Whatever had been the intentions of the men, Tom’s firm bearing, and Charley’s determined air, as he brought up the rear, following Tom as a bull-terrier does the heels of his master, ready to fly at any one venturing to interfere with him, made them alter their purpose.
“I thought as how those piratical craft would sheer off if we showed a bold front,” said Tom, as the men turned down a lane on one side. “It’s a great point to show an enemy that you are wide awake and not afraid of him. Mind you that, Master Charley. There’s a great enemy, too, who is always going about seeking whom he may devour; and if he finds that we are prepared for him, and know how to resist him, he’ll be off like a shot.”
At length the door of the Tower was reached. Becky, who opened it, instead of welcoming them as they might naturally have expected that she would, stared wildly at them, and then throwing her apron over her head ran back screaming, “There are ghosts—there are ghosts—there are ghosts at the door!”
“No we ain’t,” said Tom, bluntly, as he entered; “but we’ve brought back Miss Margery all right, and she’ll be glad of some grub presently, and so shall we by and by I’m thinking,—eh, Master Charley? But just do you first, as soon as you have got your five senses back, run up and tell the captain and missis. They’ll not be sorry to hear the news, at all events.”
In another minute Margery was in her parents’ arms, and they were thanking Heaven that she had been safely restored to them.
Little Margery had kept up her courage wonderfully, from the moment she was seized till her return home. She said that she was awake and thought that she saw Becky collecting her clothes, when suddenly she was taken up in the arms of a woman; she supposed her mouth was gagged and her eyes blinded, and she was carried swiftly along, down into some damp place and along passages into the open air, and finally into the cottage where Charley had found her. She had had no fear about being ill treated, for she did not think any one would hurt a little girl like herself. She was very grateful, however, to Charley and Tom for all the risk they had run to rescue her.
Tom and Charley’s adventures created great surprise, for the captain could not conceive how they could have got out of the vaults; and it was not until they had all together paid another visit to it that they discovered the aperture lately blocked up with loose stones, and then at length guessed that it had been done by the smugglers to cut off pursuit. The result of the whole proceeding was the very reverse of what the smugglers had expected. In their foolish ignorance they fancied that they could frighten away a sensible man, like Captain Askew, from the Tower by their notable scheme of making it be supposed that it was haunted.
We may be surprised at their gross representations of ghosts and spirits, but which were undoubtedly exact imitations of their own conceptions of such things; nor does it at all follow, that because some of them ventured to appear in the character of ghosts, they did not firmly believe in their existence. Probably their own superstitious fears would as easily have been worked on as they hoped to work on those of others.
A considerable amount of the property of the gang, which they had not time to remove, was seized when they left their chief stronghold and place of rendezvous on the coast, where they had long defied the vigilance of the revenue officers, and many of them were driven away from the coast. The entrance to the cave from the sea was carefully blocked up, so that no one could again undermine the Tower, and attempt to play off such tricks on the inmates.
Mr Ludlow, accompanied by Stephen, rode over to the Tower to congratulate his tenants on the recovery of their daughter. “I am very glad to see the young lady back, and safe, and well; but,” he added, “I have a bone to pick with her. What do you think, captain? She has actually been endeavouring to persuade my only son to go to sea, that he may spend his life in searching for your poor boy, whom she asserts is still alive in some island of the Pacific, either in consequence of reading a child’s book, or from some cock-and-bull story which she heard from an old sailor one day, who was never afterwards to be found to corroborate the truth of his narrative. I wish bygones to be bygones, and I would rather not have alluded to the subject, but I really do not know what powerful influence she may exert over him, though I cannot say that at present he has any fancy for the undertaking; but I wish, at all events, to nip the project in the bud.”