"Midnight! where have you been hiding yourself, comrade?" answered the man. "Midnight is long since past."
"Long since past!" screamed Gerald with frantic violence. "No! no! it is impossible—my post was at midnight in the tower court."
"Then you have escaped by wonderful interposition, friend, from the consequences of your absence; for I was there when the names were called, and 'present' was answered for the sentinel at the tower court."
"Father of mercy!" cried Gerald in despair. "What, then, has happened?"
"Happened!" echoed the soldier; "why, the prisoner has tried to escape! But didn't you hear the shots? They brought the old reprobate to the earth, of a surety."
Gerald uttered a loud groan and fell against the wall of the house; but in another moment he recovered himself by a desperate effort from a feeling of sickness and death, and repulsing violently the soldier who had come to his assistance, he rushed round the mansion with whirling brain and clenched teeth towards the tower court. His father had been killed—killed by his own folly. Rage, despair, contrition, self-horror, at having been so weak as to accept Maywood's proposal to drink that fatal drink which caused his deadly sleep, all tortured his heart, and drove him almost to madness. He could not doubt that it was that hated Maywood who had deceived him, drugged his liquour, cheated him into a sleep, in order to be present undisturbed at his rendezvous with Mildred; and now it was by his hand, by the hand of that villain, that his father had fallen.
All was commotion in the fortress. Gerald, as he rushed forward, heard the noise of voices and boats upon the water—the voice of Lazarus Seaman—now the men calling to each other. Horror-stricken, overwhelmed with despair, convulsed with rage, he bounded through the vaulted passage. In the moonlit court stood now but one figure alone—the sentinel, who was bending over the parapet, and seemed to be watching with interest the movement of the boats upon the water. With the rage of a tiger Gerald sprang upon him, and seized him by the collar with frenzied gripe. It was, indeed, Maywood—pale, agitated, and excited.
"Villain! traitor! assassin!" screamed Gerald madly, frantic with passion and despair, "you have betrayed that greyheaded old man; you have murdered him; but I will have revenge! He was my father, and it is you have killed him."
"Your father!" exclaimed the young sentinel in a voice choked by emotion. "He was mine, and I have saved him."
Gerald released his hold and staggered back.