"You must be a painter, I guess, Sir," said the hostler, with a grin of intelligence.

"Why?" asked Balfour, sharply. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, Sir," returned the man, apologetically, "I mean no offense; but it is always the gentlemen-painters—or, at least, so they say at Gethin, and I wish more of 'em came here—as is so free with their money, and so fond of the moon."

"Lunatics, eh?" said the new arrival, with a loud, quick laugh. "Well, I'm no painter, my friend."

Then he took his candle and retired to his room, but not to bed. He disarranged the bed-clothes and rumpled the pillow; then walked softly to and fro in his slippers until morning. On the following day he made no attempt to visit his newly acquired property, but strolled about the harbor, or stood, in sheltered and, therefore, secluded places in the rocks, watching the winter sea. His meals at the inn were sent down almost as they were served up, yet he showed no sign of weakness or fatigue, but in the evening sallied forth as before. The night was very cloudy, with driving showers, and the landlady good-naturedly warned him of the danger of venturing on the cliff-path, which was narrow, and had been broken in places by a late storm.

"I will take care," said he, mechanically.

"Perhaps you would like supper—some cold meat, or something—since you have eaten so little, placed in your sitting-room against your return?"

"Yes, yes," said he, approvingly; "you are right; I shall doubtless be hungry to-night." Then he went out into the bleak, black night.

He hung about the harbor as before until near eleven, when all the lights of the little town had faded away, save that at the inn, which was burning for him alone; then he climbed the cliff, and pushed southward along the very path against the dangers of which he had been cautioned. He walked fast, too, with his gaze fixed before him, like one who has an appointment of importance for which there is a fear of being late. Presently he struck inland over the down, when he began to move less quickly, and to peer cautiously before him. All was dark: the grass on which he trod seemed to be black, until he suddenly arrived at a large circular patch of it which was black, and made the surrounding soil less sombre by contrast. This was the mouth of a great pit; and he sat on the brink of it, with his face to seaward, and his ear in his hollowed hand, listening. Nothing was to be heard, however, but the occasional scud of the rain, and the ceaseless roar of the now distant waves. Far out to sea there was a round red light, which fell upon him at regular intervals, its absence making the place which it had filled more dark than elsewhere. It had a weird effect, as though some evil spirit was keeping watch upon him, but he knew it for what it was—the revolving lamp of a light-house. Presently, in the same direction as the red light, he perceived a white one, which, though moving slowly, was certainly advancing toward him; nor did it, like the other, become obscure.

"He is coming," said Balfour to himself, with a great sigh. He had begun to have doubts of the other's keeping his appointment; though, indeed, it was not yet the time that he had himself fixed for it. The light came on, quite close to the ground, and with two motions—across as well as along. It was that of a lantern, which guided thus the footsteps of a tall, stout man, who bore upon his shoulders a ladder so long that it both projected above his head and trailed behind him. Balfour rose up, and stood motionless in the path of the new-comer till this light fell full upon him. "Hollo!" cried the man, a little startled by the white, worn face that so suddenly confronted him, although he had been looking for it. "Is that you, Mr. Balfour?"

"Yes. Hush! There is no need to mention names."

"Quite true, Sir; but you gave me quite a turn," remonstrated the other, "coming out of the darkness like a ghost. This Wheal Danes, at midnight, puts queer thoughts into one's head."

"John Trevethick was not afraid of coming here," observed Balfour.

"Well, so he always said. He told me at the last that he only pretended to believe in any of the foolish stories that folks talk about, and in favor of which he used to argue. But he's dead and gone, and that don't make this place less uncanny. Nobody since his time has been a-near it; they think he haunts the pit, it seems, so every body gives it a wide berth, both night and day. We shall see, however, and pretty soon, I hope, whether that notion can not be got over. Why, in six months' time we ought to have a hundred men at work here."

"Let us hope so. But in the mean time you say nobody comes here even in the daytime, eh?"

"Never. The place lies out of the way, you see: about midway between the cliff-path and the road."

"That's well," said Balfour, mechanically. "And you have not been babbling to any one of our prospects, Mr. Coe—nor of me, I hope?"

"Certainly not, Sir; that was the first article of our partnership, as I understood. Not a soul at Gethin has heard a whisper of Wheal Danes, or of your coming; they think I'm fast asleep at my own house, this instant. But it's been hard work lugging this cursed ladder up here in such a breakneck night as this, I can tell you, and I am glad enough to rest a bit."

"Well, it's all over now, Mr. Coe."

"Except that I have got to take it back again," grumbled Solomon.

"True, I had forgotten that. We must not leave it here, must we?"

"Of course not. I do not complain of the trouble, however, only you must admit I've kept my tryst under some little difficulties, eh, partner?" and Solomon chuckled self-approval.

"You will be paid in full for all, my good Sir," answered Balfour, gravely; "that is," he added, hastily, "if the mine should turn out as you predict. How deep is it? That ladder of yours will surely never reach the bottom."

"No, indeed. Did I not tell you that there are three levels, each about the same depth? The copper lode lies at the bottom of the last, in the northeastern corner. You will find I have concealed nothing from you. Well, I have got my breath again now. Are you ready, Mr. Balfour?"

"Quite; but walk slowly, I beg, for your lantern is very dim."

"Yes, yes. But wait a minute; I came here yesterday and hid something." Solomon seated himself upon the edge of the pit, with his legs hanging over, and began to peer and feel about him.

"Take care what you are at," cried Balfour, eagerly; "you may slip down and kill yourself, sliding along like that."

Solomon laughed contemptuously. "Never fear, Sir; I have had too many mischances with mines to fear them. I have fallen down worse places, and been shut up in others far deeper and darker than Wheal Danes, without food or candle, for a week, and yet lived through it. The shaft has not yet been dug, I reckon, as will prove—Oh, here's the torch."

He dragged from under the overhanging rim of the pit a piece of wood like a bludgeon, one end of which was smeared with pitch; and placing the lantern with its back to the wind, pushed the stick inside, which came out a torch, flaming and dropping flame.

"There's our corpse-candle!" cried Coe, triumphantly; "that would keep us without witnesses, even if any one were so bold as, in a night like this, to venture near Wheal Danes, to trespass on Tom Tiddler's ground, where we shall pick up the gold and the silver." There was a wild excitement, quite foreign to his habit, about this man, and he whirled the torch about his head in flaring circles.

"Keep your wits steady, if you please," observed Balfour, sternly.

"It is over now, Sir, and I am in the counting-house again," answered Solomon, submissively. "I felt a little exhilarated at the prospect of plucking a fruit that has been ripening for fifty years, that's all. This Wheal Danes is the very aloe of mines, and it is about to blossom for us only. You had better take the torch yourself; the lantern will serve for me; but just show a light here while I place the ladder."

Balfour held the blazing pine aloft, and disclosed the gaping mouth of the old pit, its margin wet with the rain, and its sheer sides slippery with the damps of ages.

"It would be easy enough to get down without this contrivance," observed Solomon, grimly, as he carefully adjusted the ladder, the foot of which was lost in gloom; "but it would take us some trouble to find our way back again without wings."

"In daylight, however, I dare say it looks easier," said Balfour, carelessly.

"It may look so, but it ain't. Nothing but a sea-gull ever goes in and out of Wheal Danes; even the bats keep there, where indeed they are snug and warm enough."

"It doesn't feel very warm at present," replied the other, who did not seem to be in a hurry to explore this unpromising territory.

"Ay, but you wait till we get to the lower level; you might live there, if the rats would let you, for a whole winter, and never need a fire."

"Oh, there are rats, are there? Why, what do they live upon?"

"Well, that's their look-out," laughed Solomon; "they would be very glad to have us, no doubt. It would be only just in my case, for I have lived on them before now; with rats and water a man may do very well for a week or two."

"What! there is water laid on in this establishment, is there?"

"No; the low levels are quite dry. But come, let us see for ourselves. We are losing time. I will start first, and do you follow close upon me, but without treading on my fingers;" and Solomon placed his heavy foot upon the first rung.

"No, no," said Balfour, drawing back; "I will not trust myself on the same ladder with a man of your weight. When you are at the bottom give me a call, and then I'll join you."

"As you like, Sir," responded Solomon, civilly; but his thick lips curled contemptuously, and he muttered, "So this man is lily-livered after all; so much the better: it is well to have a coward for a partner."

The next moment his descending form was lost in the gloom.

Balfour waited, torch in hand, until an "All right," that sounded like a voice from the tomb, assured him that his companion had reached terra firma. Then he descended very carefully, and joined him.

"Stand close to the wall, Sir, while I move the ladder," said Coe; "your head don't seem made for these deep places. Ah, here's the spot. This is a drop of twenty feet."

"And what is the depth of the last level?"

