Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

Having pushed the sliding panel back into its place, he crossed to the window, and found that, after stretching himself to his fullest height, his eyes were just on a level with the lowermost panes. It was evident that by standing on a chair his range of vision would be considerably enlarged, and that was what he at once proceeded to do. As he had quite expected it would, the window looked directly on the sea, and on nothing else. Whichever way he turned his eyes not a strip of land was visible. He could no longer doubt that he was shut up in the Wizard's Tower. Now that he had, as it were, explored his tiny domain, he sat down to think, but as yet his brain was so crowded with impressions, all more or less vivid, which involved the putting of so many more or less unanswerable questions, that to attempt to evolve therefrom any definite and consistent line of thought was for the present an impossibility.

Not long had he sat before his attention was caught by a faint grating noise, as it might be the turning of a rusty key, which was presently followed by the sound of shuffling footsteps ascending the stone stairs from below. Then the sliding panel was thrust back, and, framed by the aperture, Burgo beheld the yellow, wrinkled visage of a very old and very unprepossessing female, who stood for some seconds, gazing at him with weak and watery eyes, before she spoke.

"If you please, sir, I've brought you your breakfus," she said at length in a thin quavering treble, "so, m'appen you'll please to take the things as I hands 'em to you."

Burgo crossed to the door, and from the tray the old lady had brought with her, which she had placed on the floor before opening the slide, she handed to him, one by one, the various concomitants of a fairly good and substantial breakfast.

"And now, mother, if you will tell me what place this is, I shall be much obliged to you," said Burgo, as, last of all, he took from her hand a small coffee-pot.

The old woman favoured him with what to most people would have seemed a cunning leer, but which she may have intended for an amiable grin. "I can tell by the motion of your lips as you're a-talking to me," she piped; "but I couldn't hear a word you say, no, not even if you shouted ever so. I've been stone deaf for the last dozen years. I'll fetch the breakfus things away when I brings your dinner." And, with a parting nod, she shut the slide and shuffled her way downstairs. Then came a muffled sound, as it might be the shutting of a heavy door, followed by the same grating noise as before.

Burgo was hungry, and was glad to be able to stay his appetite. He had a few cigarettes left in his case, and it may be that he enjoyed smoking a couple of them after breakfast none the less because his fortunes just then were at such a desperate pass. It was over his second cigarette that he came to the sensible conclusion to no longer badger his brains with a lot of vain surmises and questions which he had no means of answering, but rather to await the course of events quietly, and with such philosophy as he could summon to his aid. Any other course would be both futile and unmanly. Lady Clinton had got him into her power, and for the present he could but submit to that which it was out of his power to help.

In pursuance of this more cheerful way of looking at things he presently stretched himself on the sofa, and before long was fortunate enough to forget all his anxieties in sleep.

It was noon when he awoke. After a stare round he rose and shook himself. "I'm neither a Monte Cristo nor a Jack Sheppard," he said, "but I may as well satisfy myself whether there is or is not the remotest chance of my being able to escape from this confounded hole." So he again turned his attention to the door. It was very heavy and strong, and, judging from appearances, could not have been less than a century old, while, although the lock was probably of a very simple kind, it would obviously be impossible for him to pick it without adequate tools. He had a pocket-knife with three blades, which fortunately had not been taken from him. Would it be possible by its means to cut away sufficient of the woodwork round the lock--it was of tough old oak--to allow of his forcing the bolt? But even should he prove so far successful, what then? At the foot of the stairs he would find himself confronted by another door, most likely by two, for he had not forgotten what Tyson had told him about the opening up of the underground passage from the Keep. Nor had he forgotten what the door which opened from the tower on to the cliff was like. It was twice as massive, and would prove twice as formidable an obstacle to overcome as the door of his chamber. Not much hope of escape could he perceive that way. Still, the subject was one which might repay careful thought by-and-by--for he had already concluded that the tower would have to be his home for some time to come--when he should have become familiar with the daily routine of his prison life, and knew for how many hours he could depend upon being left unvisited by any one.

The window as a possible means of escape proved hopeless from the first. It was narrow to begin with, and was rendered altogether impassable for any one bigger than a child of six by a couple of massive upright bars. In one corner of the room was an open fireplace with a chimney, but when Burgo stared up the murky throat of the latter, he felt that he would have to be reduced to very desperate straits indeed before he ventured to explore it.