"But I don't understand it," at length murmured Robin; "I can't see it: how could he possibly suffer Sir Willmott Burrell to place him in confinement?"
"It was not he at all," replied Barbara; "it was Major Wellmore, and he is at the Place now."
"Death and the devil!" exclaimed Robin, at the same instant pressing his back against the wall beside which he stood: it instantly gave way, and Barbara was alone—alone in that wild and most dreary-looking place.
She summoned Blanche, but Blanche was far away over the cliffs, exploring, under Crisp's guidance, the nooks and intricacies of the hills and hollows. She would have called still louder, but her quick eye discerned not now a shadowy figure, but Sir Willmott Burrell himself, within a distance of two or three hundred yards, and approaching towards her. She was concealed from his sight by a projection of the cliff: but this she never considered, alive only to the feelings his appearance at once suggested. She had noted the spot where Robin had disappeared, and, urged by terror, flung herself against the same portion of the wall, with such success, that it gave way before her, replacing itself so suddenly that, in an instant, the light of the bright stars in the blue heavens was shut out, and she stood in total darkness, within the recess that had so mysteriously opened to receive her.
When she became a little collected, she distinctly heard the sound of voices at no great distance, and groping about in the same direction, discovered a narrow flight of stairs, which she immediately descended, imagining that she was following the course which Robin had pursued. Her progress was soon arrested by a door, which she attempted to shake, but in vain; she leaned against it, however, or rather sank down upon the steps, worn out by fatigue of body and anxiety of mind. She could not have lain there a moment, when the door opened, and Robin literally sprang over her in his haste to re-ascend. She started from her position on perceiving before her the well-remembered figure of the Buccaneer, who was about to mount also, evidently with as much eagerness, though with less activity, than Robin Hays.
The sight of a stranger at their most secret entrance, even though that stranger was a woman, sent Hugh Dalton's hand to the pommel of his sword, but it was as quickly stayed by Robin's cry of, "It is Barbara."
The Buccaneer had just time to catch the fainting form of his daughter in his arms, and the wild and reckless seaman was so overpowered by the unexpected meeting, that he thought not of inquiring how she had obtained admittance. We have observed that women in the inferior ranks of society continue much briefer time in hysterics, swoons, and such-like, than the highborn and well educated, who know how to make the most of all matters of the kind. Barbara rapidly revived, and as rapidly urged Robin to heed her message, and to take her away, informing him in the same breath, that she had pushed against that portion of the wall where he had so strangely disappeared, because she had seen Sir Willmott Burrell approaching the spot with determined speed.
"Listen at the secret door," exclaimed the Buccaneer. "When he cannot find you above, he will seek you at the only entrance he knows of: I need not say, answer not the sign."
"Robin, Robin!" ejaculated Barbara, "take me, oh! take me with you!—You are not, surely, going to leave me in this horrid place, and with a stranger too!"
Poor Dalton! what painful and powerful emotions convulsed his heart and features!—"a stranger!"—a stranger, indeed, to his own child!