As Lord Bellefield gained the street, the conventional smile faded from his lips, and a dark, sullen expression imparted a gloomy ferocity to his countenance. His look did not belie the nature of his thoughts, which ran somewhat after the following fashion:—
“A pretty thing I’m in for—to think of that accursed Arundel turning up in such an out-of-the-way place as this! my ill-luck follows me everywhere. That scoundrel is my evil genius. I shall be rid of him to-morrow though, for I’ll shoot him like a dog; that’s some comfort.” He paused, then a new idea seemed to strike him, and he muttered, “Curse him, he means to murder me; I read it in his fiendish eyes. I wonder whether he is anything of a shot? A nice way to lose one’s life, in a quarrel with a tutor! it’s next door to going out with one’s valet. Well, I’m in for it, and must chance it; a quick aim and a hair trigger may pick him off, as it has done many a better fellow, before he has time to be mischievous. I wonder whether Charles or old Grant know of his being here? If not, the thing can be easily hushed up.” A sound as of a man’s footstep caused him to start and look round, but seeing no one he resumed, “Assassination is said to be one of the fashions of this place; I wish I was a little more au fait as to the customs of the natives, or had longer time to act in. I might get my friend quietly disposed of without risk or trouble.” He reflected a moment on the feasibility of such a scheme; but the spirit of revenge and hate was strong within him, and muttering a fearful curse, he added, “No!——————him, I’d rather shoot him with my own hand; that blow sticks by me.”
At this moment a man started out from a dark archway so suddenly as nearly to run against Lord Bellefield, who, drawing himself up indignantly, was about to commence an angry remonstrance, when his elbows were pinioned from behind, some person tripped up his heels, a cloak was flung over his head, and despite his attempts to free himself, he was overpowered and hurried away by a party of several men. After proceeding some short distance they reached the bank of a canal; here they paused, and still holding the cloak over the captive’s head to prevent him from giving an alarm, they bound his hands. One who seemed to possess authority over the others superintended this operation in person.
“Not so tight,” he said to an over-zealous individual who was tying the cord as though it were never to be unfastened, “not so tight, it will numb his arms. Now,” he continued, “raise him carefully;” and in obedience to his command Lord Bellefield felt himself lifted from his feet and placed in a lying posture at the bottom of what he rightly imagined to be a gondola.
Having ascertained by listening that a portion of his captors were engaged in rowing the boat, Lord Bellefield made an effort to remove the cloak from his face, at the same time slightly raising himself; immediately a heavy hand pressed him down, and a deep, low voice uttered the following caution, “There is the point of a knife within an inch of your heart; if you again attempt to move or speak I plunge it in!”
Thus warned, nothing remained but to lie still and await his captor’s pleasure, which alternative, distracted by mingled rage and fear, Lord Bellefield was forced to adopt. From the time occupied by their transit it appeared that they must have proceeded some considerable distance ere the gondola again stopped. Carefully guarded as before, the prisoner was taken on shore, and half-led, half-carried over some uneven, stony ground, in traversing which his conductors were more than once forced to turn aside as if to avoid some obstacle that lay in their path; he was then told to ascend steps; doors were unbarred to afford them ingress, and the air struck cold and damp, as from a vault. At length, apparently, they reached their destination, and the prisoner was made to sit down on a stone bench; a light was procured, and then the order was given, “Untie his hands, remove the cloak, and leave us.”
The persons spoken to obeyed, and in another moment Lord Bellefield was able to look round him. The chamber in which he found himself was small, the roof was high and vaulted, and the walls appeared of an immense thickness; the door was of oak, thickly studded with iron nail-heads; there was no fireplace; a ship’s lantern, hanging by a cord from the roof, dimly lighted the apartment, and a grated window, sunk in the thickness of the wall, seemed to afford the only means of communication with the outward air. As Lord Bellefield became aware of these particulars the men who had released his hands and removed the cloak quitted the room, locking and barring the door on the outside; in another moment the sound of their retreating footsteps echoed along the stone passage and died away in the distance. A shudder passed over Lord Bellefield’s frame as he found himself thus strangely left alone with one whose purpose he could scarcely imagine other than hostile. As his companion—who wore one of those half-masks termed a domino, which effectually concealed his features—did not seem inclined to address him, Lord Bellefield had time to examine, with a beating heart, the preparations made for his reception. The only article of furniture the apartment contained, with the exception of the stone bench on which he was seated, was a heavy oak table. At the end nearest him lay a cutlass, the blade crossed by that of a stiletto, in front of which was placed a loaded pistol. A similar arrangement of weapons garnished the other end of the table, at which stood the motionless figure of the stranger. The whole thing was so strange, and so like some fancy of a horrible dream, that it was with difficulty Lord Bellefield could believe the evidence of his senses. At length the silence became unendurable to such a degree that, even at the risk of hurrying on his fate, he resolved to break it. Addressing his captor, he asked, in a voice which trembled in spite of his efforts to appear cool and indifferent, “What place is this to which you have brought me?”
The person addressed paused a moment, and then, without removing his mask, replied, “A vault in the ruins of a convent on an island in the lagunes, a mile from Venice.”
Up to this moment Lord Bellefield had been possessed with a secret belief that his captor was none other than Lewis Arundel; and having already had a convincing proof both of his enemy’s bodily strength and of the implacable nature of his feelings towards him, the idea that he had kidnapped him and carried him off to this desolate place in order to force upon him a combat à l’outrance, with weapons in the use of which his skill as a duellist would avail him little, was by no means an agreeable one. This fear his companion’s speech had dispelled, for the voice, though deep and stern, was not the voice of Lewis. Ignorant of the existence of any other person likely to nourish deep feelings of revenge against him, Lord Bellefield immediately conceived that he had fallen into the hands of some English ruffian connected with banditti, in which case their object would probably be plunder; and the solitary chamber, the naked weapons, etc., mere scenic arrangements got up for the sake of intimidating him, and so making a better bargain. Much relieved by this view of the affair, he began—
“Your object in bringing me here is of course plunder, all this absurd mummery is therefore utterly needless; you have only to name some reasonable sum for my ransom, and as I cannot get out of the scrape otherwise, I must pay it.”