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Put Yourself in His Place, a novel by Charles Reade |
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Chapter 32 |
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_ CHAPTER XXXII Coventry and Cole met that night near a little church. Hill was to join them, and tell them the result. Now, as it happens, Little went home rather late that night; so these confederates waited, alternately hoping and fearing, a considerable time. Presently, something mysterious occurred that gave them a chill. An arrow descended, as if from the clouds, and stuck quivering on a grave not ten yards from them. The black and white feathers shone clear in the moonlight. To Coventry it seemed as if Heaven was retaliating on him. The more prosaic but quick-witted cutler, after the first stupefaction, suspected it was the very arrow destined for Little, and said so. "And Heaven flings it back to us," said Coventry, and trembled in every limb. "Heaven has naught to do in it. The fool has got drunk, and shot it in the air. Anyway, it mustn't stick there to tell tales." Cole vaulted over the church-yard wall, drew it out of the grave, and told Coventry to hide it. "Go you home," said he. "I'll find out what this means."
Hill twisted violently round and, dropping the bow, struck the woman in the face with his fist; he had not room to use all his force; yet the blow covered her face with blood. She cried out, but gripped him so tight by both shoulders that he could not strike again but he kicked her savagely. She screamed, but slipped her arms down and got him tight round the waist. Then he was done for; with one mighty whirl she tore him off his feet in a moment, then dashed herself and him under her to the ground with such ponderous violence that his head rang loud on the pavement and he was stunned for a few seconds. Ere he quite recovered she had him turned on his face, and her weighty knee grinding down his shoulders, while her nimble hands whipped off her kerchief and tied his hands behind him in a twinkling. So quickly was it all done, that by the time Little heard the scrimmage, ascertained it was behind him, and came back to see, she was seated on her prisoner, trembling and crying after her athletic feat, and very little fit to cope with the man if he had not been tied. Little took her by the hands. "Oh, my poor Jael! What is the matter? Has the blackguard been insulting you?" And, not waiting for an answer, gave him a kick that made him howl again. "Yes, kill him, the villain! he wanted to murder you. Oh, oh, oh!" She could say no more, but became hysterical. Henry supported her tenderly, and wiped the blood from her face; and as several people came up, and a policeman, he gave the man in charge, on Jael's authority, and he was conveyed to the station accordingly, he and his bow. They took Jael Dence to a chemist's shop, and gave her cold water and salts: the first thing she did, when she was quite herself, was to seize Henry Little's hand and kiss it with such a look of joy as brought tears into his eyes. Then she told her story, and was taken in a cab to the police-office, and repeated her story there. Then Henry took her to Woodbine Villa, and Grace Carden turned very pale at Henry's danger, though passed: she wept over Jael, and kissed her; and nobody could make enough of her. Grace Carden looked wistfully at Henry and said, "Oh that I had a strong arm to defend you!" "Oh, Miss Grace," said Jael, "don't you envy me. Go away with him from this wicked, murdering place. That will be a deal better than any thing I can do for him." "Ah, would to Heaven I could this minute!" said Grace, clinging tenderly to his shoulder. She insisted on going home with him and sharing his peril for once. Hill was locked up for the night. In the morning a paper was slipped into his hand. "Say there was no arrow." He took this hint, and said that he was innocent as a babe of any harm. He had got a bow to repair for a friend, and he went home twanging it, was attacked by a woman, and, in his confusion, struck her once, but did not repeat the blow. Per contra, Jael Dence distinctly swore there was an arrow, with two white feathers and one black one, and that the prisoner was shooting at Mr. Little. She also swore that she had seen him colloguing with another man, who had been concerned in a former attempt on Mr. Little, and captured, but had escaped from Raby Hall. On this the magistrate declined to discharge the prisoner; but, as no arrow could be found at present, admitted him to bail, two securities fifty pounds each, which was an indirect way of imprisoning him until the Assizes. This attempt, though unsuccessful in one way, was very effective in another. It shook Henry Little terribly; and the effect was enhanced by an anonymous letter he received, reminding him there were plenty of noiseless weapons. Brinsley had been shot twice, and no sound heard. "When your time