For the first few days of her illness, Duffel came to inquire after Eveline. Finding that she was likely to remain sick for a length of time, if she ever recovered, he excused himself from further attentions by pleading the necessity of a previous engagement, which would probably require his absence for a week or possibly a fortnight. With apparently the deepest solicitude for the recovery of Eveline and of sympathy for Mr. Mandeville, he took his leave.
When a little way from the house, he muttered to himself:
"Well, I am free from the necessity of keeping up appearances here any longer. Now for the cave!"
In a short time, he was threading his way through the forest, mounted on a fine animal. A narrow path lay before him, which he followed for some miles, and then turned into the untrodden wilderness and wound his way through its trackless wastes. There were no signs indicating that the foot of man or domesticated beast had ever pressed the earth in those solitary wilds; yet Duffel seemed familiar with the place, as was evident from his unhesitating choice of ways and careless ease. He knew by marks, to others unseen, or, if seen, their significance unknown, that he was moving in the right direction. Having traveled several miles in this way, he at length came to a beaten path, at right-angles with the course he had been going, into which he guided his noble beast. After pursuing this latter course at a rapid rate for more than an hour, he again turned off into the woods, and, guided by the same mystic signs as before, shaped his course with unerring precision, notwithstanding the forest was so dense and overgrown with underbrush as to render it almost impervious to sight, and to an utter stranger a bewildering labyrinth, from whose mazes he might labor in vain to extricate himself, unless, indeed, he possessed the almost instinctive tact of the Indian, or the thorough knowledge of the most experienced backwoodsman.
Why Duffel was so obscurely careful in selecting his way, will presently be seen. In the direction last taken, he traveled on until the sun was bending to the western horizon, when he came to a thicket of bushes and vines, so compact in growth it seemed an impossibility to enter it, even in a crawling position, without the aid of an ax and pruning-knife. Glancing this way and that, as if to assure himself that no one was near, a precaution that might almost be set down as a useless exhibition of timidity in that wild out-of-the-way place, so far from the habitation of civilised man. Duffel, when satisfied that no human eye was upon him, dismounted, and leading his steed by the bridle a short distance to the left, paused, looked around him again, and then lifting a pendant prong of a bush, with a very slight exertion of strength, he moved back a large mass of vines and branches, which had been with great care and ingenuity, and at the expense of much labor, wrought into a door or gate of living durability.
Through this gate-way he first sent his horse, then entered and passed through himself, carefully shutting the verdure-hidden door behind him, and no eye could discover the place where he had disappeared.
From this entrance, a road, some five or six feet wide had been cut out into the middle of the thicket, which was a large open area covered with grass and shaded by bushy trees, of small altitude, with wide-extended branches. Arrived at this spot, Duffel unsaddled his horse and turned him loose to crop the luxuriant grass. A dozen others were there before him, and as it was impossible that they should get there unaided, their riders were no doubt somewhere near. But this was something expected by the new-comer, as he manifested no surprise thereat, but appeared well pleased at the discovery.
After looking about to see that all was well, Duffel bent his steps toward a certain point in the environing thicket, and lifting a small bough, opened another verdant door, but this time of such small dimensions as to barely admit a single person. A narrow path led away from this artfully-contrived entrance into the dark and tangled recesses beyond. It was now growing late; twilight was over the world, but it was quite dark where the intertwined foliage of vines and branches wove their impenetrable net above and at the sides of the lonely path, and Duffel was obliged to feel his way with care. A few minutes' walk, however, brought him to the border of a stream of some considerable size, the banks of which formed the boundary of the thicket. Precisely at the spot where he reached the stream, was a projecting rock, covered with a luxuriant growth of underwood, vines and flowers, which overhung its outer edge and draped down, like a thick curtain, to the depth of eight or ten feet. This rock extended some fifty yards up the stream from the place where Duffel stood, and outwardly about an average of four feet. Its peculiar formation, however, was hid from view by carefully trained bushes at its lower extremity. This care had been taken to hide a secret passage, which led along the bank, under the table-leaf rock just described.
Duffel again took the precaution to cast wary looks about him, in all directions; then parting the bushes at its opening, he entered the secret passage under the rock and groped his way along. About midway, he came to a pillar-like rock, which entirely blocked up the path. Turning sharply to the left, he felt his way a short distance, and came to an aperture in the wall-like stone. Here he paused a moment, and bent his ear in a listening attitude; then gave three distinct raps upon some substance that filled up the gap.
"Who is there?" was demanded in a stern voice from within.