"Five-and-twenty. But don't you be afraid; the ladder will just reach it, only you won't have so much to hold on by at the top. It's only the getting down that's unpleasant; you'll find going back quite easy work. And then, just think of the lode!"

Solomon began to be anxious lest his companion's fears should induce him to give up the expedition altogether. It had never entered into his mind that what was so easy to himself could prove so formidable to another; and, besides, he had somehow concluded that Balfour was a man of strong nerves.

"Make haste," said the latter, in the tone of one who has achieved some mental victory: "let us go through with it."

In the second level it was perceptibly warmer. Dark, noiseless objects began to flit about the torch, and once something soft struck against Balfour's foot, and then scampered away.

He looked behind him, and not a trace of light was to be discerned, while before him was impenetrable gloom, except for the feeble gleam of his companion's lantern. Above him the roof was just discernible, from which long strings of fungi, white and clammy, hung down and brushed against his face as he moved slowly forward.

"Come on!" said Solomon, impatiently, whose spirits seemed to rise in this familiar scene. "We are only a few score yards from Golconda."

Balfour stopped short. "I thought you said there was another level?" There was a strange look of disappointment in his face, and even of rage.

"Yes, yes, and here it is," cried the other, putting down the ladder, which he had carried from place to place. "It is only depth that separates us from it. They dug well, those Romans, but left off, as you shall see, upon the very threshold of fortune. You have only to be a little careful, because the ladder does not quite reach."

He descended, as before, in advance, while Balfour followed slowly and cautiously. "How steep and smooth the rock is!" observed he, examining its surface.

"Yes, indeed; it is like a wall of marble. But what matters that? It baffles the rats, but not us. Here is the land of gold, here is—What the devil are you at?"

Solomon, in his impatience, had stridden on to the object of his desires; and Balfour, halting midway in his descent, suddenly retraced his footsteps, and having reached the top, was dragging the ladder up after him.

Solomon heard this noise, with which his ear was familiar, and his tone had some alarm in it as he cried out, "I say, no tricks, Mr. Balfour."

There was no reply. He hastened back to the spot he had just left, and from thence could dimly perceive his late companion sitting on the verge of the steep wall, peering down upon him.

"Come, come, a joke is a joke," remonstrated Coe. "What a fellow you are to be at such games when an important matter is at stake! Why, here is the lode, man."

"It is very valuable, I dare say, Mr. Coe, but it is worth more to one man than to two."

"Great Heaven! what do you mean?" cried Solomon, while a sudden sweat bedewed his forehead. "You would not murder a man to dissolve a partnership?"

"Certainly not. I shall leave him to die, that's all. He and the rats will have to settle it together. Six months hence, perhaps, we may have a picnic here, and explore the place. Then we shall find, where you are now standing, some well-picked bones and the metal part of your lantern. That will cause quite an excitement; and we shall search further, and in the northeast corner there will be found a copper lode. I will take your word for that."

"Mr. Balfour, I am sure you will not do this," pleaded the wretched man. "It is not in man's nature to treat a fellow-creature with such barbarity. You are trying to frighten me, I know, and I own you have succeeded. I know what it is to be shut up in desolate, dark places alone, out of reach of succor; and even for eight-and-forty hours or so it is terrible."

"What must it be, then, to suffer so for twenty years?"

It was a third voice that seemed to wake the echoes of that lonesome cavern. Solomon looked up in terror, and beheld a third face, that of Robert Balfour, but transfigured. He held the glowing brand above him, so that his deep-lined features could be distinctly seen, and they were all instinct with a deadly rage and malice. There was a fire in his eyes that might well have been taken for that of madness, and Solomon's heart sank within him as he looked.

"Mr. Balfour," said he, in a coaxing voice, "come and look at your treasure. It sparkles in the light of my lantern like gold, and you shall have it all if you please; I do not wish to share it with you."

"So you take me for a madman, do you? Look again; look fixedly upon me, Solomon Coe. You do not recognize me even yet? I do not wonder. It is not you that are dull, but I that am so changed by wrong and misery. My own mother does not know me, nor the woman of whom you robbed me nineteen years ago. Yes, you know me now. I am Richard Yorke!"

"Mercy, mercy!" gasped Solomon, dropping on his knees.

Richard laughed long and loud. The echoes of his ghastly mirth died slowly away, and when his voice was heard again it was stern and solemn. "It is my turn at last, man; I am the judge to-day, as you were the witness nineteen years ago who doomed me wrongfully to shame and misery. Night and day I have had this hour in my mind; the thought of it has been my only joy—in chains and darkness, in toil and torment, fasting and wakeful on my prison pillow, I have thought of nothing else. I did not know how it would come about, but I was sure that it would come. You swore falsely once that I was a thief; I am now about to be a murderer, and your whitening bones will not be able to witness against me."

"I never swore it, Mr. Yorke," pleaded Solomon, passionately.

"Your memory is defective," answered Richard, gloomily; "you forget that I was in court myself on that occasion. You did your very worst to blacken me before judge and jury, and you succeeded."

"But it was Trevethick—it was father-in-law who urged me to do it; it was indeed."

"I know it," replied the other, coldly; "he was a greater villain than yourself, but unhappily an older one. Death has robbed me of him, and made my vengeance incomplete. Still there is something left for me. While you die slowly here—But no; I shall wait at Turlock for that to happen. A strong man like you, who have rats to live upon, may last ten days, perhaps. Well, when you are dead, I shall return to your London house, and lead your son to ruin. You permitted me to begin the work in hopes of getting half this mine; I shall finish it while you are in sole possession of the whole of it."

"Devil!" cried Solomon, furiously.

"The appellation is a true one, my good Sir; but I was a man once. Evil is now my good, thanks to your teaching. Look at me—look at me, and see what you have brought me to at eight-and-thirty! You almost drove me mad, and it was easy, for I had the Carew blood in my veins; but I contrived to keep my wits for the enjoyment of this hour. I feel very old, and have few pleasures left, you see. It is impossible, unfortunately, to return here and see you rot; there would be danger in it; just the least risk in the world of somebody coming here to look for us. I must be off now, too, for there is a worthy man sitting up for me at the inn, and I have got to take this ladder back to Gethin."

A cry of mingled rage and despair burst forth from Richard's foe.

"What! you had calculated upon the absence of that ladder producing suspicion? It is curious how great wits jump together: that had also struck me. I shall take it back, for I well know where it ought to be; I am quite familiar with your house at Gethin, as you may remember, perhaps. You may keep the lantern, which will not be missed; but, if you will take my advice, you will put out the light, to preserve the candle—as an article of food. Put it somewhere where the rats can not eat it, and it may prolong your torments half a day. You can also eat the horn of the lantern, but you will doubtless preserve that for a bonne bouche. You are not superstitious, else I would suggest that your father-in-law's spirit is exceedingly likely to haunt that northeastern corner down yonder."

Here there was a dull scrambling noise, a violent struggle as of feet and hands against a wall, and then a heavy thud.

"Now that is very foolish of you, Solomon, to attempt to get out of a place which you yourself informed me could never be escaped from without wings. I sincerely hope you have not hurt yourself much. I hear you moving slowly about again, so I may leave you without anxiety. Good-by, Solomon." Richard waited a moment, a frightful figure of hate and triumph, peering down into the pit beneath, where all was now dark. "You are too proud to speak to a convict, perhaps. Well, well, that is but natural in so honest a man. I take my leave, then. You have no message, I conclude, for home?"

An inarticulate cry, like that of a wild animal caught in a snare, was the only reply.

"That is the worst of letting his candle go out," mused Richard, aloud; "some rat has got hold of him already." Then, with a steady foot and smiling face, which showed how all his previous fears had been assumed, he retraced his steps, and mounted to the upper air. The sky was clearer now; and, casting the torch, for which he had no further need, far into the mine, and shouldering the ladder, he started for Gethin at good speed. It was past two o'clock before he reached his inn at Turlock; but before he retired to rest he sat down to the supper that had been prepared for him, but without the appetite which he had anticipated.



CHAPTER XLIII.

THE SMOKING-ROOM OF THE GEORGE AND VULTURE.

