Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume III

by M. Y. Halidom

CHAPTER XIII.

It was the midnight hour, and the sky dark as pitch. The wind howled dismally through the trees, and seemed to shake the very foundations of this ancient hostelry. All the inmates of the 'Headless Lady' had retired to rest; that is to say, all the members of the club. Our host above was stirring, and had not yet made up his mind to go to roost. In fact, he seemed disposed to make a night of it, and enjoy himself as much as circumstances would permit.

The wind dashed the sleet against the window panes, and the ground was getting fast covered with snow. But our host stirred the fire, put on a fresh log, and filled himself up a glass of his own home brewed ale. First he took a sip, then setting his glass down, he next walked leisurely into the room adjoining for his tobacco box, with the intention of filling his yard of clay. His back was no sooner turned than the bulky figure of a man, in his stockinged feet, tripped lightly across the hall, and, quick as thought, dexterously emptied a white powder into the glass our host had left standing, then as speedily vanished.

He had hardly disappeared, when our host, suspecting nothing, re-appeared upon the scene, and proceeded to fill his churchwarden with some of his strongest tobacco. He then lighted his pipe by the fire, and throwing himself into an easy chair, puffed away complacently for a time. He was apparently musing, when, as if suddenly recollecting that his glass was at his elbow, he raised it to his lips and drained it to the dregs; making a wry face, as if he had just tossed off a dose of physic. He was on the point of filling up again from the jug close at hand, when a yawn escaped him. He had grown unaccountably sleepy. This feeling he at first endeavored to combat by having recourse to his snuff box, but the effect of the pungent herb was only temporary, for soon his eyelids fell, as if weighed down with lead, and he was now snoring loud, and as utterly oblivious as a corpse.

"I've drugged the old boy," said the man in black to his master, with a chuckle. "It's all plain sailing now. We've only got to pick the lock of the lady's room, stuff a handkerchief in her mouth, and carry her downstairs. The carriage is in readiness outside. Quick! Let's up and be doing."

Upstairs tripped the ruffianly bully as lightly and noiselessly as a grasshopper, followed closely by his aristocratic patron, and in a moment the two men stood before the chamber of the unconscious sleeper. It was locked, as they had anticipated; but with a deftness that argued much practice in this art, the bully soon succeeded in causing the lock to yield, and the door swung noiselessly back on its hinges. Aided by the light of a taper, which his lordship carried, the ruffian was enabled to make straight for the bed, and seizing the fair sleeper roughly in his powerful arms, was in the act of rushing downstairs with her when a shriek, so loud and piercing that it bid fair to waken the dead, resounded through the walls of this ancient hostel, startling from their sleep all its inmates, save our host, who was still as fast in the arms of Morpheus as when we left him.

"Damnation!" cried the bully, between his teeth, as he thrust a handkerchief into his victim's mouth, and hurried with her towards the hall door, whilst Lord Scampford followed close at his heels, a horse pistol in either hand.

The door of the inn was soon unbolted, and before any of the household could hurry to the spot, the pair of scoundrels were already outside in the bleak night air, and hailing his lordship's carriage, which now drew up. The liveried footman had opened the door of the carriage, and in another moment it would have closed securely upon these two arrant scoundrels and their helpless victim, while a crack of the coachman's whip would have carried them miles out of reach of all human opposition, had not at this juncture something quite unforeseen occurred.

From out the darkness a cloaked figure, with broad sombrero drawn down tightly over his eyes, suddenly emerged, and with a well-directed blow from a leaden-headed cane upon the bare head of the man in black, felled the gigantic bully, who measured his full length upon the ground covered with snow, still clasping in his arms the terrified and trembling form of our heroine, whose shrieks of "murder" and cries for help at length brought all the members of the club to the spot.