“Can it be possible that those things never happened, and that Dick Mortimer, with his lantern and revolver, the long, dark passage-way, and the feeble old man who frightened him so terribly, were objects that I saw only in my dreams?” exclaimed Julian.
As this thought passed through his mind he sprung from the couch, and running to the opposite side of the room pulled up the hangings, fully expecting to find there the opening through which his captor had conducted him into the passage-way. But the wall was as solid as ever—not one of the huge blocks of stone was out of place.
“If I dreamed that I did not dream that I left these curtains all down and the windows closed, did I?” Julian asked himself in deep perplexity. “Somebody has certainly been in here while I was asleep, and he didn’t come in through the door either. I’ve spent my last night in this house. I didn’t hear any of those frightful sounds Sanders heard the night he slept here, but I’ve seen enough. If I ever get outside these walls I’ll not come back. What’s this?”
After hastily throwing on his clothes Julian stepped to the table to help himself to a glass of water from the pitcher that some thoughtful hand had placed there, when his eyes fell upon a paper, folded in the form of a letter, and addressed to himself. With eager haste he opened it, and after some trouble, for the spelling was defective and the writing almost illegible, he deciphered the following:
“Have no fear. Watchful friends are near you, and no harm shall come to you. Reginald Mortimer is your uncle. Treat him as such.”
Julian read these mysterious words over and over again, and finally carried the paper to the window and examined it on all sides, in the hope of finding something more—something to tell him who these watchful friends were, and where the missive came from. Being disappointed in these hopes he put the letter carefully away in his pocket and resumed his toilet. He was a long time about it, for he frequently stopped and stood at the window gazing out at the mountains on the other side of the valley, or walked up and down the room with his eyes fastened on the carpet. His mind was busy all the while, and by the time he was ready to leave the room he had thought over his situation and determined upon a plan of action. Just then the little clock on the mantel struck the hour of 10.
“I am getting fashionable,” said Julian, who, remembering how carefully Richard Mortimer was always dressed, and believing that Uncle Reginald, as he had determined to call him, might be equally particular, stopped to take another look at himself in the mirror before quitting the room.
It was a very handsome face and figure that the polished surface of the glass reflected. A finely embroidered shirt with wide collar and neck-tie, a closely fitting jacket of dark-blue cloth, black velvet trousers, brown cloth leggings with green fringe, light shoes, and a long crimson sash worn about the waist, completed an attire that set off his slender, well-knit frame to the very best advantage. One could scarcely recognize in him the half-starved ragamuffin whose daily duty it had been to keep Mrs. Bowles supplied with back-logs and fore-sticks.
Having satisfied himself that he was presentable, Julian undid the numerous fastenings of the door, smiling the while to think how inefficient they had proved to keep out the intruders of whom he stood so much in fear, and was about to pass out into the hall when the sound of voices reached his ears. He paused and listened, his attention being attracted by the mention of the name of one in whom he was now more than ever interested.
“Wal, I don’t reckon we could help it, could we?” growled a voice which the boy knew belonged to the trapper Sanders. “Me an’ my pardner ain’t the men to let $5,000 slip through our fingers without doin’ our level best to hang onto it, be sure?”