My first impulse, naturally, was to wake Ean and to let him know what I had seen. No very courageous person at the best, I have always been greatly afraid of the presence of strange men about the house, and this visitation at such an hour would surely have alarmed the bravest. As if to magnify my fears, there was the light of our observatory shining brightly across the park to tell me plainly that my brother was still at work, and that the invaluable Okyada must be with him. My maid, Humphreys, and the poor old butler, Williams, were my only janissaries, and what could one hope for from them in such an emergency? I began to say that if the men succeeded in entering the house, the peril were grave indeed; and then, upon this, I recollected Ean’s warning, and tried to take comfort of it. Had he not said that there might be men about the house assisting him? Why, then, should I be afraid? I will tell you—because it came to me suddenly that he must have been aware of a probable attack upon the Manor, and had wished to prepare me for anything the night could bring forth. There was no other reasonable explanation.
Judge, then, in what a dilemma I found myself. My brother away at the observatory, half a mile at least from the Manor; two old servants for my body-guard; a lonely house and strange men seeking to enter it. Driven this way and that by my thoughts, at first I said that I would take Ean at his word, and hide away from it all like a true coward in my bed. This I would have done if the doing of it had not been unsupportable. I could not lie. My heart was beating so; every sound so distressed me, that I arose in desperation, and putting on my dressing gown with trembling fingers, determined to wake up my maid Humphreys; for, said I, she cannot be more afraid than I am. Not an over-bold resolution at the best, the execution of it would never have been attempted had I known what was in store for me. Shall I ever forget it, if I live a hundred years? The dark landing when I opened my bedroom door! The staircase with the great stained window and the moonlight shining down through it! These could not affright me. It was the whisper of voices I heard below, the soft tread of feet upon velvet-pile. Ah! those were sounds I shall ever remember!
The men had entered the house; they were coming upstairs. If I crossed the dark landing to my maid’s room, assuredly I should alarm them. These were the reflections as I stood simply paralysed with fright and unable to utter a single cry or to move from the place. Step by step I heard the thieves creeping up the stairs until at last I could see them in the bay of the entresol and tell myself, in truth, that I was not dreaming. Then I do believe that I half swooned with terror.
They were coming up step by step to visit and to rob my brother’s safe, kept in the dressing-room, where the Japanese, Okyada, usually slept. This much even my agitated mind impressed upon me. A terrified woman fearing discovery as something which might bring these men’s vengeance upon her, yet for all the gold in the world I could not have uttered a single cry. A sense of utter dread robbed me of all power of will and speech. I could hear my heart beating so that I thought even they must hear it as they passed me by. And you shall imagine my feelings when I say that the rays from the dark lanterns they carried were turned upon the very door of my bedroom which I had but just shut behind me.
Had they been diverted a hair’s-breadth to the right, they would have discovered me, standing with my back to the wall, a helpless and, I do protest, a pitiable figure. But the robbers were too set upon the jewels to delay for any such unlikely chance, and they went straight on to my brother’s room; and entering it, to my surprise, without difficulty, I heard them shut the door and lock it behind them.
So there I stood, my limbs still trembling, but the spell of immediate fear already a little removed from me. Dreading discovery no longer, I crossed the landing silently and entered my maid’s room. A courageous woman, far braver than her mistress—for she is of Irish descent, and does not know what the meaning of fear is—she heard me with as little concern as if I had been ordering her to go shopping into Cambridge.
“The master’s away in the Park,” she said; “then we must fetch him, mistress. I’ll go myself. Do you wait here with me until I am dressed.”
I dreaded being left, and made no scruple to tell her so.
“Why, that’s all right,” she exclaimed, quite cheerily. “I’ll go and call Williams. They’ll be off fast enough, mistress, if they get the diamonds. Now, do you just sit here quietly, and think nothing at all about it. I’ll be there and back like master’s motor-car. Sure, the impudence of them—to come to this house of all places in the world! They’ll be robbing Buckingham Palace next!”
She was dressing the while she spoke, and being ready almost immediately, she put a shawl about her shoulders, and made to set off through the Park. When she had gone I locked the door—coward that I was—and sat all alone in the darkness, praying for my brother’s coming. Indeed, I think that I counted the minutes, and had come to the belief that Humphreys had been gone a quarter of an hour—though I make sure now that it was not truly more than five minutes—when a terrible cry, something so inhuman, so dreadful, as to be beyond all my experience, rang out through the house, and was repeated again and again until the very night seemed to echo it.