The Panchronicon Part 62

By this time the sounds were more distinct, and they could easily make out cries of: "Traitor! Stop him! For the Queen! Stop him!"

The two listeners had just mentally concluded that this alarm did not in any wise concern them when Rebecca was startled beyond measure to hear her sister Phoebe's voice, loud above all other sounds.

"Nay--nay, Guy!" she was screaming. "Stop not to fight! Fly--follow!

Shelter is here at hand!"

Forgetting everything but possible danger for Phoebe, Rebecca dashed out from under the trees.

There in the moonlight she saw Phoebe on horseback, her head uncovered, her hair floating free and her clothing in tatters. A few paces behind her was Sir Guy, also mounted, fiercely attacking two pursuing hors.e.m.e.n with his sword. Farther back, rendered indistinct by distance, was a larger group of mingled horse and foot travellers.

There was a lantern among them, and Rebecca inferred that the watch was with them.

A moment later, one of the two men engaged with Sir Guy fell from his horse. Instantly the young knight turned upon the second pursuer, who fled at once toward the larger group now rapidly approaching.

Rebecca ran forward and waved her card of matches frantically, apparently thinking in her excitement that she held a flag.

"Here, Phoebe--here, child!" she screamed. "This way, quick! Here we are awaitin' fer ye. Come, quick--quick!"

With a loud cry of joy, Phoebe slipped from her horse and ran toward her sister.

"Oh, Rebecca, Rebecca!" she cried, throwing herself into her sister's arms. "Oh, you dear, lovely, sweet old darling!"

Rebecca kissed her younger sister with tears in her eyes, almost as affected as the girl herself, who was now laughing and crying hysterically on her breast.

While they stood thus tightly locked in each other's arms, Guy came to their side with sword in hand.

"Quick!" he said, sharply. "You must away to shelter. Here comes the watch apace. I will protect the rear."

The two women started apart and Phoebe set forward obediently, but Rebecca only gave the fast-approaching crowd a look of proud contempt.

"Fiddle-ends!" she exclaimed. "You go on ahead, Guy. I'll fix them queer folks!"

Whether Rebecca's voice convinced him of her power to make good her words or that he felt his first duty was at Phoebe's side, the fact is that the young knight strode forward with his sweetheart toward the breach in the wall, leaving Rebecca behind to bear the first attack.

Droop had already pa.s.sed within the enclosure and was groping his way toward the black ma.s.s of the Panchronicon.

Phoebe, led by an accurate memory of her surroundings, had but little difficulty in finding the opening, and, by her voice, Sir Guy and Rebecca were guided to it.

Phoebe pa.s.sed through first and Sir Guy followed just as the advance guard of the pursuing mob rushed under the trees, swinging their two lanterns and shouting aloud:

"Here--this way! We have 'em fast!"

Rebecca coolly stooped and drew the edge of her entire card of matches across a stone at her feet. Then, standing erect, she thrust the sulphurous blue blaze into the faces of two rough-looking fellows just advancing to seize her.

Sir Guy, who stood within the wall, found cause for deep amazement in the yell of startled fear with which Rebecca's act was met; and deeper yet grew his astonishment when that cry was re-echoed by the whole terror-stricken mob, who turned as one man to flee from this flaming, sulphurous sorceress.

Rebecca quietly waited until the sulphur had burned off and the wood blazed bright and clear. Then she pushed through the broken wall and showed the way to their destination by the light of the small torch.

Sir Guy's feelings may be imagined when he suddenly found that they were all four standing before a strangely formed structure in the side of which Copernicus had just opened a door.

"Why, Mary!" he exclaimed, pausing in his walk. "What have we here?"

She took his hand with a smile and drew him gently forward.

"Trust thy Mary yet further, Guy," she said. "Thy watchword must be, 'Trust and question not.'"

He smiled in reply and, sheathing his sword, stepped boldly forward into the interior of the Panchronicon. Phoebe knew the power of superst.i.tion in that age, and she glowed with pride and tenderness, conscious that in this act of faith in her the knight evinced more courage than ever he might need to bear him well in battle.

When the electric lights shed a sudden bright glare down the spiral staircase, Sir Guy cowered and stopped short again, turning pale with a fear irrepressible. But Phoebe put one arm about his neck and drew his head down to hers, whispering in his ear. What she said none heard save him, but the spell of her words was potent, for the young knight stood erect once more and firmly ascended to the room above.

Droop stood nervously waiting at the engine-room door.

"Are ye all in?" he said, sharply. "Where's Cousin Rebecca?"

"Here I be!" came a voice from below. "I'm jest lockin' the door tight."

"Well, hurry up--hurry! Come up here an' lay down. I'm goin' to start."

In a few moments all was in readiness. Droop pulled the lever, and with a roar and a mighty bound the Panchronicon, revived by its long period of waiting, sped upward into the night.

As the four fugitives sat upright again, and Droop, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, was about to speak, the door of one of the bedchambers was opened, and a stranger dressed in nineteenth-century attire stepped forward, shading his blinking eyes with his hand.

The two women screamed, but Droop only dropped amazed into a chair.

"Francis Bacon!" he exclaimed.

Then, leaping forward eagerly, he cried aloud:

"Gimme them clothes!"

Of the return trip of the five, little need be said save to record one untoward incident which has been the occasion of a most unfortunate historic controversy.

The date-recording instrument must have been deranged in some way, for when, after a great number of eastward turns around the pole, it marked the year 1898, they had really only reached 1857. Supposing themselves to have actually reached the year erroneously indicated by the recorder, they set off southward and made a first landing in Hartford, Connecticut.

Here they discovered their mistake, and returned to the pole to complete their journey in time. All but Francis Bacon. He declared that so much whirling made him giddy, and remained in Connecticut. Alas! Had Phoebe known the result of this desertion, she would never have consented to it.

Bacon, who had read much of Shakespeare while in the Panchronicon, found on returning thus accidentally to modern America, that this playwright was esteemed the first and greatest of poets and dramatists by the modern world. Then and there he planned a conspiracy to rob the greatest character in literary history of his just fame; and, under the pseudonym of "Delia Bacon," advanced those theories of his own concealed authors.h.i.+p which have ever since deluded the uncritical and disgusted all lovers of common-sense and of justice.

Copernicus Droop, on returning his three remaining pa.s.sengers to their proper dates and addresses, discovered that his sole remaining phonograph, with certain valuable records of Elizabethan origin, had disappeared. As he owed a grudge to Francis Bacon, that worthy fell at once under suspicion, and accordingly Droop promptly returned to 1857, sought out the deserter, and charged him with having stolen these instruments.

It was not until the accused man had indignantly denied all knowledge of Droop's property that the crestfallen Yankee recollected that he had left the apparatus in question in the deserted mansion of Newington, where he had stored it for greater safety after Bacon's first unexpected visit.

Without hesitation, he determined to return to 1598 and reclaim his own.

Bacon, who had learned from modern historical works of the brilliant future in store for himself in England, begged Droop to take him back; and as an atonement for his unjust accusation, Droop consented.

It is not generally known that, contrary to common report, Francis Bacon was _not_ arrested for debt in 1598; but that, during the time he was supposed to have been in prison, he was actually engaged in building up in his own behalf the greatest hoax in history.