LIX
Harry was unconscious. She felt his face and her fingers touched something warm and wet.
She could see nothing; the darkness was impenetrable. No sound came from the room from which she had fallen. The floor was thick, the heavy oaken base of the refectory table gliding, she guessed on rollers that worked as truly as they had when, hundreds of years before, the Black Abbot found this exit so valuable, had slipped back into its place. If she only had some sort of light! It occurred to her to search the unfortunate Harry. Presently she found a silver box containing matches. She struck one and looked around. They were lying at the foot of what had once been a wooden stair. The treads were broken, the heavily carved handrail had rotted, leaving two wide gaps. Half the treads had vanished, the other half were now broken by her fall.
Harry was lying in a recess carved from the solid rock, and left and right ran a narrow passage streaming with water. She left the alcove and struck another match. The passage curved and twisted so that only a few feet in either direction was visible. Pools of still water filled the hollows of the floor; long bunches of gray fungus, grape-like in its formation, hung from the roof. Yet the air was sweet enough. She felt a gentle draught coming from the left-hand passage, but as yet she could not explore and she returned to Harry.
His eyes were closed, his lips bloodless, and through the grime his face was gray. With a gasp of horror she thought he was dead, but when she put her hand under his waistcoat she could feel the faint flutter of his heart. He had an electric torch somewhere in his pocket, he had told her, and she began to search. It necessitated moving him slightly and as she did so he groaned. The lamp was in the tail pocket of his frock-coat, a square, flat lamp, of a type usually to be found in every room of Fossaway Manor.
She thought at first that the unconscious man carried two, but found that the second package was a spare battery. Switching on the light, she examined the roof above the broken stairs. She saw it was the underside of a slab of wood. From here she could see the rollers on which the table ran; stout things of wood. Near the head of the stairs two large wooden grips projected downward, rather like the butts of huge Browning pistols, and she guessed that by this means the table was drawn back from below.
When she looked at Harry again he was staring upward with wondering eyes.
“What happened?” he asked.
“We must have fallen through a trap,” she said. “Do you think you could reach those handles?” She pointed to them.
He rose unsteadily to his feet, replaced his spectacles which had been knocked off in his fall, and looked at the butts. Only two of the treads remained intact. He tried one, but it broke under his feet and the supporting posts were sagging.
“I can’t reach that,” he said. “It must be twelve feet high.”
Then she noticed his wound and made him sit down while she dressed it with a strip of silk torn from her skirt.
“How on earth did we get into this beastly place?” he asked, wondering. “Where are we?”
“We’re under the Abbey,” she said, and his frown ended in a grimace of pain.
“Where is Dick?” he asked.
“He is up there, I think,” she said.
And yet why should Dick be there? He would not know his way into the lower chamber, she thought, with a sinking heart.
“Do you think you can walk?”
He looked round in dismay.
“I can walk all right, but whither?”
“Let us try the left-hand passage first,” she suggested, and he was agreeable.
The left-hand passage, they found, was a steep ascent which turned continuously to the left. It was like one of those corkscrew tunnels through which she had travelled in Switzerland, where the train burrows its way upward in the heart of the solid rock. Was it above Montreux or on Pilatus? She was too tired to think.
At the first turn she stopped. She had seen a glimmer of light, and, making an inspection, she found a square hole, cut apparently in the rock; the further end was covered with hanging weeds, and through these she saw the light distinctly, a faint yellow glow. They continued their climb, and presently came to another small opening. Here, then, was one of the sources of air supply, though little came this way, for when she lit a match before it the flame scarcely wavered.
“How much farther are we going?” asked Harry faintly. “I’m nearly all in.”
“We must go on,” she said. “This probably brings us to the open air somewhere.”
He put his hand on her shoulder, and, walking slowly, they made another complete turn of the winding passage, and this time they found an air hole that was not weed-covered. The light was stronger now, and, looking through, she thought she saw a swaying cord. And she heard something, too—voices. It was not an illusion; somebody was talking at an immense distance away, it seemed. She looked again. The cord seemed very near, but when she thrust her hand through the opening and tried to grasp it, she knew that she had been the victim of an optical illusion. She called out but there was no answer. She must have imagined the voices.
And then she heard a faint shout and the yellow light which had shone through the entrance went out.
“I can’t go any farther.” Harry collapsed against the wall and slid down into a sitting position, his head on his breast.
“Do you mind if I leave you in the dark?” she asked.
He shook his head wearily, and, leaving him, she continued the climb, and presently found herself in a straight, narrow passage. At some period an attempt had been made to dress the sides with stone slabs. The wall was littered with crumbling fragments of stone, and gaps showed where age and the action of the damp had detached the dressing from the walls. As near as she could judge, she was moving away from the Abbey in the direction of Fossaway Manor.
This latter was a guess. It was impossible that it could lead toward the cut road to the north of the estate. Then the explanation came to her: she was passing under the Mound, the high bank that fringed the Ravensrill. What light feet had trodden this way, she wondered? What fears or hopes, desire or despair, had sped along this rough stone floor? Unconsciously she was reconstructing an ancient cause and effect. The effect brought her to a standstill. Right across the passage a wall had been built; a solid barrier of masonry which checked all further movement.
Though she did not know and could not guess, here was the obstacle that the revengeful Lord of Chelford had set up after his assassin had gone forth to slay the man who had dishonoured him. No more would the light steps of frail womanhood trip along this secret passage, and since Yvonne of Chelford had died of a broken heart no woman’s foot had stirred this dust.
Leslie turned back, her courage failing. Approaching the spot where she had left Harry, she heard his soft chuckle and her skin crept.
“Leslie. Leslie!” he whispered eagerly. “You have no idea what a bit of good luck I’ve had!”
And when he came into the light of her lamp, he was his old exalted self.
“What do you think happened?”
She was conscious now of voices. She heard somebody shout and a faint answer, but faint as it was, she recognized the voice. It was Dick’s.
“What has happened?” she asked quickly.
He doubled up with silent laughter and could not speak for a minute, and then he showed her a knife.
“With that,” he said complacently. “I saw him go down… and then the rope came near… I could have touched it. Then I remembered I had my knife and I reached through and before they could pull it away I’d cut it.”
She gazed at him in horror.
“Was somebody on the rope?” she gasped.
He nodded gravely.
“The arch-enemy of the human race,” he said in a sober tone. “Richard Alford.”
Petrified with terror, she put her ear to the hole and heard Dick speaking. Then without a word she fled down the slope. Round and round the circular passage she went until she was almost dizzy. Presently she reached the lower air hole, put through her hand and tore away the veiling weeds.
“Dick, Dick!” she called.
She could see him now, for the air hole was just above water level. His face was gray and drawn.
“Dick!”
She thrust out her hand and presently closed about his ice-cold wrist, and at that moment Harry’s hand fell on her shoulder and she was dragged backward. She felt the wrist slip, she heard the splash of water as Dick Alford fell, and fainted.