Faithful Margaret Part 38

Margaret shrank back; she had been standing in profile, not two feet from the window, and her ear had caught the indistinct sounds so clearly that she was able to trace them immediately to their cause.

A man was in the balcony outside her window, and he was listening to know whether she was sleeping or waking. Perhaps a burglar? No.

Mortlake was there to retrace his false step before the morning light should place his secret in other hands.

"He's going to force an entrance and murder me," thought Margaret, who could reason distinctly in this moment of peril; "and, knowing that I only share the knowledge of his guilt, he hopes to escape suspicion. He will arrange it like a burglary--likely take away my few jewels and articles of value, and drop them in the mere. I am afraid I am lost."

These thoughts just glanced through her mind as lightning glimmers through the thunderous clouds, and, with the sudden instinct of self-preservation, she ran to the door, determined to rush into safety.

Before she had reached it, or her hand could touch the lock, a slow and gentle scratching on the window-pane arrested her, and she paused, fascinated, to understand it. Scratch--scratch--scratch--cr-ick! the tiny tinkle of falling gla.s.s.

Scratch--scratch--scratch--scratch--scratch--scratch! cr-ick--cr-ick!

More gla.s.s falling, a crunching footstep, a soft tremor of the mahogany shutter!

Margaret essayed to wrench round the heavy lock of her door.

Her hand had no more strength than an infant's. She shuddered from head to foot.

One more desperate wrench!

A low snarl reached her ear! Eager paws beat at the bottom of her door!

She stood transfixed as the devil's cunning of her adversary dawned upon her mind.

The terrible sleuth-hound had been stationed outside her door, ready to tear her limb from limb when she should issue.

CHAPTER XIX.

A PRAYER TO HEAVEN.

The game had pa.s.sed out of her hands. Should she trust to the blood-thirsty brute, or to the blood-thirsty man?

I think she would have thrown herself upon such mercy as the hound would show her, rather than trust to Roland Mortlake. But the time had pa.s.sed even while she stood in sore doubt.

That mysterious tremor of the shutter had ceased, and now, in the ominous stillness, she saw--oh horror! what was that?

A small circular hole had been cut in the panel, and through it she caught the glitter of a _human eye_ watching her.

The blood curdled in her veins, her hands fell, clasped, before her, she stood, with her head bent forward, and dilated eyes returning that awful stare.

No horror, caused by death in any form, could have equaled that caused by the mere stealthy glare of a human eye watching her, gleaming upon her, unaccompanied by the visible face.

Suddenly the eye was removed, a sharp click broke the supreme silence, a long, slender tube was thrust half-length through the aperture, and pointed with deliberate aim at her heart.

A blind haze came between her and the hideous vision. Quicker than thought she darted to one side, and sank to the floor, almost insensible.

Her sight cleared, and she looked for the pointed pistol.

It was slowly veering round, to bring her again within range.

Her eyes measured the room wildly. The windows commanded every part of it except the two upper corners. She must fly across the room or be shot like a dog.

She sprang up and flitted swiftly along the wall, and out of range.

Now she was safe for a few seconds. She might crouch upon the carpet and pray a few wild words for safety.

The pistol returned to the door and covered it, in case of attempted escape.

As long as her enemy could get nothing larger than the tube of a pistol in, she was safe in her corner; but if he enlarged the hole enough to introduce his hand with the pistol, she was lost; for there was no large piece of furniture near which she could hide behind.

"If I could but circ.u.mvent him until daylight," she thought, "this night's danger would be past."

She looked at her watch. It was two of the night.

"Three hours to wait," she pondered, with a despairing heart. "Can I possibly defy him for three hours? He is crafty and desperate; he is here to put an end to my life, and will not go away unsuccessful. I am terrified, helpless, and without resource. Which of us is likely to triumph?"

Her eyes went longingly to the old-fas.h.i.+oned bell-pulls hanging at each side of the fire-place.

"If I dare to rush across the room and ring a peal to awake the household, I would be shot before my hand left the bell-rope," she told herself.

Why had she lit the tell-tale candle? There it burned, white and faintly tremulous in the current of air caused by the hole in the shutter, slowly wasting away, but distinctly revealing her every movement to the watchful a.s.sa.s.sin without.

Was there no way by which she could extinguish it and leave herself in the friendly darkness?

If the thought occurred to him of enlarging the aperture and shooting her in her place of refuge, the candle would too surely guide his murderous hand.

Even while thus she reasoned, the pistol was removed, and the grating of a tiny saw against the shutter recommenced.

Horror paralyzed the terrified girl for an instant; the next, with rare presence of mind, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the cloak off her shoulders in which she had been wrapped, and hurled it with all her strength across the room.

Like a huge, ugly bat, it made for the candle, swept it off the table, and she was surrounded in a moment by darkness.

The grating sound came to an abrupt stop, and a smothered oath came through the auger-hole.

"Give up that book, Margaret Walsingham," said the hoa.r.s.e voice of her foe, "for as sure as you live and breathe your life will go for it if you don't."

Margaret remained still as a statue, not daring to breathe.

"I'll make terms with you even now, if you hand me the book," said the wily voice again.

She bowed her face in her hands, and smiled even in the midst of her terror at such a proposition.

A long silence followed, then the steady sawing of the wooden panel went on.

It was done. A wintry star glimmered in through a gap large enough to admit a man's arm; then the star was blotted out, and a metallic click was heard.