comes, you'll never know what hurt you." The sense of a noiseless assassin eternally dogging him preyed on Little's mind and spirits, and at last this life on the brink of the grave became so intolerable that he resolved to leave Hillsborough, but not alone. He called on Grace Carden, pale and agitated. "Grace," said he, "do you really love me?" "Oh, Henry! Do I love you?" "Then save me from this horrible existence. Oh, my love, if you knew what it is to have been a brave man, and to find your courage all oozing away under freezing threats, that you know, by experience, will be followed by some dark, subtle, bloody deed or other. There, they have brought me down to this, that I never go ten steps without looking behind me, and, when I go round a corner, I turn short and run back, and wait at the corner to see if an assassin is following me. I tremble at the wind. I start at my own shadow." Grace threw her arms round his neck, and stopped him with tears and kisses. "Ah, bless you, my love!" he cried, and kissed her fondly. "You pity me--you will save me from this miserable, degrading life?" "Ah, that I will, if I can, my own." "You can." "Then tell me how." "Be my wife--let us go to the United States together. Dearest, my patents are a great success. We are making our fortune, though we risk our lives. In America I could sell these inventions for a large sum, or work them myself at an enormous profit. Be my wife, and let us fly this hellish place together." "And so I would in a moment; but" (with a deep sigh) "papa would never consent to that." "Dispense with his consent." "Oh, Henry; and marry under my father's curse!" "He could not curse you, if he love you half as well as I do; and if he does not, why sacrifice me, and perhaps my life, to him?" "Henry, for pity's sake, think of some other way. Why this violent haste to get rich? Have a little patience. Mr. Raby will not always be abroad. Oh, pray give up Mr. Bolt, and go quietly on at peace with these dreadful Trades. You know I'll wait all my life for you. I will implore papa to let you visit me oftener. I will do all a faithful, loving girl can do to comfort you." "Ay," said Henry, bitterly, "you will do anything but the one thing I ask." "Yes, anything but defy my father. He is father and mother both to me. How unfortunate we both are! If you knew what it costs me to deny you anything, if you knew how I long to follow you round the world--" She choked with emotion, and seemed on the point of yielding, after all. But he said, bitterly, "You long to follow me round the world, and you won't go a twelve-days' voyage with me to save my life. Ah, it is always so. You don't love me as poor Jael Dence loves me. She saved my life without my asking her; but you won't do it when I implore you." "Henry, my own darling, if any woman on earth loves you better than I do, for God's sake marry her, and let me die to prove I loved you a little." "Very well," said he, grinding his teeth. "Next week I leave this place with a wife. I give you the first offer, because I love you. I shall give Jael the second, because she loves me." So then he flung out of the room, and left Grace Carden half fainting on the sofa, and drowned in tears. But before he got back to the works he repented his violence, and his heart yearned for her more than ever. With that fine sense of justice which belongs to love, he spoke roughly to Jael Dence. She stared, and said nothing, but watched him furtively, and saw his eyes fill with tears at the picture memory recalled of Grace's pale face and streaming eyes. She put a few shrewd questions, and his heart was so full he could not conceal the main facts, though he suppressed all that bore reference to Jael herself. She took Grace's part, and told him he was all in the wrong; why could not he go to America alone, and sell his patents, and then come back and marry Grace with the money? "Why drag her across the water, to make her quarrel with her father?" "Why, indeed?" said Henry: "because I'm not the man I was. I have no manhood left. I have not the courage to fight the Trades, nor yet the courage to leave the girl I love so dearly." "Eh, poor lad," said Jael, "thou hast courage enough; but it has been too sore tried, first and last. You have gone through enough to break a man of steel." She advised him to go and make his submission at once. He told her she was his guardian angel, and kissed her, in the warmth of his gratitude; and he went back to Woodbine Villa, and asked Grace's forgiveness, and said he would go alone to the States and come back with plenty of money to satisfy Mr. Carden's prudence, and-- Grace clutched him gently with both hands, as if to hinder from leaving her. She turned very pale, and said, "Oh my heart!" Then she laid her head on his shoulder, and wept piteously. He comforted her, and said, "What is it? a voyage of twelve days! And yet I shall never have the courage to bid you good-by." "Nor I you, my own darling."