Robert Balfour did not remain at Turlock, as he had originally intended. Perhaps the vicinity to Wheal Danes was not so attractive to him as he had promised himself that it would be, although not for a single instant did his purpose of revenge relax. Other considerations, had he needed them, were powerful, now that he had taken the first step, to keep him on that terrible path which he had so long marked out for himself. To disclose the position of his victim now would have been not only to make void his future plans, but to place his own fate at Solomon's mercy. Yet he found his heart less hard than the petrifaction it had undergone, the constant droppings of wrong and hardship for twenty years, should have rendered it. He did not wake until late, and the first sound that broke upon his ear was the tinkling of the bell of the little church, for it was Sunday morning. He compared it for a moment with something that he had been dreaming of: a man in a well chipping footsteps for himself in the brick wall, up which he climbed a few feet, and then fell down again. Then a pitiful, unceasing cry of "Help, help!—help, help!" rang in his ears, instead of the voice that called people to prayers. Even when that ceased, the wind and rain—for the weather was wild and wet—beating against the window-pane, brought with them doleful shrieks. Sometimes a sudden gust seemed to bear upon it confused voices and the tramp of hurrying feet; and then he would knit his brow and clench his hand, with the apprehension that they had found his enemy, and were bringing him to the door. Not the slightest fear of the consequences to himself in such a case agitated his mind; he had quite resolved what to do, and that no prison walls should ever hem him in again; but the bare idea that Solomon should escape his vengeance drove him to the brink of frenzy. He would have left the place at once, but that he thought the coincidence of his departure with the disappearance of his foe might possibly awaken suspicion; so he staid on through the day, waiting for the news which he knew must arrive sooner or later. At noon he thought the landlady wore an unusually grave air, and he felt impelled to ask her what was the matter. But then, if there was nothing—if she only looked sour, as folks often did, just because it was Sunday—she might think him too curious.

From his window, a little later, he saw a knot of people in the rain talking eagerly together, and one of them pointing with his hand toward Gethin. But they were too far off to be overheard, and he did not dare go down and interrogate them. It was his object to appear utterly indifferent to local affairs, and as a total stranger. He felt half stifled within doors, and yet, if he should go out, he knew that he would be incontrollably impelled to take the cliff path that he had followed the preceding night, to watch that nobody came near the place that held his prey, and thereby, like the bird who shows her nest by keeping guard too near, attract attention. The tidings for which he waited came at six o'clock, just as he was sitting down to his dinner. The parlor-maid who served him had that happy and excited look which the possession of news, whether it be good or bad, but especially the latter, always imparts to persons of her class.

"There's strange news come from Gethin, Sir," said she, as she arranged the dishes.

"Indeed," said Balfour, carelessly, though he felt his brain spin round and his heart stop at the same moment. "What is it?"

"Mr. Coe, Sir, a very rich man—he as owns all Dunloppel—has disappeared."

"How's that?"

"Well, Sir, he went to his room last night, they say, at his usual hour, but never slept in his bed, and the front-door was found unlocked in the morning, so that he must have gone away of himself. That would not be so odd, for he is a secret sort of man, as is always coming and going; but he has taken nothing with him; only the clothes he stood in."

"Well, I dare say he has come back again by this time, my good girl. What's this? Is there no fish?"

"No, Sir; the weather was too bad yesterday for catching them, and all last night there was a dreadful sea: that's what they fear about Mr. Coe—that he has fell into the sea. His footsteps have been tracked to the cliff edge, and there they stop."

"Poor fellow! Has he any relatives?"

"Oh yes, Sir; a wife and son—a very handsome, nice young gentleman."

"Then his widow will be rich, I suppose?"

"Oh, pray, don't call her a widow yet, Sir; let us hope her husband may be found. It's a dreadful thing to be drowned like that on a Sunday morning; and for one who knows the cliff path so well as he did, too. He was a hard man, and no favorite, but one forgets that now, of course."

"You have also forgotten the Harvey Sauce, my good girl; oblige me by bringing it, will you?" said Mr. Balfour, beginning to whistle something which did not sound like a psalm tune. "You must excuse my hard-heartedness, but I had not the pleasure of knowing this gentleman."

An hour afterward the solitary guest had left the inn, and was on his road to Plymouth. His departure caused little surprise, for the weather was such as to induce no visitor to prolong his stay.

Whether from his long enforced abstinence from society, or from the unwelcome nature of his thoughts, Robert Balfour was always disinclined to be alone. His expeditions with Charley in search of pleasure had been, though he did not find pleasure, more agreeable to him than the being left to his own resources; and now this was more the case than ever. He preferred even such company as that which the smoking-room of an hotel afforded to none at all. The voices of his fellow-creatures could not shape themselves, as every inarticulate sound did to his straining ear, into groans and feeble cries for aid. Not twenty-four hours had elapsed since his prisoner was placed in hold, so that such sounds of weakness and agony must have been in every sense chimerical; and yet he heard them. What, then, if these echoes from the tomb should always be heard? A terrible idea indeed, but one which bred no repentance. It was not likely that remorse should seize him in the very place where his hated foe had clutched and consigned him to his living grave.

The hotel at which he now put up was the same at which he had then lodged; this public room was the same in which he had smoked his last cigar upon his fatal visit to the Miners' Bank. He had had only one companion then, but now it was full of people. By their talk it was evident that they were townsfolk, and all known to one another; in fact, it was a tradesmen's club, which met at the George and Vulture on Sunday nights through the winter months. In spite of his willingness to be won from his thoughts, he could not fix his attention on the small local gossip that was going on about him. Men came in and out without his observing them; and indeed it was not easy to take note of faces through the cloud of smoke that filled the room; he was fast relapsing into his own reflections, wondering what Solomon was doing in the dark, and if he slept much, when an event occurred which roused him as thoroughly as the prick of a lance or a sudden douche of cold water.

"Let us have no misunderstanding and no obligation—that is my motto."

The speaker was a thin, gray man, whose entrance into the apartment Balfour had not perceived, and who was seated in an elevated chair, which had apparently been reserved for him as president of the assembly. The face was unfamiliar, for twenty years had made an old man of the astute and lively detective; but his phrase, and the manner of delivering it, identified him at once as his old friend Mr. Dodge.

"It was in this very room," continued the latter, "that I sat and talked with him as sociable as could be, not a quarter of an hour before I put the darbies on him; and it's a thing that has been upon my mind ever since. I was only doing my duty, of course, but still it seemed hard to take advantage of such a frank young fellow. As for stealing them notes, it's my belief he had no more intention of doing it than I had."

"And yet he got it hot at the 'sizes, Mr. Dodge, didn't he?" inquired one of the company.

"Got it hot, Sir?" replied Mr. Dodge, with dignity; "he got an infamous and most unjustly severe sentence, if you mean that, Sir. Of course what he did was contrary to law, but it's my opinion as the law was strained agin him. There was some as swore hard and fast to get him punished as knew he deserved no such treatment. Why, the girl as he loved, and whose picture I found upon him myself when I searched him, and gave it him back, too—ay, that I did—even she took a false oath, as Weasel himself told me, who was his lawyer, and had built up his case with that same hussy for its corner-stone. Ah!" said Mr. Dodge, with a gesture of abhorrence, "if there ever was a murdered man, it was that poor young fellow, Richard Yorke."

"But I thought he got twenty years' penal servitude," observed the same individual who had interposed before, and whose thankless office it seemed to be to draw the old gentleman out for the benefit of society.

"I say he was murdered, Sir. He was shut up for nigh twenty years, and then shot in the back in trying to get away from Lingmoor. It was the hardest case I ever knew in all my professional experience. Lord, if you had seen him—the handsomest, brightest, gayest young chap! And he was what some folks call well-born, too; he was the son—that is, though, in a left-handed sort of way, it's true—of mad Carew of Crompton, about whose death the papers were so full a month ago or so; and that, in my judgment, was the secret of all his misfortune: it was the Carew blood as did it. To take his own way in the world; to seek nobody's advice, nor use it if 'twas given; to be spoiled and petted by all the women and half the men as came nigh him; to own no master nor authority; to act without thought, and to scorn consequences—well, all that was bred in the bone with him."

"Then he had never any one to look after him at home, I reckon, Mr. Dodge?"

"Well, yes; he had a mother; and though she was a queer one too, she loved him dearly. She was the cleverest woman, Weasel used to say, as ever he had to do with; and a perfect lady too, mind you. She worked to get the poor lad off like a slave; and when all was over, instead of breaking down, as most would, she swallowed her pride, and went down on her bended knees to that old miserly devil, Trevethick, the prosecutor, and to his son-in-law, Coe, likewise: they lived down Cross Key way—where was it?—at Gethin—and begged and prayed him to join in petitioning in her son's favor. She got down there the very day after his lying daughter was married to Solomon Coe, he as has got Dunloppel, and is a big man now. But he'll never be any thing but a scurvy lot, if he was to be king o' Cornwall. I shall never forget the way he insulted that poor young fellow when he was took up. Damme, I would have given a ten-pound note to have had him charged with something, and I'd ha' seen that the handcuffs weren't none too big for his wrists neither."

"And this Trevethick refused to help the lady, did he?"

