"THE NEGRO ADVANCED TO THE PORTMANTEAU ... AND DISPLAYED THE CONTENTS TO HIS MASTER"
This time not one, but two waxen faces—so exactly alike that they might have been cast in the same mould—reposed side by side, smiling in sphinx-like silence upon their bed of snowy lamb's wool.
And, as before, the jewels about which the brothers had once been so anxiously concerned were scattered as in mockery in a shower of sparkling and variegated brilliancy upon the immobile lineaments within.
"It is accomplished," said a calm and dispassionate voice; "and it is well."
Then, directing his words to Griscombe, the speaker continued! "You have been the instrument of fate, and you have performed your part with admirable exactitude. Ask what return you desire, and it is yours."
At these words a sudden inspiration, as it were, seized upon Griscombe. "Who you are and what you are," he cried, "I do not know, nor do I ask aught of you but one thing: it is that I be allowed to convey the young lady yonder in safety from this terrible place."
A moment or two of silence followed this, and then the same dispassionate voice resumed its speech. "I had intended," said the speaker, calmly, "a different fate for her. But be it as you will: she is yours. One thing only I demand of you. It is that you deliver to me the letter of instruction that her father wrote to M. de Troinville. Give me that, and take the girl. The coach that brought you hither, still waits below. It will transport you whithersoever you may order. You have entirely served my ends, and now you are free to go."
Upon the instant a remote clock struck the hour of twelve; and, as in echo, the chimes of Trinity Church began ringing at no great distance, heralding for Griscombe the most extraordinary Christmas Day that was, perhaps, ever experienced by any person in the United States before or since.
So concludes this part of our narrative, with this to add,—that Griscombe conveyed that precious charge, whom he had rescued from a dreadful and mysterious fate, to the City Hotel, where, declaring that she was a traveller who had been taken with a sudden illness, he confided her to the care of the worthy hostess of that excellent and well-known hostelry.