"What is it, dear?"

"The stones cut my feet."

She felt along the wall with one hand till she touched the jamb, then pressed against the door itself. It was shut. She groped for the lock.

No key was in it. She could as little escape from that enclosure as she could enter into it from without. The door was very solid, and the lock big and secure. What was to be done? Judith considered for a moment, standing in the pouring rain through which the lightning flashed obscurely, illumining nothing. It seemed to her that there was but one course open to her, to return and obtain the key from Mr.

Obadiah Scantlebray. But it would be no easy matter to induce him to surrender it.

"Jamie! will you remain at the door? Here under the wall is some shelter. I must go back."

But the boy was frightened at the prospect of being deserted.

"Then--Jamie, will you come back with me to the house?"

No, he would not do that.

"I must go for the key, dearest," she said, coaxingly. "I cannot open the door, so that we can escape, unless I have the key. Will you do something for Ju? Sit here, on the steps, where you are somewhat screened from the rain, and sing to me something, one of our old songs--A jolly hawk and his wings were gray? sing that, that I may hear your voice and find my way back to you. Oh--and here, Jamie, your feet are just the size of mine, and so you shall pull on my shoes.

Then you will be able to run alongside of me and not hurt your soles."

With a little persuasion she induced him to do as she asked. She took off her own shoes and gave them to him, then went across the yard to where was the house, she discovered the door by a little streak of light below it and the well trampled and worn threshold stone. She opened the door, took up the candle and again descended the steps to the cellar floor. On reaching the bottom, she held up the light and saw that the door was still sound; at the square barred opening was the red face of Mr. Scantlebray.

"Let me out," he roared.

"Give me the key of the garden door."

"Will you let me out if I do?"

"No; but this I promise, as soon as I have escaped from your premises I will knock and ring at your front door till I have roused the house, and then you will be found and released. By that time we shall have got well away."

"I will not give you the key."

"Then here you remain," said Judith, and began to reascend the steps.

It had occurred to her, suddenly, that very possibly the key she desired was in the pocket of the coat Mr. Scantlebray had cast off before descending to the cellar. She would hold no further communication with him till she had ascertained this. He yelled after her "Let me out, and you shall have the key." But she paid no attention to his promise. On reaching the top of the stairs, she again shut the door, and took up his coat. She searched the pockets. No key was within.

She must go to him once more.

He began to shout as he saw the flicker of the candle approach. "Here is the key, take it, and do as you said." His hand, a great coa.r.s.e hand, was thrust through the opening in the door, and in it was the key she required.

"Very well," said she, "I will do as I undertook."

She put her hand, the right hand, up to receive the key. In her left was the candlestick. Suddenly he let go the key that clinked down on the floor outside, and made a clutch at her hand and caught her by the wrist. She grasped the bar in the little window, or he would have drawn her hand in, dragged her by the arm up against the door, and broken it. He now held her wrist and with his strong hand strove to wrench her fingers from their clutch.

"Unhasp the door!" he howled at her.

She did not answer other than with a cry of pain, as he worked with his hand at her wrist, and verily it seemed as though the fragile bones must snap under his drag.

"Unhasp the door!" he roared again.

With his great fingers and thick nails he began to thrust at and ploughed her knuckles; he had her by the wrist with one hand, and he was striving to loosen her hold of the bar with the other.

"Unhasp the door!" he yelled a third time, "or I'll break every bone in your fingers!" and he brought his fist down on the side of the door to show how he would pound them by a blow. If he did not do this at once it was because he dreaded by too heavy a blow to strike the bar and wound himself while crushing her hand.

She could not hold the iron stanchion for more than another instant--and then he would drag her arm in, as a lion in its cage when it had laid hold of the incautious visitor, tears him to itself through the bars.

Then she brought the candle-flame up against his hand that grasped her wrist, and it played round it. He uttered a scream of pain, and let go for a moment. But that moment sufficed. She was free. The key was on the floor. She stooped to pick it up; but her fingers were as though paralyzed, she was forced to take it with the left hand and leave the candle on the floor. Then, holding the key she ran up the steps, ran out into the yard, and heard her brother wailing, "Ju! I want you!

Where are you, Ju?"

