University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

“This bodes me no good,” was the thought
that passed across the mind of the outlawed noble,
as he gazed from his loop-hole in the ruined
tower down upon the armed schooner as she lay
to, clearly visible in the bright moonlight.
“Doubtless my retreat is suspected, or Dame
Alice, for gain, hath betrayed my shelter; and
this vessel hath been sent to take me prisoner.
What other motive could it have in visiting this
inhospitable iron coast and coming to off the
castle? See! a boat is dropped from her quarter.
Men filled! I see the gleam of arms, and
even the ringing of steel comes clearly to the
ear. They give way and pull towards the spit
of sand! This is no place for me, if they seek
me! Ho, Alice! up with thee! Here come
armed men ashore, and will soon be climbing up
to the tower!”

The old woman was at once to her feet, the
fair child clinging to her and casting glances of
fear and wonder towards Lord Robin. She
whispered to her:

“It is papa's face—but not papa's voice! Let
him not touch me!”

“He shall not harm thee, child!” answered
the woman, as she looked down from the window.
After a moment's scrutiny, she said:

“It is a king's vessel, my lord! I know her
well. He who commands her is a young lord,
and has a mother living not far away hence, towards
the great town inland ayond the heath;
and every year in his cruise he cometh to land
here to visit her. Thou hast naught to fear.”

“Is what thou sayest true, woman?” he demanded,
with a searching glance.

“Yes, Lord Robin, true and fair! Would I
deceive you?”

“You might,” he muttered, “if you knew my
crime; albeit, you nursed me when a child!”

“Whatever it be, God will judge thee, not I!
It is not for a poor mortal like me to avenge and
punish.”

“I mistrust the boat, not thee, Alice. Thou
mayest be mistaken! They are landing. I must
conceal myself. What place knowest thou in
thy old tower here, safer than another? But
let me assure the child that I love and will protect
her!”

The fair little stranger drew back and cried
with fear. “Go away—I am afraid. You are
not my dear pa!”

“And yet why will you not love me, sweet
child?”

“Because you look wicked! God doesn't love
you, and I can't!”

“Curses even of innocence follow me!” he
said, with a deep oath of rage. And advancing
towards her he grasped her by the arm, and tearing

her from Dame Alice, cried, “I will make
you love me, whether God loves me or not!
Back, old woman! I am fleet of foot and strong
of arm. Pursue me in my flight and you peril
your life! If I am to be driven from men, I will
have at least one thing to love and to be loved
by. The desolation of a heart unloved and unloving,
is too dreadful to bear. Release my
arms!”

“Never, my lord! Do you not see the child
dreads you? This violence is not the way to
make her love you. And you will not escape
these armed men burdened by this little girl.
After they are gone and you are safe, I will give
you up the child, and you may teach her what
you will.”

“Be it so!” he answered, yielding. “Hark!
I hear those men near! Secrete me, and betray
me not,” he said, quickly.

“This way, Lord Robin,” she replied; but her
face was strangely altered in its expression.

He followed her along a passage between the
walls of the tower and a row of half ruined apartments.
Descending a flight of steps, she came
to a stone door which led into a deep excavation
made in the rock on which the tower stood.

“Enter here, my lord. The door is so shaped
that when shut it is invisible, and to the hand
and eye there seems to be only the face of the
cliff.”

“How long wilt thou keep me here, woman?”
he asked, hesitating to enter, yet acting with
decision as he heard voices above.

“Until they are gone.”

“Get them soon off, for this dungeon is dump
and dark as a grave. But so I am safe—I am
content to occupy it a few hours. Have them
soon away.”

“Trust my wits, my lord.”

“Let me have the child—they may steal it
from thee!”

“No, no, I will not go in!” cried the child,
firmly.

“Nay, I will see that they do nothing of that
kind,” she answered, after a moment's startled
thought. “Farewell, my lord, till I can assure
thee of thy safety.”

Thus saying she swung the door heavily to,
and forced in the stone bolt, which so fitted as to
be undistinguishable from the door, which was
cut into the irregular shape of the varying grain
of the rock, so that it was rather a fragment artificially
cut out of the rock than a shapely door.

