The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

souls now made a series of desperate efforts to converse, as if discussing ordinary matters; and by this means Gerard learned all that had passed, and that the girl was gone for aid.

      “Pray Heaven she may not lose heart by the way,” said Denys, sorrowfully.

      And Denys begged Gerard's forgiveness for bringing him out of his way for this.

      Gerard forgave him.

      “I would fear them less, Gerard, but for one they call the Abbot. I picked him out at once. Taller than you, bigger than us both put together. Fights with an axe. Gerard, a man to lead a herd of deer to battle. I shall kill that man to-night, or he will kill me. I think somehow 'tis he will kill me.”

      “Saints forbid! Shoot him at the door! What avails his strength against your weapon?”

      “I shall pick him out; but if it comes to hand fighting, run swiftly under his guard, or you are a dead man. I tell thee neither of us may stand a blow of that axe: thou never sawest such a body of a man.”

      Gerard was for bolting the door; but Denys with a sign showed him that half the door-post turned outward on a hinge, and the great bolt was little more than a blind. “I have forborne to bolt it,” said he, “that they may think us the less suspicious.”

      Near an hour rolled away thus. It seemed an age. Yet it was but a little hour, and the town was a league distant. And some of the voices in the kitchen became angry and impatient.

      “They will not wait much longer,” said Denys, “and we have no chance at all unless we surprise them.”

      “I will do whate'er you bid,” said Gerard meekly.

      There was a cupboard on the same side as the door; but between it and the window. It reached nearly to the ground, but not quite. Denys opened the cupboard door and placed Gerard on a chair behind it. “If they run for the bed, strike at the napes of their necks! a sword cut there always kills or disables.” He then arranged the bolsters and their shoes in the bed so as to deceive a person peeping from a distance, and drew the short curtains at the head.

      Meantime Gerard was on his knees. Denys looked round and saw him.

      “Ah!” said Denys, “above all, pray them to forgive me for bringing you into this guet-apens!”

      And now they grasped hands and looked in one another's eyes oh, such a look! Denys's hand was cold, and Gerard's warm.

      They took their posts.

      Denys blew out the candle.

      “We must keep silence now.”

      But in the terrible tension of their nerves and very souls they found they could hear a whisper fainter than any man could catch at all outside that door. They could hear each other's hearts thump at times.

      “Good news!” breathed Denys, listening at the door. “They are casting lots.”

      “Pray that it may be the Abbot.”

      “Yes. Why?

      “If he comes alone I can make sure of him.”

      “Denys!”

      “Ay!”

      “I fear I shall go mad, if they do not come soon.”

      “Shall I feign sleep? Shall I snore?”

      “Will that———-?

      “Perhaps”

      “Do then and God have mercy on us!”

      Denys snored at intervals.

      There was a scuffling of feet heard in the kitchen, and then all was still.

      Denys snored again. Then took up his position behind the door.

      But he, or they, who had drawn the lot, seemed determined to run no foolish risks. Nothing was attempted in a hurry.

      When they were almost starved with cold, and waiting for the attack, the door on the stairs opened softly and closed again. Nothing more.

      There was another harrowing silence.

      Then a single light footstep on the stair; and nothing more.

      Then a light crept under the door and nothing more.

      Presently there was a gentle scratching, not half so loud as a mouse's, and the false door-post opened by degrees, and left a perpendicular space, through which the light streamed in. The door, had it been bolted, would now have hung by the bare tip of the bolt, which went into the real door-post, but as it was, it swung gently open of itself. It opened inwards, so Denys did not raise his crossbow from the ground, but merely grasped his dagger.

      The candle was held up, and shaded from behind by a man's hand.

      He was inspecting the beds from the threshold, satisfied that his victims were both in bed.

      The man glided into the apartment. But at the first step something in the position of the cupboard and chair made him uneasy. He ventured no further, but put the candle on the floor and stooped to peer under the chair; but as he stooped, an iron hand grasped his shoulder, and a dagger was driven so fiercely through his neck that the point came out at his gullet. There was a terrible hiccough, but no cry; and half-a-dozen silent strokes followed in swift succession, each a death-blow, and the assassin was laid noiselessly on the floor.

      Denys closed the door, bolted it gently, drew the post to, and even while he was going whispered Gerard to bring a chair. It was done.

      “Help me set him up.”

      “Dead?”

      “Parbleu.”

      “What for?”

      “Frighten them! Gain time.”

      Even while saying this, Denys had whipped a piece of string round the dead man's neck, and tied him to the chair, and there the ghastly figure sat fronting the door.

      “Denys, I can do better. Saints forgive me!”

      “What? Be quick then, we have not many moments.”

      And Denys got his crossbow ready, and tearing off his straw mattress, reared it before him and prepared to shoot the moment the door should open, for he had no hope any more would come singly, when they found the first did not return.

      While thus employed, Gerard was busy about the seated corpse, and to his amazement Denys saw a luminous glow spreading rapidly over the white face.

      Gerard blew out the candle; and on this the corpse's face shone still more like a glowworm's head.

      Denys shook in his shoes, and his teeth chattered.

      “What, in Heaven's name, is this?” he whispered.

      “Hush! 'tis but phosphorus, but 'twill serve.”

      “Away! they will surprise thee.”

      In fact, uneasy mutterings were heard below, and at last a deep voice said, “What makes him so long? is the drole rifling them?”

      It was their comrade they suspected then, not the enemy. Soon a step came softly but rapidly up the stairs: the door was gently tried.

      When this resisted, which was clearly not expected, the sham post was very cautiously moved, and an eye no doubt peeped through the aperture: for there was a howl of dismay, and the man was heard to stumble back and burst into the kitchen, here a Babel of voices rose directly on his return.

      Gerard ran to the dead thief and began to work on him again.

      “Back, madman!” whispered Denys.

      “Nay, nay. I know these ignorant brutes; they will not venture here awhile. I can make him ten times more fearful.”

      “At least close that opening! Let them not see you at your devilish work.”

      Gerard closed the sham post, and in half a