The Project Gutenberg Etext of New Arabian Nights

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"She is the only woman in the world!" he exclaimed with an oath.
"Look at her action."

I, for my part, leaped at this opportunity for a little further
light.

"See here, Northmour," said I; "we are all in a tight place, are we
not?"

"I believe you, my boy," he answered, looking me in the eyes, and
with great emphasis. "We have all hell upon us, that's the truth.
You may believe me or not, but I'm afraid of my life."

"Tell me one thing," said I. "What are they after, these Italians?
What do they want with Mr. Huddlestone?"

"Don't you know?" he cried. "The black old scamp had CARBONARO
funds on a deposit - two hundred and eighty thousand; and of course
he gambled it away on stocks. There was to have been a revolution
in the Tridentino, or Parma; but the revolution is off, and the
whole wasp's nest is after Huddlestone. We shall all be lucky if
we can save our skins."

"The CARBONARI!" I exclaimed; "God help him indeed!"

"Amen!" said Northmour. "And now, look here: I have said that we
are in a fix; and, frankly, I shall be glad of your help. If I
can't save Huddlestone, I want at least to save the girl. Come and
stay in the pavilion; and, there's my hand on it, I shall act as
your friend until the old man is either clear or dead. But," he
added, "once that is settled, you become my rival once again, and I
warn you - mind yourself."

"Done!" said I; and we shook hands.

"And now let us go directly to the fort," said Northmour; and he
began to lead the way through the rain.

CHAPTER VI - TELLS OF MY INTRODUCTION TO THE TALL MAN

We were admitted to the pavilion by Clara, and I was surprised by
the completeness and security of the defences. A barricade of
great strength, and yet easy to displace, supported the door
against Any violence from without; and the shutters of the dining-
room, into which I was led directly, and which was feebly
illuminated by a lamp, were even more elaborately fortified. The
panels were strengthened by bars and cross-bars; and these, in
their turn, were kept in position by a system of braces and struts,
some abutting on the floor, some on the roof, and others, in fine,
against the opposite wall of the apartment. It was at once a solid
and well-designed piece of carpentry; and I did not seek to conceal
my admiration.

"I am the engineer," said Northmour. "You remember the planks in
the garden? Behold them?"

"I did not know you had so many talents," said I.

"Are you armed?" he continued, pointing to an array of guns and
pistols, all in admirable order, which stood in line against the
wall or were displayed upon the sideboard.

"Thank you," I returned; "I have gone armed since our last
encounter. But, to tell you the truth, I have had nothing to eat
since early yesterday evening."

Northmour produced some cold meat, to which I eagerly set myself,
and a bottle of good Burgundy, by which, wet as I was, I did not
scruple to profit. I have always been an extreme temperance man on
principle; but it is useless to push principle to excess, and on
this occasion I believe that I finished three-quarters of the
bottle. As I ate, I still continued to admire the preparations for
defence.

"We could stand a siege," I said at length.

"Ye-es," drawled Northmour; "a very little one, per-haps. It is
not so much the strength of the pavilion I misdoubt; it is the
doubled anger that kills me. If we get to shooting, wild as the
country is some one is sure to hear it, and then - why then it's
the same thing, only different, as they say: caged by law, or
killed by CARBONARI. There's the choice. It is a devilish bad
thing to have the law against you in this world, and so I tell the
old gentleman upstairs. He is quite of my way of thinking."

"Speaking of that," said I, "what kind of person is he?"

"Oh, he!" cried the other; "he's a rancid fellow, as far as he
goes. I should like to have his neck wrung to-morrow by all the
devils in Italy. I am not in this affair for him. You take me? I
made a bargain for Missy's hand, and I mean to have it too."

"That by the way," said I. "I understand. But how will Mr.
Huddlestone take my intrusion?"

"Leave that to Clara," returned Northmour.

I could have struck him in the face for this coarse familiarity;
but I respected the truce, as, I am bound to say, did Northmour,
and so long as the danger continued not a cloud arose in our
relation. I bear him this testimony with the most unfeigned
satisfaction; nor am I without pride when I look back upon my own
behaviour. For surely no two men were ever left in a position so
invidious and irritating.

As soon as I had done eating, we proceeded to inspect the lower
floor. Window by window we tried the different supports, now and
then making an inconsiderable change; and the strokes of the hammer
sounded with startling loudness through the house. I proposed, I
remember, to make loop-holes; but he told me they were already made
in the windows of the upper story. It was an anxious business this
inspection, and left me down-hearted. There were two doors and
five windows to protect, and, counting Clara, only four of us to
defend them against an unknown number of foes. I communicated my
doubts to Northmour, who assured me, with unmoved composure, that
he entirely shared them.