“What cowards guilt makes of men! Once
he had a lion's courage—and now he flies and
hides under ground like a mole, at the sight of
men he never saw! And because all men are
his foes, he would make this sweet child love
him—and yet would win her love with a tiger's
fawning. Fairy,” she added, as she led the
trembling child along lightly up the dark passage
with a torch of pine, “sweet fairy, you must
not tremble. I am your friend! I will make you
so happy. He shall not come near you.”

“I can't be happy. I must see my ma! I
can't be happy with you. Where is my dear
ma? Where is the ship? This is not the ship.
I saw pa in the water. Where is he and my ma?”

“You shall soon see them,” she said soothingly.
“Here come men. Don't be afraid of
them.”

But before she could prevent it, the little girl
darted away from her and hid in the darkness.
She was going to pursue her, when two men,
one an officer in the British naval uniform, came
close upon her. She was instantly seized and
commanded not to give any alarm.

“Your name is Dame Elsy?” said the officer,
who while speaking, was joined by four more
men, with pistols in their hands, and one or two
dark lanterns.

“Alice, not Elsy,” she answered. “And Alice
or Elsy, what do you want with a lone poor
dame, who has no other home left on earth than
this old tower, shared with the owls and bats?”

“And with a companion beside,” significantly
said the officer, who was a man of thirty, brown
with years of sea-exposure, and stern in voice
and eye with years of command over men. There
was, however, a frank, nautical air about him,
singularly prepossessing.

“What other than a poor woman like me
would live here, captain?” she answered evasively.

“Not of choice. Where is the man whom you
have sheltered for some weeks?”

“Man?”

“Be open and truth-telling, or it will go hard
with thee!” said the officer, sternly.

“Whom do you look for?”

“Your former master, Lord Robert Clan
William! We know he is here, or has been
here, waiting to escape by sea.”

“Yes—he was here, but—he's escaped for
safety. When he saw you coming ashore, he
fled!”

“Knowest thou whither? Speak out, woman,
if thou wouldst thyself escape.”

“He is my master!” she said with hesitation,
and looking with fear upon the drawn swords
and eager faces about her.

“Quickly—say whither he went—or your
own life will pay the forfeit for harboring a
murderer!”

“Whom hath Lord Robin slain?”

“His father, with poison!”

“His father?” she repeated with horror.

“No less a crime! Besides, treason against
the state hath been discovered since he fled.”

“Slain his father! I believed he died in his
bed a natural death, a year ago!”

“So all men believed. But it is come out
now that he was poisoned, and the disentombed
body hath borne its own witness, which hearing
of, caused the parricide to seek safety in flight,
and desert all the honors, the name, and title,
and wealth, to enter upon the possession of which,
before his time, tempted him to the great crime
of a father's murder; and now I have told thee
so much, for thou seemest to be a woman of
sense and intelligence, above thy wretched lot
here, I will add, that his papers left behind, unfolded
a treasonable correspondence with France,
in prospect of the threatened invasion. Wicked
and powerful, he was secretly the state's arch
enemy, and used the wealth he had got by bringing
about his father's cruel death, to forward his
views. Such a man should receive no shelter
from his kind. Reveal at once where he has
concealed himself; for information is clear that
he is in the tower; for our spies on land have
watched closely all avenues, days before we
reached here; and have seen him, and we know
he is still here. But what lovely child is this?”
the officer exclaimed, as the little girl, gathering
confidence as she listened, in the speaker, and
prompted by instinct, suddenly ran forward from
her hiding-place, and caught him by the hand!
With thrilling tones of voice, she cried:

“Sir, good, dear officer, take me away from
this dreadful place and wicked people! The
woman is little good—but I don't want to stay
with her. Don't you know my ma? I have
been drowned and they are drowned, or I should
see them! I never was away from my pa and
ma before! I know you are good, and will not
hurt me!”

The officer pressed her soft hands with which
she clasped his, bent down and kissed her, and
said, gently:

“You are safe with me! I will take you
home. Woman, how came you by this lovely
child?”

“I took her dripping from the sea, last night!
She was the only soul saved from the wreck of
the barque.”

“You did well! (so the vessel did go ashore
in the storm, as we feared,” he added, turning to
his lieutenant). “You must give up this child
to me, and tell me at once where this Lord
Robert is?”

