Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE UN­KNOWN LIS­TEN­ER.

Eve­line con­tin­ued to in­dulge in her pleas­ing rever­ie of hope, and in the cheer­ing thoughts that came crowd­ing up­on her mind in an­tic­ipa­tion of a speedy re­lease from her dun­geon, and restora­tion to her fa­ther and friends, she for­got that her sit­ua­tion, in the mean­time, was one of per­il, even if her new­ly found friends should be able to ac­com­plish their ob­ject. Duf­fel might re­turn at any mo­ment, and, in vin­dic­tive fury, bring about her ru­in or death. Such dark pic­tures, how­ev­er, were, for the mo­ment, driv­en from her mind by those of a more en­liven­ing na­ture, and she ceased to search af­ter, or even to bear in mind, the se­cret pas­sage.

As she sat in peace­ful qui­et, think­ing of home and dear ones, her eye chanced to fall up­on a spot in the wall, where, the light strik­ing it to ad­van­tage, a clear, crys­taline stone, flashed back the rays from her lamp, as it sparkled with a bril­lian­cy scarce­ly in­fe­ri­or to that of a di­amond. Cu­rios­ity led her to a more minute ex­am­ina­tion of this sin­gu­lar­ly bright ob­ject; and ap­proach­ing, she placed her fin­ger up­on it. It seemed to be imbed­ded firm­ly in the sol­id rock, but pro­ject­ed out a very lit­tle be­yond the sur­round­ing por­tions of the wall, just far enough to be per­ceived by the touch. She pressed up­on it to as­cer­tain if it was re­al­ly un­mov­able, and, as she did so, open flew a small door, bare­ly large enough to ad­mit a sin­gle per­son through its por­tals. In a twin­kling her labors of the past day and night came to re­mem­brance, and she ex­claimed:

“_The se­cret pas­sage!_”

In a mo­ment all her for­mer feel­ings re­turned; and, tak­ing a lamp in her hand, she pre­pared to ex­plore the mys­te­ri­ous av­enue thus opened be­fore her. Be­fore com­mit­ting her­self to the un­known, per­haps tor­tu­ous pas­sage, she took the pre­cau­tion to place an ob­struc­tion in the door­way, so that the door could not, by any pos­si­bil­ity, swing to and shut her on the out­side. She took the fore­thought, al­so, to see that her dag­ger was safe­ly se­cured about her per­son, not know­ing whith­er she was go­ing, or in­to what com­pa­ny she might fall.

Hav­ing thus pru­dent­ly pro­vid­ed against ac­ci­dents and emer­gen­cies, Eve­line en­tered the pas­sage, which was dark, damp, and dis­mal, with trem­bling nerves and a timid heart. Slow­ly, cau­tious­ly, step by step, she felt her way, aid­ed by the light of her lamp. It seemed strange that she should have to go so far to get in­to the oth­er room; yet still she moved on and on with­out com­ing to the end of the pas­sage or to any place of egress.

The way was nar­row and some­what zigzag, and in sev­er­al places she had to stoop in or­der to pro­ceed. Where did the un­der­ground pas­sage ter­mi­nate? With what did it con­nect? Was it a nat­ural one? or had it been made by man? Per­haps it was the con­nect­ing line be­tween the cave she had left and some oth­er den of wicked­ness known and oc­cu­pied by this band of vil­lains? With such and a hun­dred sim­ilar sug­ges­tions her mind was oc­cu­pied, and she be­gan to feel un­pleas­ant. Per­haps she was ven­tur­ing in­to the pres­ence of those who would have even less re­gard for her than Duf­fel. An un­de­fined ter­ror for a mo­ment seized up­on her, and she was about to yield to the dic­tates of fear, and re­turn to her room, when a kind of mur­mur­ing sound, as if of voic­es in the dis­tance, met her ear. Lis­ten­ing a mo­ment she felt quite sure there were liv­ing per­sons some­where near; and sum­mon­ing all her res­olu­tion, she bold­ly pushed for­ward, de­ter­mined to solve the mys­tery in which she was in­volved, and if hu­man be­ings were in her vicin­ity, to as­cer­tain who and what they were.

Ad­vanc­ing with a cau­tious but firm step, she was not long in doubt as to the na­ture of the sound; it ev­ident­ly pro­ceed­ed from hu­man lips. As she drew near­er words be­came dis­tin­guish­able; and then she came to the end of the pas­sage, which abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed against a sol­id wall, like those of the cave. But the wall was ev­ident­ly a thin one, and on the im­me­di­ate out­side--or oth­er side--were the per­sons, who were en­gaged in con­ver­sa­tion. She stood there but a brief mo­ment when her at­ten­tion be­came fixed and all ab­sorbed in the con­fer­ence go­ing on be­tween the in­ter­locu­tors, both of whom (she could dis­tin­guish but two voic­es,) seemed to be deeply in­ter­est­ed in some mat­ter un­der con­sid­er­ation.

“I tell you what it is, Bill, I don't like this here biz­ness of run­nin' off that gal a bit. I've been thinkin' the mat­ter over, and the more I think, the more I don't like it.”

These were the first words that Eve­line heard dis­tinct­ly and con­nect­ed­ly. Who were they? and who was the girl? There seemed to be some­thing fa­mil­iar about the voice of the speak­er, and yet she could not tell where or when she had heard it be­fore. In a mo­ment came the re­ply:

“I thought that point was set­tled. I tell you I'd take her if it was on­ly to spite Duf­fel.”