"Before morning," said he, "we shall all be butchered and buried in
Graden Floe. For me, that is written."

I could not help shuddering at the mention of the quicksand, but
reminded Northmour that our enemies had spared me in the wood.

"Do not flatter yourself," said he. "Then you were not in the same
boat with the old gentleman; now you are. It's the floe for all of
us, mark my words."

I trembled for Clara; and just then her dear voice was heard
calling us to come upstairs. Northmour showed me the way, and,
when he had reached the landing, knocked at the door of what used
to be called MY UNCLE'S BEDROOM, as the founder of the pavilion had
designed it especially for himself.

"Come in, Northmour; come in, dear Mr. Cassilis," said a voice from
within.

Pushing open the door, Northmour admitted me before him into the
apartment. As I came in I could see the daughter slipping out by
the side door into the study, which had been prepared as her
bedroom. In the bed, which was drawn back against the wall,
instead of standing, as I had last seen it, boldly across the
window, sat Bernard Huddlestone, the defaulting banker. Little as
I had seen of him by the shifting light of the lantern on the
links, I had no difficulty in recognising him for the same. He had
a long and sallow countenance, surrounded by a long red beard and
side whiskers. His broken nose and high cheekbones gave him
somewhat the air of a Kalmuck, and his light eyes shone with the
excitement of a high fever. He wore a skull-cap of black silk; a
huge Bible lay open before him on the bed, with a pair of gold
spectacles in the place, and a pile of other books lay on the stand
by his side. The green curtains lent a cadaverous shade to his
cheek; and, as he sat propped on pillows, his great stature was
painfully hunched, and his head protruded till it overhung his
knees. I believe if he had not died otherwise, he must have fallen
a victim to consumption in the course of but a very few weeks.

He held out to me a hand, long, thin, and disagreeably hairy.

"Come in, come in, Mr. Cassilis," said he. "Another protector -
ahem! - another protector. Always welcome as a friend of my
daughter's, Mr. Cassilis. How they have rallied about me, my
daughter's friends! May God in heaven bless and reward them for
it!"

I gave him my hand, of course, because I could not help it; but the
sympathy I had been prepared to feel for Clara's father was
immediately soured by his appearance, and the wheedling, unreal
tones in which he spoke.

"Cassilis is a good man," said Northmour; "worth ten."

"So I hear," cried Mr. Huddlestone eagerly "so my girl tells me.
Ah, Mr. Cassilis, my sin has found me out, you see! I am very low,
very low; but I hope equally penitent. We must all come to the
throne of grace at last, Mr. Cassilis. For my part, I come late
indeed; but with unfeigned humility, I trust."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" said Northmour roughly.

"No, no, dear Northmour!" cried the banker. "You must not say
that; you must not try to shake me. You forget, my dear, good boy,
you forget I may be called this very night before my Maker."

His excitement was pitiful to behold; and I felt myself grow
indignant with Northmour, whose infidel opinions I well knew, and
heartily derided, as he continued to taunt the poor sinner out of
his humour of repentance.

"Pooh, my dear Huddlestone!" said he. "You do yourself injustice.
You are a man of the world inside and out, and were up to all kinds
of mischief before I was born. Your conscience is tanned like
South American leather - only you forgot to tan your liver, and
that, if you will believe me, is the seat of the annoyance."

"Rogue, rogue! bad boy!" said Mr. Huddlestone, shaking his finger.
"I am no precisian, if you come to that; I always hated a
precisian; but I never lost hold of something better through it
all. I have been a bad boy, Mr. Cassilis; I do not seek to deny
that; but it was after my wife's death, and you know, with a
widower, it's a different thing: sinful - I won't say no; but
there is a gradation, we shall hope. And talking of that - Hark!"
he broke out suddenly, his hand raised, his fingers spread, his
face racked with interest and terror. "Only the rain, bless God!"
he added, after a pause, and with indescribable relief.

For some seconds he lay back among the pillows like a man near to
fainting; then he gathered himself together, and, in somewhat
tremulous tones, began once more to thank me for the share I was
prepared to take in his defence.

"One question, sir," said I, when he had paused. "Is it true that
you have money with you?"

He seemed annoyed by the question, but admitted with reluctance
that he had a little.