Guided by his cries she reached the door. The key she put into the lock, and with a little effort turned it. The door opened, she and Jamie were free.

The door shut behind them. They were in the dark lane, under a pouring rain. But Judith thought nothing of the darkness, nothing of the rain.

She threw her arms round her brother, put her wet cheek against his, and burst into tears.

"My Jamie! O my Jamie!"

But the deliverance of her brother was not complete; she must bring him back to Polzeath. She could allow herself but a moment for the relief of her heart, and then she caught him to her side, and pushed on with him along the lane till they entered the street. Here she stood for a moment in uncertainty. Was she bound to fulfil her engagement to Mr. Obadiah? She had obtained the key, but he had behaved to her with treachery. He had not intended the key to be other than a bait to draw her within his clutch, that he might torture her into opening the door of his cell. Nevertheless, she had the key, and Judith was too honorable to take advantage of him.

With Jamie still clinging to her she went up the pair of steps to the front door, rang the night-bell, and knocked long and loud. Then, all at once her strength that had lasted gave way, and she sank on the doorsteps, without indeed losing consciousness, but losing in an instant all power of doing or thinking, of striving any more for Jamie or for herself.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A RESCUE.

A window overhead was thrown open, and a voice that Judith recognized as that of Mrs. Obadiah Scantlebray, called: "Who is there?--what is wanted?"

The girl could not answer. The power to speak was gone from her. It was as though all her faculties, exerted to the full, had at once given way. She could not rise from the steps on which she had sunk: the will to make the effort was gone. Her head was fallen against the jamb of the door and the knot of the kerchief was between her head and the wood, and hurt her, but even the will to lift her hands and shift the bandage one inch was not present.

The mill-wheel revolves briskly, throwing the foaming water out of its buckets, with a lively rattle, then its movement slackens, it strains, the buckets fill and even spill, but the wheel seems to be reduced to statuariness. That stress point is but for a moment, then the weight of the water overbalances the strain, and whirr! round plunges the wheel, and the bright foaming water is whisked about, and the buckets disgorge their contents.

It is the same with the wheel of human life. It has its periods of rapid and glad revolutions, and also its moments of supreme tension, when it is all but overstrung--when its movement is hardly perceptible. The strain put on Judith's faculties had been excessive, and now those faculties failed her, failed her absolutely. The prostration might not last long--it might last forever. It is so sometimes when there has been overexertion; thought stops, will ceases to act, sensation dies into numbness, the heart beats slow, slower, then perhaps stops finally.

It was not quite come to that with Judith. She knew that she had rushed into danger again, the very danger from which she had just escaped, she knew it, but she was incapable of acting on the knowledge.

"Who is below?" was again called from an upper window.

Judith, with open eyes, heard that the rain was still falling heavily, heard the shoot of water from the roof plash down into the runnel of the street, felt the heavy drops come down on her from the architrave over the door, and she saw something in the roadway: shadows stealing along the same as she had seen before, but pa.s.sing in a reversed direction. These were again men and beasts, but their feet and hoofs were no longer inaudible, they trod in the puddles and splashed and squelched the water and mud about, at each step. The smugglers had delivered the supplies agreed on, at the houses of those who dealt with them, and were now returning, the a.s.ses no longer laden.

And Judith heard the door behind her unbarred and unchained and unlocked. Then it was opened, and a ray of light was cast into the street, turning falling rain-drops into drops of liquid gold, and revealing, ghostly, a pa.s.sing a.s.s and its driver.

"Who is there? _Is_ anyone there?"

Then the blaze of light was turned on Judith, and her eyes shut with a spasm of pain.

In the doorway stood Mrs. Scantlebray half-garmented, that is to say with a gown on, the folds of which fell in very straight lines from the waist to her feet, and with a night-cap on her head, and her curls in papers. She held a lamp in her hand, and this was now directed upon the girl, lying, or half-sitting in the doorway, her bandaged head leaning against the jamb, one hand in her lap, the fingers open, the other falling at her side, hanging down the steps, the fingers in the running current of the gutter, in which also was one shoeless foot.

"Why--goodness! mercy on us!" exclaimed Mrs. Scantlebray, inconsiderately thrusting the lamp close into the girl's face. "It can never be--yet--surely it is----"