confronting him with blazing eyes and burning cheeks.
"What does what mean?" he asked, but his glance wavered before hers.
"This strange hotel—these foreign-looking, foreign-speaking people? Why does not Mrs. Montague come to me? Everything is very mysterious, and I want you to explain."
"Aunt Margie has gone to her room, and—" Louis began, ignoring every other question.
"I do not believe it!" Mona interrupted, with a sinking heart, as the truth began to dawn upon her. "I have not seen her since we left New Orleans. I have seen only you. There is some premeditated deception in all this. I do not believe that we are in New York at all. Where are we? I demand the truth."
Louis Hamblin saw that he could deceive her no longer; he had not supposed he could keep the truth from her as long as he had.
"We are in Havana, Cuba," he braced himself to reply, with some appearance of composure, which he was far from feeling.
"Havana!—Cuba!" cried Mona, breathlessly. "Ah! that explains the foreign language—and I do not know Spanish." Then facing him again with an air and look that made him cower, in spite of his bravado, she sternly asked: "Why are we here?"
"We are here in accordance with Mrs. Montague's plans," he answered.
"Mrs. Montague had no right to bring me here without consulting me," the young girl returned, passionately. "Where is Mrs. Montague?"
"I expect that Aunt Marg is in New York by this time," Louis Hamblin now boldly asserted.
"What?" almost shrieked Mona, smitten to the heart with terror at this intelligence. "Oh! you cannot mean to tell me that you and I have come to Havana alone! That—that—"
A hot blush mounted to her forehead, and for a moment she was utterly overcome with shame and horror over the terrible situation.
"Yes, that is just what we have done," Louis returned, a desperate gleam coming into his eyes, for he began to realize that he had no weak spirit to deal with.
There was a prolonged and ominous silence after this admission, while Mona tried to rally her sinking spirits and think of some plan of escape from her dreadful position.
When she did speak again she was white to her lips, but in her eyes there shone a resolute purpose which plainly indicated that she would never tamely submit to the will of the man before her.
"How have you dared to do this thing?" she demanded, but so quietly that he regarded her in astonishment.
"I have dared because I was bound to win you, Mona, and there seemed no other way," he returned, in a passionate tone.
"And did you imagine for one moment that you could accomplish your purpose by decoying me into a strange country?"
"Yes; but, Mona—"
"Then you have yet to learn that you have made a great mistake," was the haughty rejoinder. "It is true that I am comparatively helpless in not being able to understand the language here; but there are surely people in Havana—there must even be some one in this hotel—who can speak either French or German, if not English, and to whom I shall appeal for protection."
"That will do you little good," retorted Louis, flushing with anger at the threat, "and I may as well tell you the truth first as last. Mona, you will have to give yourself to me, you will have to be my wife. Mrs. Montague and I have both decided that it shall be so, and we have taken pains to prevent any failure of our plan. You may appeal as much as you wish to people here—they cannot understand you, and you will only lay yourself liable to scandal and abuse; for, Mona, you and I came to Havana, registered as man and wife, and our names stand upon the register of this hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Hamblin, of New York, where already the story of our elopement from New Orleans has become the talk of the town."
The deadly truth was out at last, and Mona, smitten with despair, overcome by the revelation of the dastardly plot of which she was the victim, sank helplessly upon the nearest chair, quivering with shame and horror in every nerve, and nearly fainting from the shock which the knowledge of her terrible danger had sent vibrating through her very soul.
She covered her face with her hands, and tried to think, but her temples throbbed like hammers, her brain seemed on fire, and her mind was in a perfect chaos.
She sat thus for many minutes, until Louis Hamblin, who was hardly less excited than herself in view of his anxiety as to what would be the result of this critical interview, could endure the silence no longer, and quietly but kindly remarked:
"Mona, I think it is best that you should go to your room and rest; it is late, and you are both weary and excited. To-morrow we will talk this matter over again, and I hope that you will then be more reasonable."
The sound of his voice aroused all her outraged womanhood, and springing to her feet again, she turned upon him with all the courage of a lioness at bay.
"I understand you," she cried. "I know why you and that unprincipled woman have so plotted against me. You were afraid, in spite of what I told you the other night, that I would demand your fortune, if I once learned the whole truth about myself. I have learned it, and I have the proof of it also. A message came to me, after my interview with you, telling me everything."
"I do not believe you," Louis Hamblin faltered, but growing very pale at this unexpected information.
"Do you not? Then let me rehearse a little for your benefit," Mona continued, gathering courage as she went on, and in low but rapid tones she related something of the secret which she had discovered in the royal mirror—enough to convince him that she knew the truth, and could, indeed, prove it.
"Now," she continued, as she concluded this recital, "do you think that I will allow you to conquer me? You have been guilty of a dastardly act. Mrs. Montague has shown herself to be lacking in humanity, honor, and every womanly sentiment; but I will not be crushed; even though you have sought to compromise me in this dreadful way I will not yield to you. Your wife I am not, and no writing me as such upon steamer and hotel registers can ever make me so. You may proclaim from one end of New York to the other that I eloped with you from New Orleans, but it will not serve your purpose, and the one for whom I care most will never lose faith in me. And, Louis Hamblin, hear me; the moment I find myself again among English-speaking people, both you and Mrs. Montague shall suffer for this outrage to the extent of the law. I will not spare you."
"That all sounds very brave, no doubt," Louis Hamblin sneered, but inwardly deeply chagrined by her dauntless words and bearing, "but you are in my power, Miss Montague, and I shall take measures to keep you so until I tame that haughty spirit somewhat. You will be only too glad to marry me yet, for I have gone too far in this matter to be balked now. When you leave Havana you will go as Mrs. Louis Hamblin, or you will never go."