"Well," I continued, "it is their money they are after, is it not?
Why not give it up to them?"

"Ah!" replied he, shaking his head, "I have tried that already, Mr.
Cassilis; and alas that it should be so! but it is blood they
want."

"Huddlestone, that's a little less than fair," said Northmour.
"You should mention that what you offered them was upwards of two
hundred thousand short. The deficit is worth a reference; it is
for what they call a cool sum, Frank. Then, you see, the fellows
reason in their clear Italian way; and it seems to them, as indeed
it seems to me, that they may just as well have both while they're
about it - money and blood together, by George, and no more trouble
for the extra pleasure."

"Is it in the pavilion?" I asked.

"It is; and I wish it were in the bottom of the sea instead," said
Northmour; and then suddenly - "What are you making faces at me
for?" he cried to Mr. Huddlestone, on whom I had unconsciously
turned my back. "Do you think Cassilis would sell you?"

Mr. Huddlestone protested that nothing had been further from his
mind.

"It is a good thing," retorted Northmour in his ugliest manner.
"You might end by wearying us. What were you going to say?" he
added, turning to me.

"I was going to propose an occupation for the afternoon,'' said I.
"Let us carry that money out, piece by piece, and lay it down
before the pavilion door. If the CARBONARI come, why, it's theirs
at any rate."

"No, no," cried Mr. Huddlestone; "it does not, it cannot belong to
them! It should be distributed PRO RATA among all my creditors."

"Come now, Huddlestone," said Northmour, "none of that."

"Well, but my daughter," moaned the wretched man.

"Your daughter will do well enough. Here are two suitors, Cassilis
and I, neither of us beggars, between whom she has to choose. And
as for yourself, to make an end of arguments, you have no right to
a farthing, and, unless I'm much mistaken, you are going to die."

It was certainly very cruelly said; but Mr. Huddlestone was a man
who attracted little sympathy; and, although I saw him wince and
shudder, I mentally endorsed the rebuke; nay, I added a
contribution of my own.

"Northmour and I," I said, "are willing enough to help you to save
your life, but not to escape with stolen property."

He struggled for a while with himself, as though he were on the
point of giving way to anger, but prudence had the best of the
controversy.

"My dear boys," he said, "do with me or my money what you will. I
leave all in your hands. Let me compose myself."

And so we left him, gladly enough I am sure. The last that I saw,
he had once more taken up his great Bible, and with tremulous hands
was adjusting his spectacles to read.

CHAPTER VII - TELLS HOW A WORD WAS CRIED THROUGH THE PAVILION
WINDOW

The recollection of that afternoon will always be graven on my
mind. Northmour and I were persuaded that an attack was imminent;
and if it had been in our power to alter in any way the order of
events, that power would have been used to precipitate rather than
delay the critical moment. The worst was to be anticipated; yet we
could conceive no extremity so miserable as the suspense we were
now suffering. I have never been an eager, though always a great,
reader; but I never knew books so insipid as those which I took up
and cast aside that afternoon in the pavilion. Even talk became
impossible, as the hours went on. One or other was always
listening for some sound, or peering from an upstairs window over
the links. And yet not a sign indicated the presence of our foes.

We debated over and over again my proposal with regard to the
money; and had we been in complete possession of our faculties, I
am sure we should have condemned it as unwise; but we were
flustered with alarm, grasped at a straw, and determined, although
it was as much as advertising Mr. Huddlestone's presence in the
pavilion, to carry my proposal into effect.

The sum was part in specie, part in bank paper, and part in
circular notes payable to the name of James Gregory. We took it
out, counted it, enclosed it once more in a despatch-box belonging
to Northmour, and prepared a letter in Italian which he tied to the
handle. It was signed by both of us under oath, and declared that
this was all the money which had escaped the failure of the house
of Huddlestone. This was, perhaps, the maddest action ever
perpetrated by two persons professing to be sane. Had the
despatch-box fallen into other hands than those for which it was
intended, we stood criminally convicted on our own written
testimony; but, as I have said, we were neither of us in a
condition to judge soberly, and had a thirst for action that drove
us to do something, right or wrong, rather than endure the agony of
waiting. Moreover, as we were both convinced that the hollows of
the links were alive with hidden spies upon our movements, we hoped
that our appearance with the box might lead to a parley, and,
perhaps, a compromise.

It was nearly three when we issued from the pavilion. The rain had
taken off; the sun shone quite cheerfully.