"Why, of course he did. He broke her heart, poor soul. I saw her when she passed through Plymouth afterward, and she looked twenty years older than before that trial. Even then she didn't give the matter up, but laid it before the crown. But poor Yorke had offended government—helped some fool or another through one of them public examinations; he had wits enough for any thing, had that young fellow. But there—I can't a-bear to talk about him; and yet somehow I can't help doing on it when I get into this room. He sat just where that gentleman sits yonder. I think I see him now, smoking the best of cigars, one of which he offered to me—for he was free as free; but I was necessitated to restore it, for I couldn't take a gift from one as I was just a-going to nab. 'Thank you kindly,' says I, 'but let us have no misunderstanding and no obligation.' Poor fellow! poor fellow!"

No more was said about the case of Richard Yorke; but it was evidently a standing topic with the chairman of the George and Vulture club. A yearning to behold and embrace that mother who had done and suffered so much for his sake took possession of Richard's soul. His heart had been steeled against her when he found harbored under her roof the objects of his rage and loathing; but he felt now that that must have come to pass with some intention of benefit to himself. The very truth, indeed, flashed upon him that she entertained some plan of frustrating his revenge against them, with the idea of protecting him from the consequences that were likely to ensue from it; and he forgave her, while he hated his foes the more. He would carry out his design to the uttermost, but very cautiously, and with a prudence that he would certainly not have used had his own safety been alone concerned; and then, when he had avenged himself and her, he would disclose himself to her. The statement he had just heard affected him deeply, but in opposite ways. The justification of himself in no way moved him—he did not need that; it was also far too late for his heart to be touched by the expression of the old detective's good-will, though the time had been when he would have thanked him for its utterance with honest tears; but the revelation of his mother's toil and suffering in his behalf reawakened all his dormant love for her, while it made his purpose firmer than ever to be the Nemesis of her enemies and his own.

As he went to bed that night the clock struck twelve. It was just four-and-twenty hours since he had left his victim in the bowels of Wheal Danes. If a free pardon could have been offered to him for the crime, and the mine been filled with gold for him to its mouth, he would not have stretched out his hand to save him.



CHAPTER XLIV.

STILL HUMAN.

Mr. Balfour atoned for his previous indifference to the wares of the news-boy by sending him next morning to the station for all the local papers. In each, as he expected, there was a paragraph headed Mysterious Disappearance, and as lengthened an account as professional ingenuity could devise of the unaccountable departure of Mr. Solomon Coe from his house at Gethin. The missing man was "much respected;" and, "as the prosperous owner of the Dunloppel mine, which had yielded so largely for so many years, he could certainly not have been pressed by pecuniary embarrassments, and therefore the idea of suicide was out of the question." Unlikely as it seemed in the case of one who knew the country so well, the most probable explanation of the affair was that the unfortunate gentleman, in taking a walk by night along the cliff top, must have slipped into the sea. The weather had been very rough of late and the wind blowing from off the land, which would have accounted—if this supposition was correct—for the body not having been washed ashore. "In the mean time an active search was going on."

Balfour had resolved not to return to London for at least ten days. Mrs. Coe and her son would, without doubt, be telegraphed for, and he could not repair to their house in their absence. The idea of being under the same roof alone with his mother was now repugnant to him. He felt that he could not trust himself in such a position. It had been hard and grievous, notwithstanding his resentment against her, to see her in company with others, and her absence of late from table had been a great relief to him. With his present feeling toward her it would be impossible to maintain his incognito; and, if that was lost, his future plans—to which he well knew she would oppose herself—would be rendered futile. He had seen with rage and bitter jealousy that both Harry and her boy, and especially the latter, were dear to her; and it was certain she would interfere to protect them, for their sake as well as for his own. He had other reasons also for not returning immediately to town. It might hereafter be expedient to show that he had really been to Midlandshire, where he had given out he had designed to go; and, moreover, though his purpose was relentless as respected Solomon, he did not perhaps care to be in a house where hourly suggestions would be dropped as to the whereabouts of his victim, or the fate that had happened to him. Harry and her son might even not have gone to Gethin, and in that case their apprehensions and surmises would have been insupportable.

Richard was more human than he would fain believe himself to be. Though he had gone to bed so inexorable of purpose, it had been somewhat shaken through the long hours of a night in which he had slept but little, and waked to think on what his feverish dreams had dwelt upon—the fate of his unhappy foe, perishing slowly beside his useless treasure. More than once, indeed, the impulse had been strong upon him that very morning to send word anonymously where Solomon was to be found to the police at Plymouth. Remorse had not as yet become chronic with him, but it seized him by fits and starts.

There had been a time when he had looked (through his prison bars) on all men with rage and hatred; but now he caught himself, as it were, at attempts at self-justification with respect to the retribution he had exacted even from his enemy. Had he not been rendered miserable, he argued, supremely wretched, for more than half his lifetime, through this man's agency? for it was certain that Solomon had sworn falsely, in the spirit if not in the letter, and caused him to be convicted of a crime which his rival was well aware he had not in intention committed. His conduct toward him on the occasion of his arrest had also been most brutal and insulting; while, after conviction had been obtained, this wretch's malice, as Mr. Dodge had stated, had known no cessation. In the arms of his young bride he had been deaf to the piteous cry of a mother beseeching for her only son.

But, on the other hand, had not he (Richard) deeply wronged this man in the first instance? Had he not robbed him—for so much at least must Solomon have known—of the love of his promised wife? If happiness from such an ill-assorted union was not to have been anticipated, still, had he not rendered it impossible? If their positions had been reversed, would not he have exacted expiation from such an offender to the uttermost? He would doubtless have scorned to twist the law as Solomon had done, and make it, as it were, the crooked instrument of his revenge. He would not, of course, have evoked its aid at all. But was that to be placed to his credit? He had put himself above the law throughout his life; he had never acknowledged any authority save that of his own selfish will; nay, he owned to himself that his bitterness against his unhappy victim had been caused not so much by the wrong he had suffered at his hands as by the contempt which he (Richard) had entertained for him. Without materials such as his father had possessed to back his pretensions he had imagined himself a sort of irresponsible and sovereign being. (Such infatuation is by no means rare, nor confined to despots and brigands, and when it exists in a poor man it is always fatal to himself.) His education, if it could be called such, had doubtless fostered this delusion; but Mr. Dodge was right; the Carew blood had been as poison in his veins, and had destroyed him.

All this might be true; but such philosophy could scarcely now obtain a hearing, while his enemy was dying of starvation in his living tomb. It was in vain for him to repeat mechanically that he had also suffered a sort of lingering death for twenty years. The present picture of his rival's torments presented itself in colors so lively and terrible that it blotted out the reminiscence of his own. The recollection of his wrongs was no longer sufficient for his vindication. He therefore strove to behold his victim in another light than as his private foe—as the murderer of his friend Balfour, the history of whose end may here be told.

On the night that Richard escaped from Lingmoor, it was Balfour, of course, who assisted him, and who was awaiting him in person at the foot of the prison wall. The old man's arms had received him as he slipped down the rope; and the object at which the sentry had fired had been two men, though in the misty night they had seemed but one. Balfour had been mortally wounded, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, laden with the burden of his dying friend, Richard had contrived to reach Bergen Wood. As his own footsteps were alone to be traced along the moor, the idea of another having accompanied his flight—though they knew there was complicity—had not occurred to the authorities. Balfour had hardly reached that wretched asylum when he expired, pressing Richard's hand, and bidding him remember Earl Street, Spitalfields. "What you find there is all yours, lad," was his dying testament and last words of farewell. And over his dead body Richard swore anew his vow of vengeance against the man that had thus, though indirectly, deprived him of his only friend. He had watched by the dead body, on its bed of rotten leaves, through that night and the whole of the next day; then, changing clothes with it, he had fled under cover of the ensuing darkness, and got away eventually to town.

He had found the house in Earl Street a wretched hovel, tenanted by a few abjects, whom the money found on Balfour—which he had received on leaving prison—was amply sufficient to buy out. Once alone in this tenement, he had easily possessed himself of the spoil so long secreted, and, furnished with it, he had hastened down to Crompton—the news of Carew's death having reached London on the very day that he found himself in a position to profit by it. The very plan which he had suggested to Balfour, whose name he also assumed, he himself put into execution. He made a private offer for the disused mine, which was gladly accepted by those who had the disposal of the property, acting under the advice of Parson Whymper. Trevethick, the only man that had attached any importance to the possession of it, was dead; and it was not likely that any one at the sale should bid one-half of the sum which this stranger was prepared to give for the mere gratification of his whim. The mine itself, indeed, had scarcely been mentioned in the transaction; it merely formed a portion in the lot comprising the few barren acres on which this capricious purchaser had expressed his fancy to build a home. "Disposed of by private contract" was the marginal note written in the auctioneer's catalogue which dashed Solomon's long-cherished hopes to the ground.

