The unsuspicious preacher did as he was desired.
Sir Willmott inquired for the Ranger. His mother said, truly, "He was gone a journey."
"For Hugh Dalton?"
"He had joined his ship."
He then managed privately to ask for the secret key of a place called "the Cage," where contraband goods, not wanted for ready sale, were generally deposited. It had no communication with any of the private chambers, except by a narrow passage, which, leading to no other place, was seldom traversed. Into this cage he managed to get Fleetword, saying, "It was one of the ways out;" and while the preacher was looking round with much curiosity, he turned the key, placed it safely in his vest, and, without saying a word to Mother Hays, who, at such an early hour was just beginning to be very busy, left the Gull's Nest with much self-congratulation.
"Stay safely there but till another morning, poor meddling fool!" he murmured; "and then, for your sweet Constantia's sake, you'll keep my secret, and resign these cursed papers."
It is not to be imagined that Sir Willmott Burrell would, upon any account, have suffered Zillah to make her appearance at Cecil Place. His existence seemed now to hang upon her destruction; but instruments were wanting: Roupall had been sent out of the way by Hugh Dalton, and tidings were in vain expected of or from Jeromio. The slight relief afforded by the imprisonment of Fleetword was speedily succeeded by a state of mind bordering on madness.
Stopping for a few moments at the lodge of Cecil Place, he warned the old porter not to admit, but to detain, any person, man or woman, who might inquire for him, no matter under what pretext entrance might be demanded; for he assured the old man there was a deranged youth, who pretended to have known him abroad, and who, he was informed, had used unaccountable threats against him. Sir Willmott, moreover, enforced his instructions by a handsome present, and was proceeding to the house, when the gate-bell rang, and a man, habited as a travelling merchant, presented a parcel, directed "For Sir Willmott Burrell. These——"
Burrell commanded the messenger into the lodge room; the stranger, after some hesitation, entered. Sir Willmott briefly dismissed the old porter, and undid the packet; when, lo! the matted and gory head of the Italian, Jeromio, rolled at his feet. There it lay, in all the hideous deformity of sudden and violent death! the severed throat, thickened with gouts of blood! the dimmed spectral eyes starting from their sockets! the lips shrinking from the teeth of glaring whiteness—there it lay, looking up, as it were, into the face of the base but horrified associate. His utterance was impeded, and a thick mist came over him, as he sank into the old porter's chair.
"What does this mean?" he said at length to the man, whom he now recognised as one of the sailors of the Fire-fly.—"What means it?"