I have never seen the gulls fly so close about the house or
approach so fearlessly to human beings. On the very doorstep one
flapped heavily past our heads, and uttered its wild cry in my very
ear.

"There is an omen for you," said Northmour, who like all
freethinkers was much under the influence of superstition. "They
think we are already dead."

I made some light rejoinder, but it was with half my heart; for the
circumstance had impressed me.

A yard or two before the gate, on a patch of smooth turf, we set
down the despatch-box; and Northmour waved a white handkerchief
over his head. Nothing replied. We raised our voices, and cried
aloud in Italian that we were there as ambassadors to arrange the
quarrel; but the stillness remained unbroken save by the sea-gulls
and the surf. I had a weight at my heart when we desisted; and I
saw that even Northmour was unusually pale. He looked over his
shoulder nervously, as though he feared that some one had crept
between him and the pavilion door.

"By God," he said in a whisper, "this is too much for me!"

I replied in the same key: "Suppose there should be none, after
all!"

"Look there," he returned, nodding with his head, as though he had
been afraid to point.

I glanced in the direction indicated; and there, from the northern
quarter of the Sea-Wood, beheld a thin column of smoke rising
steadily against the now cloudless sky.

"Northmour," I said (we still continued to talk in whispers), "it
is not possible to endure this suspense. I prefer death fifty
times over. Stay you here to watch the pavilion; I will go forward
and make sure, if I have to walk right into their camp."

He looked once again all round him with puckered eyes, and then
nodded assentingly to my proposal.

My heart beat like a sledge-hammer as I set out walking rapidly in
the direction of the smoke; and, though up to that moment I had
felt chill and shivering, I was suddenly conscious of a glow of
heat over all my body. The ground in this direction was very
uneven; a hundred men might have lain hidden in as many square
yards about my path. But I had not practised the business in vain,
chose such routes as cut at the very root of concealment, and, by
keeping along the most convenient ridges, commanded several hollows
at a time. It was not long before I was rewarded for my caution.
Coming suddenly on to a mound somewhat more elevated than the
surrounding hummocks, I saw, not thirty yards away, a man bent
almost double, and running as fast as his attitude permitted, along
the bottom of a gully. I had dislodged one of the spies from his
ambush. As soon as I sighted him, I called loudly both in English
and Italian; and he, seeing concealment was no longer possible,
straightened himself out, leaped from the gully, and made off as
straight as an arrow for the borders of the wood.

It was none of my business to pursue; I had learned what I wanted -
that we were beleaguered and watched in the pavilion; and I
returned at once, and walking as nearly as possible in my old
footsteps, to where Northmour awaited me beside the despatch-box.
He was even paler than when I had left him, and his voice shook a
little.

"Could you see what he was like?" he asked.

"He kept his back turned," I replied.

"Let us get into the house, Frank. I don't think I'm a coward, but
I can stand no more of this," he whispered.

All was still and sunshiny about the pavilion as we turned to re-
enter it; even the gulls had flown in a wider circuit, and were
seen flickering along the beach and sand-hills; and this loneliness
terrified me more than a regiment under arms. It was not until the
door was barricaded that I could draw a full inspiration and
relieve the weight that lay upon my bosom. Northmour and I
exchanged a steady glance; and I suppose each made his own
reflections on the white and startled aspect of the other.

"You were right," I said. "All is over. Shake hands, old man, for
the last time."

"Yes," replied he, "I will shake hands; for, as sure as I am here,
I bear no malice. But, remember, if, by some impossible accident,
we should give the slip to these blackguards, I'll take the upper
hand of you by fair or foul."

"Oh," said I, "you weary me!"

He seemed hurt, and walked away in silence to the foot of the
stairs, where he paused.

"You do not understand," said he. "I am not a swindler, and I
guard myself; that is all. It may weary you or not, Mr. Cassilis,
I do not care a rush; I speak for my own satisfaction, and not for
your amusement. You had better go upstairs and court the girl; for
my part, I stay here."

"And I stay with you," I returned. "Do you think I would steal a
march, even with your permission?"

"Frank," he said, smiling, "it's a pity you are an ass, for you
have the makings of a man. I think I must be FEY to-day; you
cannot irritate me even when you try. Do you know," he continued
softly, "I think we are the two most miserable men in England, you
and I? we have got on to thirty without wife or child, or so much
as a shop to look after - poor, pitiful, lost devils, both! And
now we clash about a girl! As if there were not several millions
in the United Kingdom! Ah, Frank, Frank, the one who loses this
throw, be it you or me, he has my pity! It were better for him -
how does the Bible say? - that a millstone were hanged about his
neck and he were cast into the depth of the sea. Let us take a
drink," he concluded suddenly, but without any levity of tone.

