The roof of the works shone in answer to fitful moonlight, and they presented to his imagination a strange and unfamiliar appearance. Under the sleight of the hour they were changed and towered majestically above him. The Mill slept and in the creepy stillness, the river's voice, which he had hardly heard till now, was magnified to a considerable murmur. From far away down the valley came the song of the sea, where a brisk, westerly wind threw the waves on the shingle.
A feeling of awe numbed him, but it was not powerful enough to arrest his purpose. His plans had been matured for many days.
He meant to burn down the Mill.
Nothing was easier and a match in the inflammable material, of which the hackler's shop was usually full, must quickly involve the mass of the buildings.
It was fitting that where he had been impregnated by Mr. Baggs with much lawless opinion, Abel should give expression to his evil purpose. From the tar-pitched work-room of the hackler, fire would very quickly leap to the main building against which it stood, and might, indeed, under the strong wind, involve the stores also and John Best's dwelling between them. But it was fated otherwise. A very small incident served to prevent a considerable catastrophe, and when Abel broke the window of the hackling room, turned the hasp, raised it, and got in, a man lay awake in pain not thirty yards distant. The lad lighted a candle, which he had brought with him, and it was then, while he collected a heap of long hemp and prepared to set it on fire, that John Best, in torture from toothache, went downstairs for a mouthful of brandy.
Upon the staircase he passed a window and, glancing through it, he saw a light in the hackling shop. It was not the moon and meant a presence there that needed instant explanation. Mr. Best forgot his toothache, called his sailor son, who happened to be holiday-making at home, and hastened as swiftly and silently as possible over the bridge to the Mill. John Best the younger, an agile man of thirty, may be said to have saved the situation, for he was far quicker than his father could be and managed to anticipate the disaster by moments. Half a minute more might have made all the difference, for the heap of loose hemp and stricks once ignited, no power on earth could have saved a considerable conflagration; but the culprit had his back turned to the window and was still busily piling the tow when Best and his son looked in upon him, and the sailor was already half through the window before Abel perceived him. The youngster dashed for his candle, but he was too late, a pair of strong hands gripped his neck roughly enough, and he fainted from the shock.
They took him out as he had gone in, for the door was locked and Levi
Baggs had the key. Then the sailor went back to his home, dressed
himself and started for a policeman, while Mr. Best kept guard over
Abel.
When he came to his senses, the boy found himself in the moonlight with a dozen turns of stout fisherman's twine round his hands and ankles The foreman stood over him, and now that the house was roused, his wife had brought John a pair of trousers and a great coat, for he was in his night shirt.
"You'll catch your death," she said.
"It's only by God's mercy we didn't all catch our death," he answered. "Here's Sabina Dinnett's boy plotted to destroy the works, and we've yet to find whether he's the tool of others, or has done the deed on his own."