Richard staid on in the neighborhood to attend the sale. It attracted an immense concourse; and no less than a guinea a head was the price of admission to those who explored the splendid halls of Crompton, discussing the character of its late owner, and retailing wild stories of his eccentricities. Poor Parson Whymper, who had not a shilling left to him—for Carew had died intestate, though, thanks to him, not absolutely a beggar—was perhaps the only person present who felt a touch of regret. He had asked for his patron's signet-ring, as a keepsake, and this request had been refused on the part of the creditors; he wandered among the gay and jeering crowd like a ghost, little thinking that the one man who looked at him with a glance of pity was he whom he had once regarded as the heir of Crompton. It was the general opinion now that the unhappy chaplain had been Carew's evil genius, and had "led him on." Even Richard bestowed but that single glance upon him; he was looking in vain for the face that had so terrible an interest for himself. He had not heard that Trevethick was dead, but he knew it was so the instant that his eyes fell upon Solomon Coe, and all his hate was at once transferred to his younger enemy. The business upon which this man had come was as clear to him as though it had been written on his forehead. The first gleam of pleasure which had visited his dark soul for twenty years was the sight of Solomon's countenance when, on the sixth day's sale, the auctioneer gave out that lot 970 had been withdrawn. Solomon might have received the intimation long before but for the cautious prudence which had prevented him from making any inquiries upon the subject. For a minute or two he stood stunned and silent, then hurriedly made his way to the rostrum. Richard, who was sitting at the long table with the catalogue before him, kept his eyes fixed upon its pages while the auctioneer pointed him out as the purchaser of the lot in question. He knew the inquiry that was being asked, and its reply; he knew whose burly form it was that thrust itself the next minute in between him and his neighbor; every drop of blood in his body, every hair on his head, seemed to be cognizant that the man he hated most on earth was seated cheek by jowl with him—that the first step in the road of retribution had been taken voluntarily by his victim himself. The rest is soon told. Solomon at once commenced his clumsy efforts at conciliation; and his endeavors to recommend himself to the stranger's friendship were suffered quickly to bear fruit. He invited him to his house in London, which, to Richard's astonishment and indignation, he found to be his mother's home; and, in short, fell of his own accord into the very snare which the other, had he had the fixing of it, would himself have laid for him.

And now, as we have said, when all had gone exactly as Richard would have had it go, and Solomon was being punished to the uttermost, the executor of his doom was beginning to feel, if not compunction, at all events remorse. No adequate retribution had indeed overtaken Harry. To have made her a widow was, in fact, to have freed her from the yoke of a harsh and unloved master; but the fact was, notwithstanding the perjury of which he believed her to have been guilty, he had never hated her as he had hated the other authors of his wrongs. She had once on the rock-bound coast at Gethin preserved his life; she had accorded to his passion all that woman can grant, and had reciprocated it; not even in his fiercest hour of despair had he harbored the thought of raising his hand against her; he had hated her, indeed, as his betrayer, and as Solomon's wife, but never regarded her with that burning detestation which he felt toward her husband. There was another motive also, though he did not even admit it to himself, which, now that his chief foe was expiating his offense, had no inconsiderable weight in the scale of mercy as regarded the others.

His endeavors to win Charley's favor had had a reflex action. In spite of himself, a certain good-will had grown up in him toward this boy, whom his mission it was to ruin. If there had been less of his mother in the lad's appearance, or any thing of his father in his character, his heart might have been steeled against his youth and innocence of transgression. As a mere son of Solomon Coe's he would have beheld in him the whelp of a wolf, and treated him accordingly; but between the wolf and his offspring there was evidently as little of affection as there was of likeness. The very weaknesses of Charley's character—his love of pleasure, his credulity, his wayward impulsiveness, of all which Balfour had made use for his own purposes—were foreign to the nature of the elder Coe; while the lad's high spirit, demonstrativeness, and geniality were all his own. If he had one to guide as well as love him—a woman with sound heart and brain, such as this Agnes Aird was represented to be, what a happy future might be before this youth! Without such a wise counselor, how easy it would be, and how likely, for him to drift on the tide of self-will and self-indulgence to the devil! The decision rested in Richard's own hands, he knew. Should he blast this young life in the bud, in revenge for acts for which he was in no way accountable, and which were already being so bitterly expiated? The apprehension that Solomon might even yet be found alive perhaps alone prevented Richard from resolving finally to molest Harry and her son no further. If his victim should have been rescued, his enmity would have doubtless blazed forth afresh against them as inextinguishable as ever, but in the mean time it smouldered, and was dying out for want of fuel. If he had no penitence with respect to the terrible retribution he had already wrought, the idea of it disturbed him. If he had no scruples, he had pangs: when all was over—in a day or two, for even so strong a man as Solomon could scarcely hold out longer—he would doubtless cease to be troubled with them; when he was once dead Richard did not fear his ghost; but the thought of this perishing wretch at present haunted him. He was still not far from Gethin, and its neighborhood was likely to encourage such unpleasant feelings. He had only executed a righteous judgment, since there was no law to right him; but even a judge would avoid the vicinity of a gallows on which hangs a man on whom he had passed sentence.

He would go into Midlandshire—where he was now supposed to be—until the affair had blown over. That watching and waiting for the Thing to be discovered would, he foresaw, be disagreeable, nervous work. And when it happened, how full the newspapers would be of it! How Solomon got to the place where he would be found would be as much a matter of marvel as the object of his going there. If the copper lode—the existence of which Richard did not doubt—were discovered, as it most likely would be when the mine became the haunt of the curious and the morbid, it was only too probable that public attention would be drawn to the owner. The identification of Robert Balfour with the visitor who had visited Turlock might then be established, whence would rise suspicion, and perhaps discovery. Richard had no terrors upon his own account, but he was solicitous to spare his mother this new shame. He had been hitherto guiltless in her eyes, or, when blameworthy, the victim of circumstances; but could her love for him survive the knowledge that he was a murderer? But why encourage these morbid apprehensions? Was it not just as likely that the Thing would never be discovered at all? Once set upon a wrong scent, as folks already were, since the papers had suggested the man was drowned, why should they ever hit upon the right one? Wheal Danes had not been explored for half a century. Why should not Solomon's bones lie there till the judgment-day?

At this point in his reflections the door opened—he was taking his breakfast in a private sitting-room—and admitted, as he thought, the waiter. Richard stood in such profound thought that it was almost stupor, with his arms upon the mantel-piece, and his head resting on his hands. He did not change his posture; but when the door closed, and there was silence in place of the expected clatter of the breakfast things, he turned about, and beheld Harry standing before him—in deep black, and, as it seemed to him, in widow's weeds!



CHAPTER XLV.

FACE TO FACE.

If Solomon himself, half starved and imbecile with despair, had suddenly presented himself from his living tomb, Richard could not have been more astonished than at the appearance of his present visitor. He had left her but three days ago for Midlandshire. How was it possible she had tracked him hither? With what purpose she had done so he did not ask himself, for he had already read it in her haggard face and hopeless eyes.

"Have I come too late?" moaned she in a piteous, terror-stricken voice.

"For breakfast?—yes, madam," returned Richard, coldly; "but that can easily be remedied;" and he feigned to touch the bell. His heart was steel again; this woman's fear and care he felt were for his enemy, and for him alone. It was plain she had no longer fear of himself.

"Where is my husband?" she gasped out. "Is he still alive?"

"I am not your husband's keeper, madam."

"But you are his murderer!" She held out her arm, and pointed at him with a terrible significance. There was something clasped in her trembling fingers which he could not discern.

"You speak in riddles, madam; and it seems to me your humor is somewhat grim."

"I ask you once more, is my husband dead, and have I come too late?"

"I have not seen him for some days; I left him alive and well. What makes you think him otherwise, or that I have harmed him?"

"This"—she advanced toward him, keeping her eyes steadily fixed upon his own—"this was found among your things after you left my house!"

It was a ticket-of-leave—the one that had been given to Balfour on his discharge from Lingmoor. It seemed impossible that Richard's colorless face could have become still whiter, but it did so.

"Yes, that is mine," said he. "It was an imprudence in me to leave such a token among curious people. You took an interest in my effects, it seems."

"It was poor Mrs. Basil who found it, and who gave it to me." Her voice was calm, and even cold; but the phrase "poor Mrs. Basil" alarmed him.

"The good lady is still unwell, then, is she?"

"She is dead."

"Dead!" Richard staggered to a chair, and pressed his hands to his forehead. The only creature in the world on whom his slender hopes were built had, then, departed from it! "When did she die?" inquired he in a hollow voice, "and how?"

"On the evening of the day you left, and, as I believe, of a disease which one like you will scarcely credit—of a broken heart."

Her manner and tone were hostile; but that moved not Richard one whit; the cold and measured tones in which she had alluded to his mother's death angered him, on the other hand, exceedingly. If his mother had died of a broken heart, it was this woman's falsehood that had broken it; and yet she could speak with calmness and unconcern of the loss which had left him utterly forlorn! He forgot all his late remorse; and in his eyes glittered malice and cruel rage.