I was touched by his words, and consented. He sat down on the
table in the dining-room, and held up the glass of sherry to his
eye.

"If you beat me, Frank," he said, "I shall take to drink. What
will you do, if it goes the other way?"

"God knows," I returned.

"Well," said he, "here is a toast in the meantime: 'ITALIA
IRREDENTA!'"

The remainder of the day was passed in the same dreadful tedium and
suspense. I laid the table for dinner, while Northmour and Clara
prepared the meal together in the kitchen. I could hear their talk
as I went to and fro, and was surprised to find it ran all the time
upon myself. Northmour again bracketed us together, and rallied
Clara on a choice of husbands; but he continued to speak of me with
some feeling, and uttered nothing to my prejudice unless he
included himself in the condemnation. This awakened a sense of
gratitude in my heart, which combined with the immediateness of our
peril to fill my eyes with tears. After all, I thought - and
perhaps the thought was laughably vain - we were here three very
noble human beings to perish in defence of a thieving banker.

Before we sat down to table, I looked forth from an upstairs
window. The day was beginning to decline; the links were utterly
deserted; the despatch-box still lay untouched where we had left it
hours before.

Mr. Huddlestone, in a long yellow dressing-gown, took one end of
the table, Clara the other; while Northmour and I faced each other
from the sides. The lamp was brightly trimmed; the wine was good;
the viands, although mostly cold, excellent of their sort. We
seemed to have agreed tacitly; all reference to the impending
catastrophe was carefully avoided; and, considering our tragic
circumstances, we made a merrier party than could have been
expected. From time to time, it is true, Northmour or I would rise
from table and make a round of the defences; and, on each of these
occasions, Mr. Huddlestone was recalled to a sense of his tragic
predicament, glanced up with ghastly eyes, and bore for an instant
on his countenance the stamp of terror. But he hastened to empty
his glass, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and joined
again in the conversation.

I was astonished at the wit and information he displayed. Mr.
Huddlestone's was certainly no ordinary character; he had read and
observed for himself; his gifts were sound; and, though I could
never have learned to love the man, I began to understand his
success in business, and the great respect in which he had been
held before his failure. He had, above all, the talent of society;
and though I never heard him speak but on this one and most
unfavourable occasion, I set him down among the most brilliant
conversationalists I ever met.

He was relating with great gusto, and seemingly no feeling of
shame, the manoeuvres of a scoundrelly commission merchant whom he
had known and studied in his youth, and we were all listening with
an odd mixture of mirth and embarrassment when our little party was
brought abruptly to an end in the most startling manner.

A noise like that of a wet finger on the window-pane interrupted
Mr. Huddlestone's tale; and in an instant we were all four as white
as paper, and sat tongue-tied and motionless round the table.

"A snail," I said at last; for I had heard that these animals make
a noise somewhat similar in character.

"Snail be d-d!" said Northmour. "Hush!"

The same sound was repeated twice at regular intervals; and then a
formidable voice shouted through the shutters the Italian word
"TRADITORE!"

Mr. Huddlestone threw his head in the air; his eyelids quivered;
next moment he fell insensible below the table. Northmour and I
had each run to the armoury and seized a gun. Clara was on her
feet with her hand at her throat.

So we stood waiting, for we thought the hour of attack was
certainly come; but second passed after second, and all but the
surf remained silent in the neighbourhood of the pavilion.

"Quick," said Northmour; "upstairs with him before they come."

CHAPTER VIII - TELLS THE LAST OF THE TALL MAN

Somehow or other, by hook and crook, and between the three of us,
we got Bernard Huddlestone bundled upstairs and laid upon the bed
in MY UNCLE'S ROOM. During the whole process, which was rough
enough, he gave no sign of consciousness, and he remained, as we
had thrown him, without changing the position of a finger. His
daughter opened his shirt and began to wet his head and bosom;
while Northmour and I ran to the window. The weather continued
clear; the moon, which was now about full, had risen and shed a
very clear light upon the links; yet, strain our eyes as we might,
we could distinguish nothing moving. A few dark spots, more or
less, on the uneven expanse were not to be identified; they might
be crouching men, they might be shadows; it was impossible to be
sure.

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