“Never will I give up the child. She is
mine!” cried the woman, and springing towards
the little girl as she was held by the officer,
released her with sudden violence, and darted
with her along the dark passages of the tower,
and was out of sight before pursuit could fairly
begin, so unexpected was the bold act.

“Give chase, my men!” called out the officer.
“Take some of you one way and some of you
the other, while you, lieutenant, will go outside
and intercept her. I will take the way she has
gone!”

The shrieks of the child, which sounded as if
she was endeavoring to suppress them by force,
were a sure guide, and Dame Alice was soon
overtaken as she was ascending a broken stairway
towards the top of the tower. Upon seeing
the captain close upon her, she bounded upward,
and reached the open floor of the tower which
was now roofless. The next moment she was
standing upon the projecting stone cap of a buttress.
Below, two hundred feet of wall and
cliff in sheer descent, rolled the surges with the
roar of thunder against the rock.

“Advance one step, sir captain, and I cast the
child into the sea whence I took it! No power
shall rob me of my right! If I may not keep
her for my old years to love, no one shall have
her.”

The officer stood transfixed with indecision.
That she would fulfil her word her resolute looks
clearly convinced him. He was about to parley
with her, when the child made a spring towards
him; the sudden movement caused her to lose
her balance, to recover which, she instinctively
released her hold upon it. The child fell upon
the very edge of the tower with its face and
hands inward, and its feet hanging over the
frightful gulf. The officer quickly caught her
by one hand, as she was balancing between life
and death, and drew her in upon the tower floor,
but with such rescuing violence that she fell
senseless from fright and pain at his feet. At
the same instant the woman, unable to recover
herself, madly beat the air with her bony hands.
But in vain her superhuman efforts. With an

expression of indescribable despair upon her
face, she suddenly shrieked with an appalling
cry, and losing her footing, reeled and pitched
headlong out of sight.

The officer echoed her shriek with a voice of
horror; and bending over, saw her descending,
turning over and over in her progress, until she
struck the sea and disappeared in its depth.

“Rather thyself, old dame, than this fair child,
whom thou wouldst have cast over to this dreadful
death! Thou wilt rest sound enough a-neath
the wave till Gabriel's trump. And now, my
sweet little angel, I trust thou art not seriously
hurt by my flinging thee so rudely down as I
caught thy hand; but it was my only chance for
thee!”

And he laid down the torch which he had held
until now, to raise her up. At this crisis he was
rejoined by his lieutenant, and hastening with
their lovely burden down to the court, where
there was a well of water, they speedily revived
her with its refreshing coldness. When she
came to, she looked fearfully around, and then
said:

“O, let her not have me! She will kill me,
and drown me in the sea!”

“No—do not fear, my sweet child,” he said,
tenderly. “She is dead, herself, in the sea!
You shall soon be safe with a kind mother, and
with everybody who will love you and pet you,
and make you forget your sorrow and tears.”

“O, shall I? O, take me to dear mother! I
haven't seen her since she was in the big ship in
the naughty storm!”

“Go at once to the hamlet inn, Antonio,” said
the officer, “and order three horses for me!
Have them here at once. 'Tis but three miles.”

This order was addressed to his servant, a
young Spanish lad of eighteen (whose life's
story in itself was full of romance enough for a
tale, if we had time to tell it), who, answering,
“Si, senor,” quickly disappeared on his errand.

The officer now laid his cloak folded upon a
stone bench, and placing the little girl upon it
with tenderness, soothed her with promises of
soon being at home. In a little time she fell
asleep, with her head upon his arm.

“Was ever created thing so lovely?” he said,
half aloud, as he gazed upon her. “An orphan
child of the sea! Of good lineage and noble is
she, if beauty and perfection of hand and foot
are signs of blood. But I must not idle here.
Now that that old witch's tongue is silent, we
cannot learn from her this outlawed noble's hid
ing-place. Let us search the tower thoroughly,
Perey,” he said to his young lieutenant; “and as
it is now daybreak, we shall have light to aid
us.”

