Part 52 (1/2)

”I captured her, in the hope of marrying her, but that cannot be--I have brought her back in all safety and honour.”

”Sir! Sir, indeed he has been very good to me. Pray let him be looked to.”

”Let him be carried to the castle,” said the commander of the party, a tall man sunburnt to a fiery red. ”Is the other alive?”

”Only stunned, my lord, I think and not much hurt,” was the answer of an attendant officer; ”but here is a poor blackamoor dead.”

”Poor Hans! Best so perhaps,” murmured Peregrine, as he was lifted.

Then in a voice of alarm, ”Look to the lady, she is hurt.”

”It is nothing,” cried she. ”O Mr. Oakshott! that this should have happened!”

”My lord, this is the young gentlewoman I told you of, betrothed to poor young Archfield,” said Sir Edmund Nutley.

Lord Cutts, for it was indeed William's favoured 'Salamander,' took off his plumed hat in salutation, and both gentlemen perceiving that she too was bleeding, she was solicitously invited to the castle, to be placed under the charge of the lieutenant-governor's wife. She found by this time that she was in a good deal of pain, and thankfully accepted the support Sir Edmund offered her, when he dismounted and walked beside her pony, while explanations pa.s.sed between them. The weather had prevented any communication with the mainland, so that he was totally ignorant of her capture, and did not know what had become of Mr. Fellowes. He himself had been just starting with Lord Cutts, who was going to join the King for his next campaign, and they were to represent the case to the King.

Anne told him in return what she dared to say, but she was becoming so faint and dazed that she was in great fear of not saying what she ought; and indeed she could hardly speak, when after pa.s.sing under the great gateway, she was lifted off her horse, at the door of the dwelling-house, and helped upstairs to a bedroom, where the wife of the lieutenant-governor, Mrs. Dudley, was very tender over her with essences and strong waters, and a surgeon of the suite almost immediately came to her.

”Oh,” she exclaimed, ”you should be with Mr. Oakshott.”

The surgeon explained that Mr. Oakshott would have nothing done for him till he had fully made and signed his deposition, in case the power should afterwards be wanting.

So Anne submitted to the dressing of her hurt, which was only a flesh wound, the bone being happily untouched. Both the surgeon and Mrs. Dudley urged her going to bed immediately, but she was unwilling to put herself out of reach; and indeed the dressing was scarcely finished before Sir Edmund Nutley knocked at the door to ask whether she could admit him.

”Lord Cutts is very desirous of speaking with you, if you are able,”

he said. ”Here has this other fellow come round, declaring that Oakshott is the Pilpignon who was in the Barclay Plot, and besides, the prime leader of the Black Gang, of whom we have heard so much.”

”The traitor!” cried Anne. ”Poor Mr. Oakshott was resolved not to betray him! How is he--Mr. Oakshott, I mean?”

”The surgeon has him in his hands. We will send another from Portsmouth, but it looks like a bad case. He made his confession bravely, though evidently in terrible suffering, seeming to keep up by force of will till he had totally exonerated Archfield and signed the deposition, and then he fainted, so that I thought him dead, but I fear he has more to go through. Can you come to the hall, or shall I bring Lord Cutts to you? We must hasten in starting that we may bring the news to Winchester to-night.”

Anne much preferred going to the hall, though she felt weak enough to be very glad to lean on Sir Edmund's arm.

Lord Cutts, William's high-spirited and daring officer, received her with the utmost courtesy and kindness, inquired after her hurt, and lamented having to trouble her, but said that though he would not detain her long, her testimony was important, and he begged to hear what had happened to her.

She gave the account of her capture and journey as shortly as she could.

”Whither was she taken?”

She paused. ”I promised Mr. Oakshott for the sake of others--” she said.

”You need have no scruples on that score,” said Lord Cutts.

”Burford hopes to get off for the murder by turning King's evidence, and has told all.”

”Yes,” added Sir Edmund; ”and poor Oakshott managed to say, 'Tell her she need keep nothing back. It is all up.'”

So Anne answered all the questions put to her, and they were the fewer both out of consideration for her condition, and because the governor wanted to take advantage of the tide to embark on the Medina.

In a very few hours the Archfields would have no more fears. Anne longed to go with Sir Edmund, but she was in no state for a ride, and could not be a drag. Sir Edmund said that either his wife would come to her at once and take her to Parkhurst, or else her uncle would be sure to come for her. She would be the guest of Major and Mrs. Dudley, who lived in the castle, the actual Lord Warden only visiting it from time to time; and though Major Dudley was a stern man, both were very kind to her.

As a Whig, Major Dudley knew the Oakshott family, and was willing to extend his hospitality even to the long-lost Peregrine. The Lord Warden, who was evidently very favourably impressed, saying that there was no need at present to treat him as a prisoner, but that every attention should be paid to him, as indeed he was evidently a dying man. Burford and another of his a.s.sociates were to be carried off, handcuffed, with the escort to Winchester jail, but before the departure, the soldiers who had been sent to the Chine returned baffled; the place was entirely deserted, and Barclay had escaped.