"I do not fear you," cried she, in answer to this look; "for the wretched have no fear. The hen will do battle with the fox, the rabbit with the stoat, to save her young. If I can not save my husband, I will save my son. I have come down here to do it. You are known to me now for what you are—a jail-bird. If you dare to meet my Charley's honest face again, I will tell him who and what you are."

"Did Mrs. Basil tell you that, then?"

"Thus far she did," cried Harry, pointing to the ticket which Richard had taken from her hand. "Is not that enough? She warned me with her latest breath against you. 'Beware of him,' said she; 'and yet pursue him, if you would save your husband and your son. Where Solomon is, there will this man also be. Pursue, pursue!' I did but stay to close her eyes."

"And so she knew me, did she?"

"She knew enough, as I do. Of course she could not guess—who could?—your shameful past, the fruit of which is there!" and again she pointed to the ticket.

"My shameful past!" cried Richard, rising and drawing himself to his full height. "Who are you, that dare to say so? Do you, then, need one to rise from the dead to remind you of your past! Look at me, Harry Trevethick—look at me!"

"Richard!" It was but one word; but in the tone which she pronounced it a thousand memories seemed to mingle. An inexpressible awe pervaded her; she stood spell-bound, staring at his white hair and withered face.

"Yes, it is Richard," answered the other, mockingly, "though it is hard to think so. Twenty years of wretchedness have worked the change. It is you he has to thank for it, you perjured traitress!"

"No, no; as Heaven is my judge, Richard, I tell you No!" She threw herself on her knees before him; and as she did so her bonnet fell, and the rippling hair that he had once stroked so tenderly escaped from its bands; the color came into her cheeks, and the light into her eyes, with the passionate excitement of her appeal; and for the moment she looked almost as he had known her in the far-back spring-tide of her youth.

"Fair and false as ever!" cried Richard, bitterly.

"Listen, listen!" pleaded she; "then call me what you will."

He sat in silence while she poured forth all the story of the trial, and of the means by which her evidence had been obtained, listening at first with a cold, cynical smile, like one who is prepared for falsehood, and beyond its power; but presently he drooped his head and hid his features. She knew that she had persuaded him of her fidelity, but feared that behind those wrinkled hands there still lay a ruthless purpose. She had exculpated herself, but only (of necessity) by showing in blacker colors the malice of his enemies. She knew that he had sworn to destroy them root and branch; and there was one green bough which he had already done his worst to bend to evil ways. "Richard, Richard!" said she, softly.

He withdrew his chair with a movement which she mistook for one of loathing.

"He hates me for their sake," thought she, "although he knows me to be innocent. How much more must he hate those who made me seem so guilty!" But, in truth, his withdrawal from her touch had a very different explanation. He would have kissed her, and held out both his hands, but for the blood which he dreaded might be even now upon them. He saw that she loved him still, and had ever done so, even when she seemed his foe: all the old affection that he thought had been dead within him awoke to life, and yet he dared not give it voice.

"You have said my husband was alive and well, Richard?"

"I said I had left him so," answered he, hoarsely.

"Then you have spared him thus far; spare him still, even for my sake; and, for Heaven's sake, spare my son! Harden not your heart against one more dear to me by far than life itself. He has done you no wrong."

Richard shook his head; he yearned to clasp her to his breast; he could have cried, "I forgive them all," but he could not trust himself to speak, lest he should say, "I love you."

"You have seen my boy, Richard, many times. The friendship you have simulated for him must have made you know how warm-hearted and kind and unsuspicious his nature is. You have listened to his merry laugh, and felt the sunshine of his gayety. Oh! can you have the heart to harm him?"

Still he did not speak; he scarcely heard her words. The murdered man was standing between her and him; and he would always stand there, seen by him, though not by her. From the grave itself he had come forth to triumph over him to the end.

"Richard"—her voice had sunk to a tremulous whisper—"I must save my son, and save you from yourself, no matter what it costs me. You little know on the brink of what a crime you stand."

He laughed a bitter laugh; for was he not already steeped in crime? She thought him pitiless and malignant when he was only hopeless and self-condemned.

"Do you remember Gethin, Richard, and all that happened there? Can you not guess why I was made to marry—within—what was it?—a month, a week, a day—it seemed but the next hour—after I lost you? You have had twenty years of misery for my sake; but so have I for yours. Did my husband love me, think you? Did he love my child? He had good cause, if he had only known, to hate us both. Can you not guess it?"

He looked at her with eager hope—a trembling joy pervaded him. But hope and joy had been strangers to him so long that he could scarce recognize them for what they were.

"My Charley is yours also, Richard—your own son."

Richard burst into tears. There was somebody still to love him in the world—his own flesh and blood—somebody to live for! The thought intoxicated him with delight; a vision of happiness floated before him for an instant; then was swallowed up in darkness, as a single star by the gloom of night. His own flesh and blood; ay, perhaps inheriting the same nature as his father. It was only too likely, from what he had seen of the lad; and he had himself done his best to develop the evil in him, and to crush the good.

"Don't weep, dear Richard: kiss me."

He shrank from her proffered lips with a cold shudder. "Nay, I can not kiss you. Do not ask me why, Harry. Never ask me; but I never can."

She looked at him with wonder, for she saw that his wrath had vanished. His tone was tender, though woeful, and his touch as he put her aside was as gentle as a child's.

"As you please, Richard," said she, humbly, and with a deep blush. "I only wished for it as a token of your forgiveness. It is not necessary; those tears have told me we are reconciled. But you will kiss Charley."

"Nay; he must never know," answered Richard gloomily.

"I had forgotten," said Harry, simply. "You can guess by that the loyalty of my heart toward you, Richard. I forgot that to reveal it would be to tell my darling of his mother's shame. But you will be kind and good to him; you will undo what you have done of harm; you will lead him back to Agnes, and then he will be safe."

"Yes, yes," muttered Richard, mechanically; "I will undo so far as I can what I have done of harm. I will do my best, as I have done my worst."

He rose hastily, and rang the bell. Harry eyed him like some attached creature that sympathizes with but can not comprehend its master.

The waiter entered.

"I shall not go by the train," said Richard; "let a carriage and pair be brought round instantly, without a moment's delay."

The waiter hurried out to execute the order.

"But you will surely return home, Richard, after what has happened?" said Harry, thinking of his mother's funeral.

"The dead can wait," returned he, solemnly. "Go you back to town. In three days' time, if you do not hear from me, come down to Gethin with Charles and Agnes."

"But I dare not, unless my husband send for me."

"He will send for you," said Richard, solemnly; "or others will in his behalf."

Without one word or sign of farewell he suddenly rushed by her, and was gone. A carriage stood at the front-door of the hotel, which had just returned from taking a bride and bridegroom to the railway station, and she saw him hurry into it.

"Fast! fast!" she heard him cry, through the open window; and then he was whirled away.



CHAPTER XLVI.

CURTIUS.

Richard had many subjects for thought to beguile his lonely way to Gethin, but one was paramount, and absorbed the rest, though he strove to dismiss it all he could.

He endeavored to think of his dead mother. His heart was full of her patient love and weary, childless life; but her portrait faded from his mind like a dissolving view, and in its place stood that of Solomon Coe, haggard, emaciated, hideous. Still less could he think of Harry and her son, between whom and himself this spectre of the unhappy man rose up at once, summoned by the thought of them, as by a spell. It did not occur to Richard even now that he had had no right to kill him; but he shuddered to think, if he had really done so, how this late opening flower of love which he had just discovered would blossom into fear and loathing. In that case his heart would have been softened only to be pierced. His mother's death, the knowledge of Harry's fidelity, and of the existence of his son, to whom his affection had been already drawn, unknowingly and in spite of himself, had dissolved his cruel purpose. He was eager to spare his mother's memory the shame of the foul crime he had contemplated, and passionately anxious that in the veins of his new-found son there should at least run no murderer's blood.

