Under Lock and Key: A Story. Volume 3 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

She spoke again with her head resting on Janet's knee. "Was it a token that came to me just as day was beginning to break? Or what was it? I cannot tell. I only know that when I woke up it was with Graham's voice sounding in my ears--I told you about Graham yesterday--as plainly as ever I heard the voice of anyone. I rose and dressed, and still the voice called me, seeming as if it came from a long distance and yet sounding quite close at hand, if you can understand such a thing. These were the words it said: 'Come! come! I am in trouble. You alone can give me ease. Come! and bring with you the Great Mogul Diamond.' These words were repeated over and over again, and each time my heart answered back: 'I am coming, dear love, I am coming.' Guided by the sound of the voice, I followed it down the staircase and out of the house, and along the rocky defile until I reached the edge of the tarn. All the way the voice kept close before me, and I followed it without question or doubt. Only to hear those never-forgotten tones was to make me feel young and strong and a girl at heart again. When I reached the edge of the lake, my heart said, although I question whether the words framed themselves aloud on my lips--'How are you in trouble, Graham? And in what way can I help you?' 'I am a prisoner in the hands of the demon of this lake,' said the voice. 'He will keep me for a thousand years unless I shall be ransomed by one who loves me.' 'I love you, Graham. Tell me how I can ransom you,' I said. Then came the voice. 'Fling into the middle of the lake the rarest thing you have, and I shall be held captive no longer.' Then I knew why I had been told to bring the Great Mogul Diamond with me. 'Because of the love I have for you, your bidding shall be done,' I said. With that I kissed the Diamond once for the sake of my dead son, and then I flung it with all my strength into the middle of the tarn. The moment the stone touched the water there fell upon my ear a strain of music so exquisitely sweet and joyful that I felt at once that Graham had been set free. And then I remember nothing more till I felt your arms round me trying to lift me up."

All this was spoken brokenly and with evident pain.

Janet was much shocked. "Are you sure, dear Lady Pollexfen, that you really threw the Diamond into the water?" she asked.

"As sure as ever I was of anything in my life," she answered. "Yes, the Diamond is gone, but I do not regret it. Had Graham said, 'Sacrifice your life to set me free,' I should have done it."

At this moment the guide came up with the two ponies. Janet explained to him as much as it was requisite that he should know. Then, between them, and with the aid of one of the ponies, they contrived to carry her ladyship slowly back to the inn. The local doctor was immediately sent for, and Janet despatched a telegram to Chester for the best medical aid that city could afford. Another telegram summoned Major Strickland and Mr. Madgin. The local doctor looked upon Lady Pollexfen's case as a hopeless one from the first, and the greater authority when he came merely confirmed that opinion, although they both agreed in thinking she might possibly linger on for several months to come.

But Lady Pollexfen was saved from that. Her life gradually sank out and died, as a lamp dies, for lack of fuel. She was unconscious before the major and Mr. Madgin could reach Ben Dulas, and a few hours later she breathed her last.

Her last conscious words were addressed to Janet. "Child," she said, speaking in a thick troubled whisper, "I have been unjust to you, and now I regret it. I was too proud to let my love for you be seen, but you have been to me as the apple of my eye. You are my granddaughter, and Dupley Walls will be yours when I am gone. I have been unjust to you--I say it again. Kiss me once, Janet, and tell me that you forgive me. Perhaps we shall meet again where no clouds intervene. Then you will know how truly I have loved you."

[CHAPTER XV.]

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

Mr. Madgin was more like a madman than any reasonable being when Janet told him what had become of the Diamond. His first idea was to have it dived for in the same way that pearl oysters are obtained. But suppose the diver found it and hid it under his tongue, and came to the surface empty-handed? Then Mr. Madgin decided that he would employ a diving-bell, in which he and some man conversant with that peculiar business would go down together, and together they would search the bottom of the lake. But farther inquiry elicited the fact that the tarn was far too deep to allow of either of Mr. Madgin's plans being put in operation. The country people averred that it had no bottom, or that if it had a bottom it was at such an extreme depth, that no soundings ever taken would succeed in reaching it. This Mr. Madgin declared to be all humbug, and at once proceeded to test the depth of the tarn with such rude appliances as he could command in that out-of-the-way spot. But with all Mr. Madgin's efforts he could not succeed in finding the bottom, and in so far the opinion of the country people proved to be correct. But Mr. Madgin was a man not easily defeated. He went up to London, only to reappear at Ben Dulas three days later with a couple of men and an apparatus nearly similar to that used for taking deep-sea soundings. With this apparatus the bottom of the tarn was at last found, but at a very great depth. After careful soundings over nearly the whole surface, and repeated careful examinations of the greased leaden cup, sent down for the purpose of obtaining specimens of the bottom, the chief of the two men in charge of the apparatus gave it as his opinion that the entire under-water area was thickly covered with large boulders, similar to those which lined the margin of the tarn, and that consequently any small object which might sink to the bottom would almost be sure to find its way between the interstices of the stones, and would so be lost beyond any possible recovery from above. Reluctantly, and with a sad heart, Mr. Madgin at length gave orders to discontinue an attempt which had become so evidently hopeless. There, in the unsunned depths of the tarn of Ben Dulas, the Great Mogul Diamond still lies, and will doubtless continue to lie through ages yet unborn, till Time, working through one of his mighty cycles, shall again bring it to light, to shine, perchance, on the breast of some king, the foundations of whose empire are not yet laid, and for whom not even tradition shall have preserved the name of Aurengzebe the Great.