A search was now instituted of the closest
character. More than once those who sought
the noble passed the wall wherein he was concealed.
He heard their voices, and gathered
enough to know that they were, indeed, as his
fears foretold, looking for him. He thanked old
Alice in his heart for the secure place in which
she had so carefully hidden him, and feeling secure,
he laid down on the hard rock to try to get
some rest, trusting that when he awaked, his
pursuers would have left the tower. Suddenly
a shriek far above him in the air, startled him!
Then a dark body passed like a descending rock
by a little window in the cliff. He was unable
what to make of it. But it was the falling body
of the woman! Again he slept. When he next
awaked, they had departed. It was high noon,
and they had been gone two hours—Captain
Manners, satisfied that the nobleman had escaped
him by leaving the tower at the outset, on
seeing him land. Lord Robin could see that it
was day by a light that came through the breathing
hole, or small window, in the rock, that looked
towards the sea. It was not large enough to
put his head out of, yet sufficiently so to afford
him light and air, and a prospect of the ocean;
and even, by putting his face close to it, he could
discern the topmasts of the armed schooner laying-to
under the cliff.

“Their vessel is not yet gone! Perhaps Alice
waits till they sail fairly off before she comes to
let me out! So I am discovered at last! They
know my hiding-place? Could the woman have
betrayed it for their gold! But it may not be,
since she hides me from them! I will wait with
patience! Better be here a time than in a king's
prison, or on the scaffold, with a block of wood
for my pillow! When I get out again, I will
take the first ship I can reach for the wilds of
America! There, they tell me, men question
not men! All are free to come and go; and the
laws of the old world have not arms long enough
to reach their fugitives. Here I have been like a
lion caged—there I will be like the lion free in
his retired forests! Ho! Alice! Nay, I must
not call too loud! My foes may yet be near.
But I hunger, and am perishing for water! I
will try and rest again—and in sleep forget I am
here!”

But he could not repose. He walked up and

down his cavern, beneath the foundations of the
tower, and ever and anon paused and listened at
the door! He would then try it, and endeavor
to open it, but it moved no more than the rock
out of which it was cut. He then looked out of
his little crevice upon the sea. The vessel was
sailing easily along under main, foresail and jib,
the breeze light, evidently waiting for her boat's
crew and officers. By this he was assured that
they must be searching for him in the vicinity of
the tower.

So hours passed on. He grew impatient, and
then anxious. He was instantly passing between
the little window in the rock and the door of
rock. The blood red rays of the setting sun fell
slanting into his hiding-place. The sea was
crimson with its beams. To his great joy, he
saw the schooner come out from under the cliff,
with her boats all aboard, and with her canvass
set alow and aloft, steer seaward. This sight
caused him to forget his day of torture and anxiety.
As the schooner receded, his heart grew
lighter, and he breathed freer.

“They are full a league away now, and are
leaving, giving up the search. It has been a
hard day's purchase this pleasing sight. Now
I shall soon be released! Already the shades of
evening veil her from my sight, and the stars
begin to sparkle above the waves. Ho! Alice—
dame—good dame, Alice!” he shouted, as he
approached and shook at the door.

“Come and open!”

He listened, and shouted again:

“Woman! nurse! Alice! I am hungry, and
thirsting for water! Haste and open! The
vessel is two leagues away—and where dost thou
loiter?”

He listened, but heard no sound save that of
the dashing of the waves, as it was borne upward
to his ear from the base of the cliff.

It grew darker in the cavern each moment,
and he finally shouted, at the full top of his deep
voice, sharpened by anger and half-awakened
suspicion:

“Hag of a woman! Ho, hillo! Why do you
not come and open this door, and let me forth?
Shall I be left to die?”

“Die!” answered a distant echo from the
vault's galleries.

He paused, amazed! It seemed the voice of
a mocking demon. Fear and suspicion had already
begun to be formed in his mind—mere
shadows, at first, flitting across his thoughts.
At length, he put them into the shape of words,
as he paced fiercely to and fro, at intervals stopping
to utter a loud shout.

“What if she has been carried off, and is now
a captive in the vessel I saw so gladly leaving
the coast! If so, I rejoice at my own destruction,
for only she knows where I am—only she
can open my door! Yet, wherefore should they
take her? They seek only me! Perhaps—
perhaps”—he gasped, “she has been slain, for I
heard a fierce cry and sound of distress, and her
voice! Perhaps, she has only fled, and will return
soon! I will try and think so! I will not
dwell on the worst side of the dread alternatives!
I will wait. I will be composed. I will be content
to pass this night here, and in the morning,
she will be here! Come to my aid, patience!
Strengthen me, manhood and courage! Away,
cowardly fears and apprehensions and timid suspicions.
I will let the morning bring all to pass.
So! it is hard resting, on hunger for a couch,
and thirst for a coverlid; but it is better than the
king's prison. Better the ills I have than those
I might have!”