"Faster! faster!" was still his cry, though the horses galloped whenever it was practicable, and the wheels cast the winter's mire into his eager face. This haste was made, as he well knew, upon the road to his own ruin. To find Solomon alive was to be accused of having compassed his death. There was no hope in the magnanimity of such a foe. But yesterday Richard had cared little or nothing for his own safety, and was only bent upon the prosecution of his scheme against his foe; now life had mysteriously become dear to him, and he was about to risk it in saving the man he had hated most on earth from the doom to which he had himself consigned him. He had calculated the possibilities which were in his own favor, and they had resolved themselves into this single chance—that Solomon might be induced, by the unconditional offer of Wheal Danes and its golden treasure, to forego his revenge. His greed was great; but his malice, as Richard had good cause to know, was also not easily satisfied. Moreover, even if his victim should decline to be his prosecutor, he would still stand in great peril. It was only too probable that he would be recognized at Gethin for the stranger that had so lately been staying at Turlock; he had not, indeed, mentioned his assumed name at the latter place; but his lack of interest in the fate of Solomon—whose disappearance had been narrated to him by the waitress—and his departure from the town under such circumstances, would (in case of his identification) be doubtless contrasted with this post-haste journey of his to deliver this same man. He had made up his mind, however, to neglect no precautions to avoid this contingency. It would be dark when he got to Gethin; and his purpose once accomplished he might easily escape recognition, unless he should be denounced by Solomon himself. In that case Richard was fully determined that he would glut no more the curiosity of the crowd. He would never stand in the prisoner's dock, or be consigned again to stone walls. The gossips should have a dead man's face to gaze at, and welcome; they might make what sport they pleased of that, but not again of his living agony. Then, instead of his being Solomon's murderer, he would be his victim. To judge by his present feeling, thought Richard, bitterly, this man would not enjoy his triumph even then. Revenge, as his mother had once told him, was like a game of battle-door—it is never certain who gets the last stroke. If Solomon was now dead, starved skeleton or rat-eaten corpse as he might be, Richard felt that he would still have had the advantage over him.

"What is it? Why are we stopping?" cried he, frantically, as the man pulled up on the top of a hill.

"Let me breathe the horses for an instant," pleaded the driver; "we shall gain time in the end."

"How far are we still from Gethin?" inquired Richard, impatiently.

"In time, two hours, Sir, for the road is bad, though me and the horses will do our best; but the distance is scarce twelve miles. Do you see that black thing out to seaward yonder? That's the castled rock. He stands out fine against the sunset, don't he?"

"Yes, yes; make haste;" and on they sped again at a gallop.

Within a mile or two of this spot Richard had first caught sight of that same object twenty years ago. The occasion flashed upon him with every minutest circumstance, even to the fact of how hungry he had been at the moment. The world was all before him then, and life was young. Now, prematurely aged, his interest centred in three human beings, and one of those was his bitter enemy.

The dusk thickened into dark; and the tired horses—for the stage had been a very long one—made but slow way.

"Faster! faster!" was Richard's constant cry, till the brow of the last hill was gained, and the scanty lights of Gethin showed themselves. Then it suddenly struck him for the first time what unnecessary speed had been made. Why, this man, Solomon, strong and inured to privation, had, after all, been but eight-and-forty hours in the mine, and would surely be alive, unless the rats had killed him. Where had he somewhere read of a strong man overpowered in a single night by a legion of rats, and discovered a heap of clean-picked bones by morning?

The inn, as usual at that season, showed few signs of life; but there were some half dozen miners drinking at the bar.

"Keep those men," said Richard to the inn-keeper; for Solomon had long delegated that office to another, though his own name was still over the door, and the Gethin Castle was still his home. "I shall want their help to-night."

"Their help, Sir?" said the astonished landlord.

"Yes; but say nothing for the present. Bring me a bottle of brandy and some meat—cold chicken, if you have it; then let me have a word with you."

Richard did not order the food for himself. While it was being brought he sat down in the very chair that he had used so often—for he had been ushered into his old parlor—and gazed about him. There were the same tawdry ornaments on the mantel-piece, and the same books on the dusty shelf. Nothing was altered except the tenant of that room; but how great a change had taken place in him! What a face the dingy mirror offered him in place of that which it had shown him last! When the inn-keeper returned his mind involuntarily conjured up old Trevethick, as he had received from him the key of the ruin, and doggedly taken his compliments upon its workmanship. Truly, "there is no such thing as forgetting;" and to recall our past to its minutest details at the judgment-day will not be so impracticable as some of us would desire.

Richard had made up his mind exactly as to what he would say to this man, but a question suddenly presented itself, which had been absent from his thoughts from the moment that he had resolved to rescue his enemy. It was a very simple one, too, and would have occurred to any one else, as it had done already many times to himself.

"Has Mr. Coe been found yet?"

He listened for the answer eagerly, for if such was the case, not only was his journey useless, but had brought him into the very jaws of destruction. He would have thrown away his life for nothing.

"No, Sir, indeed—and he never will be," replied the inn-keeper. "When the sea don't give a man up in four-and-twenty hours, it keeps him for good—at least we always find it so at Gethin."

"Well, listen to me. My name is Balfour. I knew Mr. Coe, and have had dealings with him. We had arranged a partnership together in a certain mine; and it is my opinion that he came down here upon that business."

"Very like, Sir. He was much engaged that way, and made, they say, a pretty penny at it."

"I was at Plymouth, on my way to join him, when I heard this sad news. I came to-day post-haste in consequence of it. The search for him must be renewed to-night."

"Lor, Sir, it is easy to see you are a stranger in these parts! I wouldn't like to go myself where poor Mr. Coe met his end, on so dark a night as this. It's a bad path even in daylight along Turlock cliff."

"He did not take that way, at least I think not. Have you a ladder about the premises?"

"Yes, sure."

"And a lantern?"

"Now that's strange enough, Sir, that you should have inquired for a lantern; for we wanted one just now to see to your horses, and, though they're looking for it high and low, it can't be found nowhere."

"It doesn't strike you, then, that Mr. Coe might have taken it with him?"

"Lor, Sir," cried the inn-keeper, with admiration, "and so he must ha' done! Of course it strikes one when the thing has been put into one's head. Well, 'twas a good lantern, and now 'tis lost. Dear me, dear me!"

Golden visions of succeeding to the management of the inn, and of taking to the furniture and fixings in the gross, had flitted across this honest gentleman's brain, and the disappearance of the lantern affected him with the acute sense of pecuniary damage. The general valuation would probably be no less because of the absence of this article.

"Send out and borrow another, as many, in fact, as you can get," said Richard, impatiently; "and get ready a torch or two besides. Pick out four of the strongest men yonder, and bid them come with me, and search Wheal Danes."

"What! that old pit. Sir? You'll not find a man to do it—no, not if they knowed as master was at the bottom of it. You wait till morning."

"Your master is at the bottom of it. I feel sure he took the lantern with him to search that mine. I will give them a pound apiece to start at once. Pack up this food, and lend them a mattress to bring him home upon. Be quick! be quick!"

Richard's energy fairly overpowered the phlegmatic inn-keeper, whose conscience, perhaps, also smote him with respect to his missing master; and he set about the execution of these orders promptly. Wheal Danes, he had truly hinted, was a very unpopular spot with its neighbors after nightfall; but, on the other hand, sovereigns were rare in Gethin, and greatly prized. In less than half an hour the necessaries which Richard had indicated were procured, and a party, consisting of himself, four stalwart miners, and the inn-keeper, started for the pit. These were followed by half the inhabitants of the little village, attracted by the rumor of their purpose, which had oozed out from the bar of the Gethin Castle. The windy down had probably never known so strange a concourse as that which presently streamed over it, with torch and lantern, and stood around the mouth of the disused mine. The night was dark, and nothing could be seen save what the flare of the lights they carried showed them—a jagged rim of pit without a bottom. Notwithstanding their numbers there was but little talk among them; they had a native dread of this dismal place, and, besides, there might now be a ghastly secret hidden within it. A muffled exclamation, half of admiration, half of awe, broke from the circling crowd as, the ladder planted, Richard was seen descending it torch in hand. No other man followed; none had volunteered, and he had asked for no companion. They watched him, as the countrymen of those who had formerly worked Wheal Danes might have watched Curtius when he leaped into the gulf; and as in his case, when they saw the ladder removed, and the light grow dim, and finally die out before their eyes, it seemed that the pit had closed on Richard—that he was swallowed up alive. No one, unless the strange story about their missing neighbor which this man had brought was true, had ventured into Wheal Danes for these fifty years! They kept an awe-struck silence, straining eye and ear. Some thought they could still see a far-off glimmer, others that they could hear a stifled cry, when the less fortunate or the less imaginative could hear or see nothing. But after a little darkness and silence reigned supreme beneath them; they seemed standing on the threshold of a tomb.



CHAPTER XLVII.

WHAT WAS FOUND IN WHEAL DANES.

A full half hour—which to the watchers above seemed a much longer interval—had elapsed since Richard had disappeared in the depths of Wheal Danes, and not a sign of his return had reached the attentive throng.

"I thought he'd come to harm," muttered a fisherman to his neighbor; "it was a sin and a shame to let him venture."

"Ay, you may say that," returned the other, aloud. "I call it downright murder in them as sent him."

"It was not I as sent him," observed the inn-keeper, with the honest indignation of a man that has not right habitually on his own side. "What I said to the gentleman was, 'Wait till morning.' Why should I send him?" Here he stopped, though his reasons for not wishing to hurry matters would have been quite conclusive.

