Part 45 (1/2)
It was the face of her husband--and the large full eyes were fixed upon her in a fas.h.i.+on that riveted her own as though attracted by a rattle-snake. They had not met since that fearful night when, with throbbing heart and bleeding feet, Eleanor had rushed from her home to the sanctuary of the mission station.
Each looked in silence at the other. Only a minute pa.s.sed away, there was a low growl from the hound Marmion, a foot pressed the ground below the eastern window, and the dread presence vanished.
She heard the willow boughs breaking, Ormsby's dog barked furiously, hurried footsteps again pa.s.sed her window, and before she had strength to rise, Fitje with Ellen in her arms crept quietly into the room.
Voices sounded through the cottage, in the garden,--the dog's angry bark retreated up the ravine, the whole camp was roused, and the cry went along the lines--”The prisoner has escaped.”
With his usual tact and presence of mind, though death stared him in the face, Jasper Lyle had contrived to conciliate the young sergeant on guard so far, that the latter did not turn a deaf ear to the man who, though he knew him to be a rebel, he believed to be brave and adventurous. Lyle asked but few questions, and these in a careless way.
He ascertained that Sir John Manvers was ”like to die, he was so ill;”
that Sir Adrian was in command, and that the family of the Commissioner, Mr Daveney, was living in a cottage within five hundred yards of the guard-house.
Sir John Manvers ill--delirious! Had the blow told? Sir Adrian in command! He was the last man to punish by death, if it was possible to avoid such an extremity. Life might be spared, but there would be no more freedom for Jasper Lyle. Gray convicted--condemned!--how, then, could he expect favour? Something like a spasm of remorse touched his heart as he thought of the young deserter. His wife!--was she so near?
There are moments in the lives of evil men over which good angels hold their sway. Gray and Eleanor!--were they not his victims? He would fain have said a good word for one,--a strange desire arose to see the other.
He had not been an hour in his prison ere his quick eye had descried a possible means of escape.
The walls were of stone, the roof of s.h.i.+ngles, the loop-hole a mere narrow slit high up in the wall. Lyle drew his bedstead near it, he stood up and looked out; he could see the southern plains and part of the encampment, he could hear the reliefs pa.s.sing too and fro; he listened and distinguished the parole, ”Albany.” He rubbed his hands with glee, he examined the loop-hole, and discovered that no coping-stone supported the roof. A bar of iron from his bedstead would remove the s.h.i.+ngle overhanging the loop.
He sat down upon the bedstead in a desponding att.i.tude. When the sergeant entered with the afternoon meal, the prisoner was weeping.
Fortune favoured Lyle. The sun set in heavy clouds, torrents of rain began to fall, the sentry who paced below the loop-hole retired to his box in the angle of the building, the thunder roared, the lightning flashed, and the convict worked amid the din of the elements. Every now and then he listened at the door; in the pauses of the storm he could hear the sleepers in the guardroom breathing hard; he went to work again, the roof had rotted from the effects of the rainy season, it gave way, and Lyle raised his head through the aperture.
In another instant he had slid down the wall, and was on the turf.
The sentry was within a few paces of him, but the wind, coming from an opposite direction, blew the blinding rain in the soldier's face. He was wide awake, though, and, on finding something was astir not far off, uttered the usual query, ”Who goes there?” The steady reply of ”Friend,” and the countersign ”Albany,” were sufficient; the sentry imagined it was some officer pa.s.sing from one tent to another; the convict plunged below the bank in rear of the guardroom, which was on a line with the Daveneys' cottage; and, scrambling on till he came to the group of willows, sprang into the garden, and saw before him a window.
A light shone through the muslin curtain.
It readily yielded to his touch; he looked in--his pale, sorrowful-looking wife was before him.
What a contrast with the turmoils through which he had pa.s.sed, with the wild uncertainty which made his bosom throb, was the sight of this grave, sad, innocent woman, alone in the stillness of dawn, with her Bible beside her!
It was so totally unlike what he had experienced since he had first known her, that he was softened, though confounded, at the sight. He wanted words; he felt as if he could have said something kind, but did not know how.
Ah! the scorched and fiery ground of the sinful man's mind hath no resting-place for the angel's foot. The good spirit halted on the threshold; nevertheless, Jasper wore a look unusual to him, and when it had pa.s.sed away, it haunted Eleanor like a vision. Her memory of it was touched with something like compa.s.sion, and it was well that it was so.
The cry was raised, ”The prisoner has escaped.”
The morning broke cold and chill, and the vapours hung about the hills, as the little force of Cape cavalry and its infantry supports were mustered, ere they started on the _spoor_ of the convict, with orders also to reconnoitre the ground haunted by the enemy. It was May who had discovered the _spoor_.
Devoted to the Daveneys, and especially attached to Eleanor, he had built for himself a little pent-house, a _lean-to_, beneath the eastern window of her room. In this he, and Fitje, and Ellen, and Ormsby's gallant hound--May's friend and playmate--all slept at night. May was always ready to accompany the Commissioner in his rounds; he was at hand any moment during the twenty-four hours; he was as watchful as the hound. Although he had never enlightened Fitje on the subject of Eleanor's miserable connection with Lyle, he had followed her through her whole history, and a vague sense of dread for her sake hung about him as soon as he learned that her tormentor had re-appeared in the shape of Lee the convict.
On the night in question, May, like a true bushman, was too much disconcerted by the commotion in the elements to sleep. He never could banish the idea, entertained by his race, that evil spirits were working mischief in the stormy air; and he had just turned round upon his mat, comforted by the streaks of daylight penetrating the shed, when his quick ear detected a foot-fall to which he was unaccustomed--
”By the p.r.i.c.king of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes,” thought May, in words not unlike the text; and, creeping from the shed, he saw a tall, dark form between him and the white wall of the cottage.
Lyle's ear, almost as keen as May's, was disturbed by the bushman's movement, stealthy as it was; the next instant the hound sprung out.
The convict swung himself down the bank by the bough of one of the willows, and, lifting a stone, cast it with such sure aim at poor Marmion, that he fell lame on the spot. Still the beast managed to follow him up the ravine, and May tracked the steps from bush to bush till Marmion sank down whining piteously, and holding his bleeding limb up with an imploring look that May could not resist.