Thus soliloquizing, he concentrated the energy
of a spirit of no ordinary strength of character,
and with a calm, though rigid aspect, stood leaning
by the hole in the rock, and gazed quietly
out upon the stars. There was a slight breeze
which poured in at the crevice and cooled his feverish
brow. The wind at the same time blew
outward, from a rough spur of the external rock,
a shred, like a streaming pennon, which flapped
between him and the evening sky. It attracted
his attention, and he at length extended his arm,
and, disengaging it from the sharp needle of the
rock, drew it in.

“What is this? A fragment of cloth, and intermingled
with hair—human hair! How can
this have come here! No human being could
have passed out of this small crevice and left it
clinging to the rock! Doubtless some wretch
has fallen, or leaped, from the tower above, and
their clothes have caught in the descent, and
shreds have been left here. Well, they are at
peace! The only good of this life is that it has
death at the end!”

He cast the long hair and fragment on the
floor, and soon forgot it! though at intervals he
would wonder if the dark body he had seen falling
in the morning, like lightning, past his loop-hole,
had not been a human body.

All night, he walked the cavern. The secrets
of his meditations, who may reveal! Who
knoweth the things of the spirit of man but

the spirit of man within him? A life-time may
be reviewed in a wakeful night! Thoughts go
swifter than pens, and thoughts write out volumes
on the memory with immeasurable rapidity.
The acts of a long life, good and evil, the thoughts
can volume in a few hours. When wicked men
are wakeful, they read themselves! They are
their own book. Read—read—read they must!
They may shut their eyes, but the eyes of the
soul close never, and read on and read ever,
whether the outward man will or no! This terrible,
ceaseless reading of the life is what makes
a night of wakefulness so dreadful to bad men!
So, Lord Robin passed the long night with the
blazing eyes of his soul perusing the acts of his
life, to which the ever open ears of his conscience
were vainly tried to be closed. At length, day
came. The sun rose, and the gloom of his cavern
was dispelled. Hunger and thirst now made
him frantic. He shouted for dame Alice. With
his dagger twisted into the close joint, he tried
to open the stone door, but broke the steel at the
first trial. He began to utter execrations upon
the woman, and to charge her with wilful desertion,
when his eyes fell on the piece of dress.
He took it up from the floor, and instantly recognized
it as a part of the gown she had worn; and
the long gray and black hair, which he saw was
torn up by the roots from the head, he knew was
hers.

For a few moments, he remained stupefied
with the fearful discovery. The certainty that
the body which had fallen down the cliff was
that of dame Alice was now clearly apparent to
his appalled soul.

“She has perished! They have cast her over
the wall, and my fate is sealed! I am buried
alive!”

This was spoken with a hollow voice, and a
face as pale as the marble that effigies the dead
of earth. His hand shook, that grasped the lock
of hair, and his whole frame was agitated.

“I see it! My doom is sealed! The woman
is no more! The secret of my shelter was
known to her alone. What said she, as she left
me! That the secret of the door was so done,
that no eye, no hand could detect, but only those
who knew it! The woman is murdered by
them—perhaps for refusing to betray me, and I
am left to perish—entombed alive!”

He at length, with an aspect of despair scarcely
lighted by a ray of hope, surveyed, with a ghastly
look, his prison! He walked carefully around
it. He examined every irregularity. He inspected
the door, and tried to shake it. He
threw himself across the room, like a battering
ram, against it. He then examined the window.
It was scarcely larger than to receive his arm,
and the rock was two feet in thickness.

“I must die!” he said, after an hour's restless
and frenzied examination of the strength of his
hiding-place. “My voice can never be heard,
save by the mocking billows. Must I die?
Must I perish here day by day? feel death eating
at my heart and drying my brain? Nay!
I will meet it! I have my dagger left. It shall
be my friend, to end my torture ere it begins.”