“You—yes, it is your inheritance. She left it—I enforce—you accomplish it.”
As he spoke, the bat made a faint noise that struck upon my ear like the amen of a demon, and, sweeping down from his cloud of cobwebs, he made a dash at Chaleco’s torch which was extinguished by his wings.
“Give me your hand!” The gipsy seized my arm as he spoke, and led me onward in the darkness. I followed in silence, rendered desperate by all I had suffered and seen.
At length we reached the open air, and stood together upon the entrance steps. The rain had ceased, the clouds were drifting together in broken masses, leaving fissures and gleams where the cold blue was visible, winding like half frozen rivers between the dull clouds. The dense vegetation, the vines and huge elms were dripping with rain, and every leaf shone like silver when the moon, for a moment, struggled out from the clouds that overwhelmed it.
My horse stood cowering by the steps. The whole force of the storm had beat cruelly upon the poor old fellow.
Chaleco lifted me to his back, and commanding me to wait, went away. Directly he came back, mounted on what appeared to be a spirited horse, which he rode without saddle.
“Come on!” he said, striking Jupiter with his whip, “let’s be moving.”
“Where?” I questioned, sick at heart with a fear that he would not allow me to return home.
“To your inheritance—to Greenhurst.”
“But that is not my inheritance!”