With all this he became very depressed and moody, and alarmed Doctor Amboyne, who remembered his father's end. The doctor advised him to go and see his mother for a day or two; but he shook his head, and declined. A prisoner detained for want of bail is allowed to communicate with his friends, and Grotait soon let Hill know he was very angry with him for undertaking to do Little without orders. Hill said that the job was given him by Cole, who was Grotait's right-hand man, and Grotait had better bail him, otherwise he might be induced to tell tales. Grotait let him stay in prison three days, and then sent two householders with the bail. Hill was discharged, and went home. At dusk he turned out to find Cole, and tracing him from one public-house to another, at last lighted on him in company with Mr. Coventry. This set him thinking; however, he held aloof till they parted; and then following Cole, dunned him for his twenty pounds. Cole gave him five pounds on account. Hill grumbled, and threatened. Grotait sent for both men, and went into a passion, and threatened to hang them both if they presumed to attack Little's person again in any way. "It is the place I mean to destroy," said Grotait, "not the man." Cole conveyed this to Coventry, and it discouraged him mightily, and he told Cole he should give it up and go abroad. But soon after this some pressure or other was brought to bear on Grotait, and Cole, knowing this, went to him, and asked him whether Bolt and Little were to be done or not. "It is a painful subject," said Grotait. "It is a matter of life and death to us," said Cole. "That is true. But mind--the place, and not the man." Cole assented, and then Grotait took him on to a certain bridge, and pointed out the one weak side of Bob and Little's fortress, and showed him how the engine-chimney could be got at and blown down, and so the works stopped entirely: "And I'll tell you something," said he; "that chimney is built on a bad foundation, and was never very safe; so you have every chance." Then they chaffered about the price, and at last Grotait agreed to give him L20. Cole went to Coventry, and told how far Grotait would allow him to go: "But," said he, "L20 is not enough. I run an even chance of being hung or lagged." "Go a step beyond your instructions, and I'll give you a hundred pounds." "I daren't," said Cole: "unless there was a chance to blow up the place with the man in it." Then, after a moment's reflection, he said: "I hear he sleeps in the works. I must find out where." Accordingly, he talked over one of the women in the factory, and gained the following information, which he imparted to Mr. Coventry: Little lived and slept in a detached building recently erected, and the young woman who had overpowered Hill slept in a room above him. She passed in the works for his sweetheart, and the pair were often locked up together for hours at a time in a room called the "Experiment Room." This information took Coventry quite by surprise, and imbittered his hatred of Little. While Cole was felicitating him on the situation of the building, he was meditating how to deal his hated rival a stab of another kind. Cole, however, was single-minded in the matter; and the next day he took a boat and drifted slowly down the river, and scanned the place very carefully. He came at night to Coventry, and told him he thought he might perhaps be able to do the trick without seeming to defy Grotait's instructions. "But," said he, "it is a very dangerous job. Premises are watched: and, what do you think? they have got wires up now that run over the street to the police office, and Little can ring a bell in Ransome's room, and bring the bobbies across with a rush in a moment. It isn't as it was under the old chief constable; this one's not to be bought nor blinded. I must risk a halter." "You shall have fifty pounds more." "You are a gentleman, sir. I should like to have it in hard sovereigns. I'm afraid of notes. They get traced somehow." "You shall have it all in sovereigns." "I want a little in advance, to buy the materials. They are costly, especially the fulminating silver." Coventry gave him ten sovereigns, and they parted with the understanding that Cole should endeavor to blow up the premises on some night when Little was in them, and special arrangements were made to secure this.
