The truth was that my blood was singing through my veins and my spirits were soaring. I would gladly have stood there forever, triumphant in the dark, with Miss Falconer’s soft, warm fingers trembling a little, but lying in contented, almost cosy, fashion under mine. Had there ever been such a girl, at once so sweet and so daring? To think how she had waited for me all through that battle below!
A little breathless murmur came to me through the darkness.
“Oh, Mr. Bayne! You were so wonderful! How am I ever going to thank you?” was what it said.
“You needn’t. Let me thank you for letting me in on it!” I exulted happily. “I give you my word, I haven’t enjoyed anything so much in years. It was all a hallucination, of course; but it was jolly while it lasted. I was only worried every instant for fear the hall and the men would vanish, like an Arabian Nights’ palace or the Great Horn Spoon or Aladdin’s jinn!”
Very gently she withdrew her fingers, and my mood toppled ludicrously. Why had I been rejoicing? We were in the deuce of a mess! So far I had simply won a half hour’s respite to be followed by the deluge; for if Blenheim had been ruthless before, what were his probable intentions now?
“We have lost our candle in the fracas,” I muttered lamely.
“It doesn’t matter. I have another,” she answered in a soft, unsteady voice.
As she coaxed the light into being, I made a rapid survey. We were in a room of gray stone, of no great size and quite bare of furnishing, save for a few stone benches built into alcoves in the wall. The bareness of the scene emphasized our lack of resources. As a sole ray of hope, I perceived a possible line of retreat if things should grow too warm for us, a door facing the one by which we had come in.
With all the excitement, I had forgotten Mr. Schwartzmann’s bullet, which, I have no doubt, had left me a gory spectacle. At any rate, I frightened Miss Falconer when the candle-light revealed me. In an instant she was bending over me, forcing me gently down upon a particularly cold, hard bench.
“They shot you!” she was exclaiming. Her voice was low, but it held an astonishing protective fierceness. “They—they dared to hurt you! Oh, why didn’t you tell me? Is it very bad?”