"I would rather never go than as your wife, and I will defy you until I die!" was the spirited retort, and the man before her knew that she meant it.
He wondered at her strength of purpose and at her courage. Many girls, finding themselves in such a woeful strait, would have been entirely overcome—would have begged and pleaded in abject fear or weakly yielded to circumstances, and married him, but Mona only seemed to gather courage as difficulties closed around her.
She looked very lovely, too. She had lost a little flesh and color during her illness on shipboard, and her face was more delicate in its outlines than usual. She would have been very pale but for the spot of vivid scarlet that glowed on each cheek, and which was but the outward sign of the inextinguishable spirit that burned within her. Her eyes gleamed with a relentless fire and her slight but perfect form was erect and resolute in its bearing.
Louis Hamblin for the moment felt himself powerless to combat with such mental strength, and ignoring entirely what she had just avowed, again asked:
"Will you go to your room now?"
He did not wait for any reply, but touched a bell, and a waiter almost immediately appeared to answer the call.
Louis signified to him that his companion wished to retire, whereupon the man took her bag and wrap and motioned Mona to follow him.
With despair in her heart, but a dauntless mien, the fair girl obeyed, and crossing the wide entrance hall, mounted the great staircase to the second story.
As they were passing through a long upper hall a door suddenly opened, and a gentleman came out of one of the rooms.
Mona's heart gave a leap of joy as she saw him, for she was almost sure that he was an American, and she was on the point of speaking to him, but he passed her so quickly she had no opportunity.
She was rejoiced, however, to observe that her guide stopped before the door of a room next to the one which the stranger had just left, and she resolved that she would listen for his return, and manage to communicate with him in some way before morning.
The porter threw open the door, and stood aside to allow her to pass in.
The room was lighted, and she saw that while it was not large, it was comfortably furnished, and her trunk stood unstrapped in one corner. The next moment the door closed upon her, and she heard the key turned in the lock.
A bitter sob burst from her as she dashed the hot tears from her eyes, and a low, eager cry broke from her lips as she noticed that a door connected her room with the one from which the gentleman had issued a few moments before.
She sprang toward it, and turned the handle.
It was locked, of course. She told herself she might have known it would be, but she had acted upon an uncontrollable impulse.
But as she released her hold upon the knob she thought she heard some one moving about within the other room.
Perhaps the gentleman had his wife with him, and impelled by a wild hope, Mona knocked upon a panel to attract attention, and the next moment she was sure she caught the rustle of skirts as some one glided toward her.
Putting her lips to the key-hole, she said, in a low, appealing tone:
"Oh! can you speak English, French, or German? Pray answer me."
She thought she had never heard sweeter music than when the clear, gentle voice of a woman replied:
"I can speak English, but no other language."
"Oh! I am so glad!" almost sobbed Mona. "Please put your ear close to the key-hole, and let me tell you something. I dare not talk loud for fear of being overheard. I am a young girl, a little more than eighteen years old, and I am in a fearful extremity. Will you help me?"
"Certainly, if you are in need of help," returned the other voice.
"Oh, thank you! thank you!" cried Mona, and then in low, rapid tones she briefly told her story to the listener on the other side of the door.
When she had concluded, the woman said, wonderingly:
"It is the most dreadful thing I ever heard of. My brother, with whom I am traveling, will soon be back. We are to leave early in the morning, and he has gone down to the office to settle our bill and make necessary arrangements. I will tell him your story, and we will see what can be done for you."
Mona again thanked her, but brokenly, and then overcome by this unexpected succor she sank prone upon the floor weeping passionately; the tension on her nerves had given way and her overwrought feelings had to have their way.
Presently a hand touched the key in her door.
Startled beyond measure, she sprang to it, feeling sure that Louis
Hamblin stood without.
"Do not dare to open this door," she cried, authoritatively.
"Certainly not; I simply wished to ask if you have everything you wish for the night," the young man returned, in perfectly courteous tones.
"Yes."
"Very well, then; good-night. I hope you will rest well," he said, then drawing the key from the lock, he passed on, and the next moment Mona heard a door shut across the hall.
It was scarcely five minutes later when she heard some one enter the room next to hers, and her heart leaped again with hope.
Then she heard a gentleman and lady conversing in low tones, and knew that her story was being repeated to one who had the power, if he chose to use it, to save her from her persecutor.
A little later she heard the gentleman go to a window and open it.
Then there came a gentle tap upon the door, and the lady said to the eager ear at the key-hole:
"There is a little balcony outside our window and another outside yours with only a narrow space between. My brother says if you will go out upon yours he will help you across to us, then we can talk more freely together, and decide upon the best way to help you. Turn down your light first, however, so that no one outside will see you."
"Yes, yes," breathed Mona, eagerly, and then putting out her light, she sprang away to the window.
She raised it as cautiously as she could, crept out upon the narrow iron balcony, and found a tall, dark figure looming up before her upon the other.
"Give me your hands," said the gentleman, in a full, rich voice that won the girl's heart at once, "then step upon the railing, and trust yourself entirely to me; you will not fall."
Mona unhesitatingly reached out her hands to him; he grasped them firmly; she stepped upon the railing, and the next moment was swung safely over the space between the two balconies, and stood beside her unknown friend.
He went before her through the window, and assisted her into the darkened room; the curtain was then lowered, and the gas turned up, and Mona found herself in the presence of a tall, handsome man of about thirty-three years, and a gentle, attractive-looking woman a few years his senior.