Grace Carden's ran thus:-- "I can't abide to see a young lady made a fool of by a villain. Mr. Little have got his miss here: they dote on each other. She lives in the works, and so do he, ever since she came, which he usen't afore. They are in one room, as many as eight hours at a stretch, and that room always locked. It is the talk of all the girls. It is nought to me, but I thought it right you should know, for it is quite a scandal. She is a strapping country lass, with a queerish name. This comes from a strange, but a well-wisher. The letter to Henry Little was as follows:-- "The reason of so many warnings and ne'er a blow, you had friends in the trade. But you have worn them out. You are a doomed man. Prepare to meet your God. This was the last straw on the camel's back, as the saying is. He just ground it in his hand, and then he began to act. He set to work, packed up models, and dispatched them by train; clothes ditto, and wrote a long letter to his mother. Next day he was busy writing and arranging papers till the afternoon. Then he called on Grace, as related, and returned to the works about six o'clock: he ordered a cup of tea at seven, which Jael brought him. She found him busy writing letters, and one of these was addressed to Grace Carden. That was all she saw of him that night; for she went to bed early, and she was a sound sleeper. It was nine o'clock of this same evening. Mr. Coventry, disguised in a beard, was walking up and down a certain street opposite the great door of the works. He had already walked and lounged about two hours. At last Cole joined him for a moment and whispered in a tone full of meaning, "Will it do now?" Coventry's teeth chattered together as he replied, "Yes; now is the time." "Got the money ready?" "Yes." "Let us see it." "When you have done what you promised me." "That very moment?" "That very moment." "Then I'll tell you what you must do. In about an hour go on the new bridge, and I'll come to you; and, before I've come to you many minutes, you'll see summut and hear summut that will make a noise in Hillsbro', and, perhaps, get us both into trouble." "Not if you are as dexterous as others have been." "Others! I was in all those jobs. But this is the queerest. I go to it as if I was going to a halter. No matter, a man can but die once." And, with these words, he left him and went softly down to the water-side. There, in the shadow of the new bridge, lay a little boat, and in it a light-jointed ladder, a small hamper, and a basket of tools. The rowlocks were covered with tow, and the oars made no noise whatever, except the scarce audible dip in the dark stream. It soon emerged below the bridge like a black spider crawling down the stream, and melted out of sight the more rapidly that a slight fog was rising. Cole rowed softly past the works, and observed a very faint light in Little's room. He thought it prudent to wait till this should be extinguished, but it was not extinguished. Here was an unexpected delay. However, the fog thickened a little, and this encouraged him to venture; he beached the boat very gently on the muddy shore, and began his work, looking up every now and then at that pale light, and ready to fly at the first alarm. He took out of the boat a large varnish-can, which he had filled with gunpowder, and wrapped tightly round with wire, and also with a sash-line; this can was perforated at the side, and a strong tube screwed tightly into it; the tube protruded twelve inches from the can in shape of an S: by means of this a slow-burning fuse was connected with the powder; some yards of this fuse were wrapt loosely round the can. Cole crept softly to the engine-chimney, and, groping about for the right place, laid the can in the engine bottom and uncoiled the fuse. He took out of his pocket some small pieces of tile, and laid the fuse dry on these. Then he gave a sigh of relief, and crept back to the boat. Horrible as the action was, he had done all this without much fear, and with no remorse, for he was used to this sort of work; but now he had to commit a new crime, and with new and terrible materials, which he had never handled in the way of crime before. He had in his boat a substance so dangerous that he had made a nest of soft cotton for the receptacle which held it; and when the boat touched the shore, light as the contact was, he quaked lest his imprisoned giant-devil should go off and blow him to atoms. He put off touching it till the last moment. He got his jointed ladder, set it very softly underneath the window where the feeble gas-light was, and felt about with his hands for the grating he had observed when he first reconnoitered the premises from the river. He found it, but it was so high that he had to reach a little, and the position was awkward for working. The problem was how to remove one of those bars, and so admit his infernal machine; it was about the shape and size of an ostrich's egg. It must be done without noise, for the room above him was Little's, and Little, he knew, had a wire by means of which he could summon Ransome and the police in the turn of a hand. The cold of the night, and the now present danger, made Cole shiver all over, and he paused. But he began again, and, taking out a fine steel saw highly tempered, proceeded to saw the iron slowly and gently, ready at the first alarm to spring from his ladder and run away. With all his caution, steel grated against steel, and made too much noise in the stilly night. He desisted. He felt about, and found the grating was let into wood, not stone; he oiled the saw, and it cut the wood like butter; he made