Commodore Junk Part 72

"Not he, sor; and I don't like the look o' things. I've been too much shut up to see annything, being more like a c.o.c.kroach in a whishky bottle and the cork tied down than annything else. But I'm skeart, captain darlin'; and if annything happens--whisht! have ye kept my saycret?"

He put his lips close to the prisoner's ears, and whispered as he gave a knowing look at the couch.

"It is a secret still, Dinny."

"Good luck to ye, sor! Thin, if annything happens, just you go there and lie shnug till I come to ye; and if ye'll tak' my advice ye'll keep on putting a dhrop o' wine in the cellar and shtoring up a bit o' food; and if it isn't wanted, why ye're no worse off."

"Explain yourself, my lad," said the prisoner, for the lively chatter of the Irishman relieved the tedium of his confinement.

"Hist!"

"Murther!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dinny, as a faint signal came from overhead.

"Sure an' I was niver cut out for a prophet afther all."

"Dinny!--Captain Armstrong!" came from above.

"Good luck to ye, darlin'! kape on shpaking," whispered Dinny, excitedly. "It does me good to hear ye; but niver mind the captain, darlin'. Shpake to me."

"I came here--at great risk," came down, as if the speaker was panting heavily. "There's something wrong--I want to put you on your guard.

Tell the captain. Quick! I dare not stay."

"But, darlin', what's wrong? Whisht! shpake out, and let's hear ye.

Look at that, now! Why, she's gone!"

For there was a faint rustling overhead, and then all was silence once again.

"Sure, sor, would ye look at me," cried Dinny, with a most perplexed expression of countenance, "and tell me if I'm awake or it's only a dhrame."

"Dinny," said Humphrey, "she would not have come in such haste if there had not been good cause. Go and warn the captain. Quick!"

The day pa.s.sed without news, and, weary with his tedious pacing of his great cell, Humphrey Armstrong threw himself upon his couch, where he lay, with the great solemn face of the old stone idol seeming to loom down mysteriously from above.

It was not until the next morning that he saw Dinny again. The night had pa.s.sed quietly, and the day found Humphrey still watching. He, however, dropped into a pleasant slumber as the sun rose, in which sleep he was still plunged when Dinny came.

"Jist nawthing at all, sor," he said. "The darlin' must have got a craze in her head, for when I told the captain he trated me wid scorn, and Bart asked me if I was playing the fool."

"Then there is no danger!"

"Divil a bit, sor, that I can think out," said Dinny.

"But Mistress Greenheys."

"What about her, sor?"

"What did she say?"

"Sure an' you heard it all, sor. I couldn't repate it now if I thried."

"But you have seen her since?"

"Sin her! Bedad I'd only like to--if it was only to shpake wan word to her wid me oi. No, sor, I can't get s.p.a.che of her."

"But is all quiet in the place?"

"An' is it quiet? Why, a tomb in Aygypt is a lively place to it. The schooner's getting rotting for want o' work, and the men do nothing but dhrink and shlape, and the captain's shut up all alone whin he isn't down in the forest saying his prayers."

"Is it the calm that comes before the storm, Dinny?" said Humphrey.

"Sure an' I don't know, sor; but I'll kape watch if I can, and give ye word if there's annything wrong; but me poor head's in a mix, and since I've been out of prishn I seem to see nothing but Black Mazzard shwarming all over the place and takkin' me darling away. Did ye intersade wid the captain, sor?"

"Dinny, I have not seen him again," said Humphrey, frowning.

"Not seen him, sor! Why, he has been here half a dozen toimes."

"Been here? No."

"Sure and I saw him wid me own ois, sor. Twice he came to the windy there and four toimes along by the big pa.s.sage. Sure I thought ye'd been colloguing."

"I was not aware of it," said Humphrey, calmly; but his words did not express the feelings that were raging within his breast, and as soon as he was alone he tried to a.n.a.lyse them.

He must flee. He could do nothing else, and growing momentarily more excited, he tried to force himself to act and think.

The old temple. He would flee there for the present, he said. It would remove him from Mary's pursuit, for she would never dream of his seeking refuge there, and from that place he might perhaps be able to open up communication with Dinny.

He had no weapon, so he caught up a large table-knife and stuck it in his waistband. It was not much, but something, and at that moment he recalled Mary Dell's history--how she had told him that they had begun with a canoe; through that captured a larger boat; that larger boat had enabled them to take a vessel; and so on till the swift schooner had been obtained.

In the same way that knife should grow into a sword, he said to himself; and then he felt a sensation of half-blind rage at himself for making the comparison.

"What is this hateful uns.e.xed creature to me!" he said, angrily, as he stood thinking as to his next step.

Food! He must have food. In his excitement and the fury of the haste that was upon him, the trouble of taking it angered him; but he knew that he must have it, and gathering together what he could, he paused once more to think and listen.

All was silent, and the drawing aside of the great curtain proved that Bart was not on guard, for there was no dull, yellow gleam of his lantern at the end of the corridor, and once more it came over the prisoner as a feeling of wonder that he should not again and again have taken such steps as these. Almost unguarded, his prison doors and windows always open, and freedom given him to wander about the ruins, and yet like a pinioned bird he had stayed.

"They know that the sea before, the forest and mountain behind, are stronger than bolt and bar," something seemed to whisper to him as he stood hesitating.

"But not to a determined man, ready to do or die!" he cried, as if forced to answer aloud; and he set his teeth as he still hesitated and paused before hurrying out of the great dark place.

He stopped. What would she do when she found that he had gone? What would she say of the man whom, with all her faults, she evidently dearly loved, and would sacrifice all to win?

Humphrey Armstrong stamped fiercely upon the old stone flooring, making the vaulted roof echo as he thrust his fingers into his ears in a child-like attempt to shut out and deafen himself to the silent whisperings which a.s.sailed him.

He gave one glance round, trying to penetrate the darkness, and hesitated no longer, but strode away, pa.s.sing out of the long corridor out among the ruins, and, well accustomed to the place now, making straight for the pathway which, at its division, turned toward the old temple.

All was still; but it seemed lighter away to his left than he could quite account for, and he was starting again when a distant shout as of many voices came through the silence of the night and died away.

"Carousing," he muttered, and he hesitated again.