"He must have come out without his hat, or else lost it," spoke the superintendent, looking down at the head he supported. "Take care, my men, that's--blood."
The stairs were soon reached: some winding steps cut in stone. Jane Hallet held the lantern to show the way; Miss Castlemaine, saying never a word of the secret passage, followed her; the men with their burden bringing up the rear. It was a difficult job to bring him up, for the staircase was very narrow. They came out by a concealed door at the end of the upper cloisters, and had to walk through them to the chapel ruins. Mr. Nettleby never supposed but that the two women, as well as Harry Castlemaine, had come down by this route.
"To think that I should never have suspected any stairs were there! or that there was another set of cloisters under these!" he exclaimed in self-humiliation, as he walked on through with the rest, avoiding the pillars. "Had I known it, and that there was a door opening to that strip of beach below, it would have been enough to tell me what might be going on. But how the deuce do they contrive to get rid of the goods after they are run?"
For Mr. Superintendent Nettleby was still ignorant of on thing--the secret passage to Commodore Teague's house. He would not be likely to discover or suspect that until the official search took place that would be made on the morrow.
Once more the Nunnery was about to be disturbed to admit a wounded man at midnight: this second man, alas! wounded unto death. Tom Dance's son had gone forth to the world again, little the worse for his wounds; for the son and heir of the Master of Greylands, earth was closing.
The clanging night-bell aroused the inmates; and Sister Rachel, who was that week portress, went down accompanied by Sister Caroline. To describe their astonishment when they saw the line of those waiting to enter, would be impossible. Harry Castlemaine, whom the motion and air had revived, borne by Mr. Nettleby and two of the coastguardsmen; the Superior, Mary Ursula; and the resuscitated Jane Hallet! Jane the erring, with the Nunnery lantern!
"Business called me abroad to-night: I did not disturb you," quietly observed Sister Mary Ursula to the round-eyed Sisters; and it was all the explanation she gave, then or later.
Harry was taken into the same room that Walter Dance had been, and laid upon the same flat, wide sofa. One of the men ran off for Mr. Parker. The other went back with the superintendent to the scene of the struggle. The captured goods, so many of them as had been landed, had to be zealously guarded: Mr. Superintendent Nettleby had never gained such a feather in his official cap as this.
Harry Castlemaine lay where he had been placed, his once fresh face bereft of its fine colour, his eyes open to the movements around.
A patient like this was altogether different from young Dance the fisherman, and the Sisters had gone to awaken and amaze the Nunnery with the news. Only Mary Ursula was with him.