two cuts like a capital V, and a bar of the grating came loose; he did the same thing above, and the bar came out. Cole now descended the ladder, and prepared for the greatest danger of all. He took from its receptacle the little metal box lined with glazed paper, which contained the fulminating silver and its fuse; and, holding it as gently as possible, went and mounted the ladder again, putting his foot down as softly as a cat. But he was getting colder and colder, and at this unfortunate moment he remembered that, when he was a lad, a man had been destroyed by fulminating silver--quite a small quantity--in a plate over which he was leaning; yet the poor wretch's limbs had been found in different places, and he himself had seen the head; it had been torn from the trunk and hurled to an incredible distance. That trunkless head he now fancied he saw, in the middle of the fog; and his body began to sweat cold, and his hands to shake so that he could hardly told the box. But if he let it fall-- He came hastily down the ladder and sat down on the dirty ground, with the infernal engine beside him. By-and-by he got up and tried to warm his hands and feet by motion, and at last he recovered his fortitude, and went softly and cat-like up the steps again, in spite of the various dangers he incurred. Of what was this man's mind composed, whom neither a mere bribe could buy to do this deed, nor pure fanaticism without a bribe; but, where both inducements met, neither the risk of immediate death, nor of imprisonment for life, nor both dangers united, could divert him from his deadly purpose, though his limbs shook, and his body was bedewed with a cold perspiration? He reached the top of the ladder, he put his hand inside the grate; there was an aperture, but he could not find the bottom. He hesitated. Here was a fresh danger: if he let the box fall it might explode at once and send him to eternity. Once more he came softly down, and collected all the tow and wool he could find. He went up the ladder and put these things through the grating; they formed a bed. Then he went back for the fatal box, took it up the ladder with beating heart, laid it softly in its bed, uncoiled the fuse and let it hang down. So now these two fiendish things were placed, and their devilish tails hanging out behind them. The fuses had been cut with the utmost nicety to burn the same length of time--twelve minutes. But Cole was too thoughtful and wary to light the fuses until everything was prepared for his escape. He put the ladder on board the boat, disposed the oars so that he could use them at once; then crept to the engine-chimney, kneeled down beside the fuse, looked up at the faint light glimmering above, and took off his hat. With singular cunning and forethought he had pasted a piece of sandpaper into his hat. By this means he lighted a lucifer at once, and kept it out of sight from the windows, and also safe from the weather; he drew the end of the fuse into the hat, applied the match to it out of sight, then blew the match out and darted to his other infernal machine. In less than ten seconds he lighted that fuse too; then stepped into the boat, and left those two devilish sparks creeping each on its fatal errand. He pulled away with exulting bosom, beating heart, and creeping flesh. He pulled swiftly up stream, landed at the bridge, staggered up the steps, and found Coventry at his post, but almost frozen, and sick of waiting. He staggered up to him and gasped out, "I've done the trick, give me the brass, and let me go. I see a halter in the air." His teeth chattered. But Coventry, after hoping and fearing for two hours and a half, had lost all confidence in his associate, and he said, "How am I to know you've done anything?" "You'll see and you'll hear," said Cole. "Give me the brass." "Wait till I see and hear," was the reply. "What, wait to be nabbed? Another minute, and all the town will be out after me. Give it me, or I'll take it." "Will you?" And Coventry took out a pistol and cocked it. Cole recoiled. "Look here," said Coventry; "there are one hundred and fifty sovereigns in this bag. The moment I receive proof you have not deceived me, I give you the bag." "Here, where we stand?" "Here, on this spot." "Hush! not so loud. Didn't I hear a step?" They both listened keenly. The fog was thick by this time. Cole whispered, "Look down the river. I wonder which will go off first? It is very cold; very." And he shook like a man in an ague. Both men listened, numbed with cold, and quivering with the expectation of crime. A clock struck twelve. At the first stroke the confederates started and uttered a cry. They were in that state when everything sudden shakes men like thunder. All still again, and they listened and shook again with fog and grime. Sudden a lurid flash, and a report, dull and heavy, and something tall seemed to lean toward them from the sky, and there was a mighty rushing sound, and a cold wind in their faces, and an awful fall of masonry on the water, and the water spurted under the stroke. The great chimney had fallen in the river. At this very moment came a sharp, tremendous report like a clap of thunder close at hand. It was so awful, that both bag and pistol fell out of Coventry's hand and rung upon the pavement, and he fled, terror-stricken. Cole, though frightened, went down on his knees, and got the bag, and started to run the other way. But almost at the first step he ran against a man, who was running toward him. Both were staggered by the shock, and almost knocked down. But the man recovered himself first, and seized Cole with a grip of iron.