"Why was he let to go down at all, being a stranger?" resumed the first speaker. "Why didn't somebody show him the way?"

"Because nobody knowed it," answered one of the four miners whose services Richard had retained, and who justly imagined that the fisherman's remark had been a reflection on his own profession. "I'd ha' gone down Dunloppel with him at midnight, or any other mine as can be called such; but this is different."

"Ay, ay, that's so," said a second miner. "We know no more of this place than you fishermen. There may be as much water in it as in the sea, for aught we can tell."

"It's my belief they're more afraid of the Dead Hand than the water," observed a voice from the crowd, the great majority of which was composed of fisher folk.

No reply was given to this; perhaps because the speaker, an old cripple, the Thersites of the village, was beneath notice, perhaps because the remark was unanswerable. The miners were bold enough against material enemies, but they were superstitious to a man.

"If Solomon Coe were alive," continued the same voice, "he wouldn't ha' feared nothin'."

"That's the first word, old man, as ever I heard you speak in his favor," said a miner, contemptuously; "and you've waited for that till he's dead."

"Still, he would ha' gone, and you durstn't," observed the old fellow, cunningly, "and that's the p'int."

These allusions to the Dead Hand and to the missing Solomon were not of a nature to inspire courage in those to whom it was already lacking, and a silence again ensued. There was less light, for a torch or two had gone out, and the mine looked blacker than ever.

"Well, who's a-going down?" croaked the old cripple. "The gentleman came from your inn, Jonathan, and it's your place, I should think, to look after him."

"Certainly not," answered the inn-keeper, hastily. "These men here were hired for this very service."

"That's true," said the first miner. "But what's the use of talking when the gentleman has got the ladder with him?"

"There's more ladders in the world than one," observed the cripple. "Here's my grandson, John; he and half a dozen of these young fellows would fetch Farmer Gray's in less than no time. Come, lads—be off with ye."

This suggestion was highly applauded, except by the miner who had so injudiciously compromised himself, and was carried out at once.

When the ladder arrived the three other miners, ashamed of deserting their comrade, volunteered to descend with him. The excitement among the spectators was great, indeed, when these four men disappeared in the levels of Wheal Danes, as Richard had done before them. The light of their combined torches lingered a little in their rear; the sound of their voices, as they halloed to one another or to the missing man, was heard for several minutes. But darkness and silence swallowed them up also, and the watchers gazed on one another aghast.

It is not an easy thing, even for those accustomed to underground labor, to search an unfamiliar spot by torch-light; the fitful gleam makes the objects on which it falls difficult of identification. It is doubtful whether one has seen this or that before or not—whether we are not retracing old ground. Even to practiced eyes these objects, too, are not so salient as the tree or the stone which marks a locality above-ground; add to this, in the present case, that the searchers were momently in expectation of coming upon something which they sought and yet feared to find, and it will be seen that their progress was of necessity but slow. They kept together, too, as close as sheep, which narrowed the compass of their researches, and caused their combined torches to distribute only as much light as one man would have done provided with a chandelier. They knew, however, that their predecessor had descended into the second level, so that they did not need to explore the first at all. The ground was hard, and gave forth echoes to their cautious but heavy tread; their cries of "Hollo!" "Are you there?" which they reiterated, like nervous children playing hide-and-seek, reverberated from roof to wall.

Presently, when they stopped to listen for these voices of the rock to cease, there was heard a human moan. It seemed to come up from a great depth out of the darkness before them. They listened earnestly, and the sound was repeated—the faint cry of a man in grievous pain.

"There must be another level," observed the miner who had volunteered the search. "This man has fallen down it."

They had therefore to go back for the ladder. Pushing this before them, the end began presently to run freely, and then stopped; it had adjusted itself by the side of the shorter ladder which Richard had brought down with him.

"He could not have fallen, then," observed a miner, answering his comrade's remark—as is the custom with this class of great doers and small talkers—at a considerable interval.

"Yes, he could," replied the one who had first spoken. "See, his ladder was short, and he may have pitched over."

They stood and listened, peering down into the darkness beneath them; but there was no repetition of the cries. The wounded man had apparently spent his last strength, perhaps his last breath, in uttering them.

"He must be down here somewhere. Come on."

The situation was sufficiently appalling; but these men had lost half their terrors, now that they knew there was a fellow-creature needing help. They descended slowly; and he who was foremost presently cried out, "I see him; here he is."

The man was lying on his face quite still; and when they lifted him, each looked at the other with a grave significance—they had carried too many from the bowels of the earth to the pit's mouth not to know when a man was dead. Even a senseless body is not the same to an experienced bearer as a dead weight. The corpse was still warm, but the head fell back with a movement not of life.

"You were right, mate. His neck is broke; the poor gentleman pitched over on his head."

"Stop a bit," exclaimed the man addressed; "see here. Why, it ain't him at all—it's Solomon Coe."

An exclamation of astonishment burst involuntarily from the other three.

"Then where's the other?" cried they all together.

"I am here," answered a ghastly whisper.

Within but a few feet of Solomon, so that they could hardly have overlooked him had not the former monopolized their attention, lay Richard, grievously hurt. Some ribs were broken, and one of them was pressed in upon the lungs. Still he was alive, and the men turned their attention first to him, since Solomon was beyond their aid. By help of the two ladders, side by side, they bore him up the wall of rock; and so from level to level—a tedious and painful journey to the wounded man—to the upper air.

He was carried to the inn upon the mattress which his own care had provided for another; while the four miners, to the amazement of the throng, once more descended into the pit for a still more ghastly burden.

Richard could speak a little, though with pain. By his orders a messenger was dispatched that night to Plymouth to telegraph the news of the discovery of her husband's body to Mrs. Coe. His next anxiety was to hear the surgeon's report, not on his own condition, but on that of Solomon. This gentleman did not arrive for some hours, and Richard was secretly well pleased at his delay. It was his hope, for a certain reason, that he would not arrive until the body was stiff and cold.

He saw Richard first, of course. The case was very serious; so much so that he thought it right to mention the fact, in order that his patient might settle his worldly affairs if they needed settlement.

"There is no immediate danger, my good Sir; but it is always well in such cases to have the mind free from anxiety."

"I understand; it is quite right," said Richard, gravely. "Moreover, since the opportunity may not occur again, let me now state how it all happened."

"Nay, you must not talk. We know it all, or at least enough of it for the present."

"What do you know?" asked Richard, with his eyes half shut, but with eager ears.

"That in your benevolent attempt to seek after Mr. Coe you met with the same accident—though I trust it will not have the same ending—as that unfortunate gentleman himself. He pitched upon his head and broke his neck, while you fell upon your side."

"That is so," murmured Richard. "He and I were partners, you see—"

"There, there; not a word more," insisted the doctor; "your deposition can wait."

And having done what he could for his patient, he left him, in order to examine the unfortunate Solomon. His investigation corroborated all that he had already heard of the circumstances of his death, with which also Richard's evidence accorded. An observation made by one of the miners who had found the body, to the effect that it was yet warm when they had come upon it, excited the surgeon's ridicule.

"It is now Tuesday morning, my friend," said he, "and this poor fellow met with his death on Saturday night for certain. He could not, therefore, have been much warmer when you found him than he is now."

"Well, me and my mate here we both fancied—"

"I dare say you did, my man," interrupted the doctor; "and fancy is a very proper word to apply to such an impression. If you take my advice, however, you will not repeat such a piece of evidence when put upon your oath, for the thing is simply impossible."

"Then I suppose we be in the wrong," said Dick to Jack; and on that supposition they acted.

In this way too self-reliant Science, whose mission it is to explode fallacies, occasionally assists in the explosion or suffocation of a fact, for Solomon Coe had not been dead half an hour when his body was found.

When Richard, alone on his errand of mercy, was approaching the brink of the third level, he could hear Solomon calling lustily for help. Nay, it was not only "Help!" but "Murder!" that he cried out; and notwithstanding the menace that that word implied toward himself, Richard hurried on, well pleased to hear it; the vigor of the cry assured him that his enemy was not only living, but unhurt. As the light he carried grew more distinct to him, indeed, these shouts redoubled; but when it came quite near, and disclosed the features of its bearer, there was a dead silence. The two men stood confronting one another—the one in light, distinctly seen, looking down upon the other in shade, just as they had parted only eight-and-forty hours ago. To one of them, as we know, this space had been eventful; but to the other it had seemed a lifetime—an age of hopes and fears, and latterly of cold despair, which had now been warmed once more to hope only to freeze again. For was not this man, to whom he had looked for aid, his cruel foe come back to taunt him—to behold him already half-way toward death, and to make its slow approach more bitter? But great as was his agony Solomon held his peace, nor offered to this monarch of his fate the tribute of a groan.