Presently the great door of the works was opened, and the porter appeared crying wildly for help, and that the place was on fire. The few people that were about made a rush, and Coventry, driven by an awful curiosity, went in with them; for why should he be suspected any more than they? He had not gone in half a minute when Mr. Ransome arrived with several policemen, and closed the doors at once against all comers. Strange to say, the last explosion had rung the bell in the police-office; hence this prompt appearance of the police. The five or six persons who got in with Coventry knew nothing, and ran hither and thither. Coventry, better informed, darted at once to Little's quarters, and there beheld an awful sight; the roof presented the appearance of a sieve: of the second floor little remained but a few of the joists, and these were most of them broken and stood on and across each other, like a hedgehog's bristles. In Little's room, a single beam in the center, with a fragment of board, kept its place, but the joists were all dislocated or broken in two, and sticking up here and there in all directions: huge holes had been blown in the walls of both rooms and much of the contents of the rooms blown out by them; so vast were these apertures, that it seemed wonderful how the structure hung together; the fog was as thick in the dismembered and torn building as outside, but a large gas-pipe in Little's room was wrenched into the form of a snake and broken, and the gas set on fire and flaring, so that the devastation was visible; the fireplace also hung on, heaven knows how. Coventry cast his eyes round, and recoiled with horror at what he had done: his foot struck something; it was the letter-box, full of letters, still attached to the broken door. By some instinct of curiosity he stooped and peered. There was one letter addressed "Grace Carden." He tried to open the box: he could not: he gave it a wrench, it was a latticed box, and came to pieces. He went down the stairs with the fragments and the letters in his hand; feet approached, and he heard a voice close to him say, "This way, Mr. Ransome, for God's sake!" A sort of panic seized him; he ran back, and in his desperation jumped on to the one beam that was standing, and from that through the open wall, and fell on the soft mud by the river bank. Though the ground was soft, the descent shook him and imbedded him so deeply he could not extricate himself for some time. But terror lends energy, and he was now thoroughly terrified: he thrust the letters in his pocket, and, being an excellent swimmer, dashed at once into the river; but he soon found it choked up with masonry and debris of every kind: he coasted this, got into the stream, and swam across to the other side. Then taking the lowest and darkest streets, contrived at last to get home, wet and filthy, and quaking. Ransome and his men examined the shattered building within and without; but no trace could be found of any human being, alive or dead. Then they got to the river-side with lights, and here they found foot-marks. Ransome set men to guard these from being walked over. Attention was soon diverted from these. Several yards from the torn building, a woman was found lying all huddled together on a heap of broken masonry. She was in her night-dress, and a counterpane half over her. Her forehead and head were bleeding, and she was quite insensible. The police recognized her directly. It was Jael Dence. She was alive, though insensible, and Ransome had her conveyed at once to the infirmary. "Bring more lights to the water-side," said he: "the explosion has acted in that direction." Many torches were brought. Keen eyes scanned the water. One or two policemen got out upon the ruins of the chimney, and went ankle-deep in water. But what they sought could not be found. Ransome said he was glad of it. Everybody knew what he meant. He went back to Little's room, and examined it minutely. In the passage he found a card-case. It was lying on the door. Ransome took it up mechanically, and put it in his pocket. He did not examine it at this time: he took for granted it was Little's. He asked one of his men whether a man had not been seen in that room. The officer said, "Yes." "Did he come down?" "No; and I can't think how he got out." "It is plain how he got out; and that accounts for something I observed in the mud. Now, Williams, you go to my place for that stuff I use to take the mold of footprints. Bring plenty. Four of you scour the town, and try and find out who has gone home with river-mud on his shoes or trousers. Send me the porter." When the porter came, he asked him whether Mr. Little had slept in the works. The porter could not say for certain. "Well, but what was his habit?" "He always slept here of late." "Where did you see him last?" "I let him into the works." "When?" "I should think about seven o'clock." "Did you let him out again?" "No, Mr. Ransome." "Perhaps you might, and not recollect. Pray think." The porter shook his head. "Are you sure you did not let him out?" "I am quite sure of that." "Then the Lord have mercy on his soul!" _ |
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