“Duf­fel!” ejac­ulat­ed Eve­line in thought, and she came near mak­ing the ex­cla­ma­tion aloud. “Duf­fel! then these men know him!” In a mo­ment the truth flashed up­on her mind. It was Duf­fel's friends, her cap­tors, the ones from whose aid she was so soon to be de­liv­ered! Yes, now she re­mem­bered the voic­es! And for a mo­ment her heart bound­ed in grat­itude to the last speak­er, whose words she un­der­stood to ex­press his firm res­olu­tion to lib­er­ate her. The mo­ment the re­join­der came from the oth­er, how­ev­er, her mind was per­plexed, but as she lis­tened fur­ther the whole mat­ter was un­tan­gled:

“And wouldn't it spite Duf­fel just as much if we should take her back?”

“No, I don't think it would. Be­side, I want to show him how com­plete­ly we can beat him at his own game; and then, too, I wish to be re­venged on him to the fullest ex­tent; he likes the girl, and to know that she is in the hands of an­oth­er, who has en­tire­ly out­wit­ted him, will be a source of cha­grin, and the spark to light the fires of jeal­ousy.”

“You don't in­tend to let him know that you have tak­en the gal!”

“Cer­tain­ly I do!”

“And then have the whole League af­ter us! A fine plot, tru­ly!”

“League the h----! I tell you I'm go­ing to blow the whole thing to noth­ing, cave and all!”

“What!”

“When I leave this re­gion there will be no League here. This cave will be in ru­ins, and the whole or­der scat­tered to the four winds of heav­en!”

“Are you crazy, Bill Mitchel!”

“No, I am just com­ing to my sens­es. Here we have been these many years, do­ing all the most dan­ger­ous and dar­ing work of the or­der--work that oth­ers were too chick­en-​heart­ed to un­der­take--and what is our re­ward? We are es­teemed as the mean­est of the Clan, and as be­ing hard­ly fit to as­so­ciate with those who claim to be the gen­tle­men of the League. Why, I be­lieve the of­fi­cers would cut our throats at any time to save them­selves. See what Duf­fel is af­ter at this very time. Nev­er was a man served more faith­ful­ly than we have served him, and now that we have ren­dered him all the aid he needs or de­sires at our hands, he would cut us off; aye, worse, he would mur­der us--mur­der us as we have mur­dered for him. Do you think I would let an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be re­venged on him pass unim­proved? _Nev­er!_”

“But how are you goin' to do all this mighty work?”

“I'll tell you. The cap­tain is away; I in­tend that Duf­fel shall be se­cured by the of­fi­cers of the law; the rest of the mem­bers I will take mea­sures to fright­en; and when they re­sort to this in­fer­nal cave for refuge, coun­sel, or con­cert of ac­tion, they will find it in ru­ins.”

“How in ru­ins?”

“Isn't there pow­der enough in the mag­azine to blow it to atoms?”

“Pow­der!”

“Yes, _pow­der_! Is there any­thing in that ex­plo­sive ma­te­ri­al that need cause you to look so wild? I thought you were bet­ter ac­quaint­ed with its prop­er­ties.”

“I be­lieve I be­gin to un­der­stand your in­ten­tions; but they don't ex­act­ly chime with your plans of yes­ter­day.”

“Yes­ter­day! I tell you I was on­ly half awake then. I hadn't con­sid­ered all the sides to the ques­tion; and the more I think, the mad­der I get. I tell you we have been im­posed up­on; and I am go­ing to pay back the debt with in­ter­est. I had an­oth­er idea yes­ter­day; but my plans were then im­ma­ture and un­set­tled, now they are ar­ranged even to the de­tails. I tell you I have been think­ing for the last twen­ty-​four hours; and it has been to some pur­pose, as you and the rest of these fel­lows, and Duf­fel in par­tic­ular, will find out.”

“Very well; if the or­der is to be de­stroyed, then there is no need of fear­ing to let the girl go home, as she could do us no harm if she _did_ re­veal our se­crets.”

“I tell you I have tak­en a fan­cy to the girl my­self and have set my heart on pos­sess­ing her, _and I will do it_. It's true I don't care for the or­der now. I de­fy all its mem­bers; but that makes no dif­fer­ence about the girl. She goes with us.”

“I don't be­lieve any good will come of takin' her, but there is a plaguy good chance for evil to come of it.”

“Let it come, then, and we'll face it like men! I tell you I am des­per­ate; I have fixed my stakes and I don't in­tend to be driv­en from them. The more I think, the more de­ter­mined I be­come.”

“But it looks so mean and cow­ard­ly to abuse a wom­an.”

“Who said I was go­ing to abuse her?”

“I say so.”

“You'd bet­ter be a lit­tle care­ful of your speech, my good fel­low!”

“I'll say what I please; and you know what I have said is the truth. Haint you goin' to de­ceive the gal? Didn't you jist tell her that you was her friend? and that we'd lib­er­ate her? And don't she ex­pect us to take her home, in­stead of away off to that cave in Vir­gin­ny, where she'll be no bet­ter off than she is here? And haint it cow­ard­ly to lie and de­ceive them as trust in your word and hon­or?”

“Hon­or! a pret­ty word that for such a fel­low as you to use! How long have you en­ter­tained such high no­tions, pray?”

“Allers, sir, allers! Did you ev­er hear me tell a lie? Did you ev­er see me be­tray any one that put them­selves un­der my care? Say, sir, have you?”

“Well, no, I don't know as I have; but what of that?”

“A great deal, sir; a great deal! It means that I'm not a mean, cow­ard­ly dog; that I don't go to a wom­an with a lie in my mouth, and sneak­ing­ly de­ceive her! No, sir, I am above such work.”

“That will do, I can't bear ev­ery­thing, even from you, and I warn you not to go too far!”

“Warn away, then; I'm not the man to be skeered by any wom­an-​steal­er that ev­er walked the earth. No, sir, I'm not! And I say ag'in, the man that'll im­pose on a wom­an is a cow­ard, and a mean one at that.”

“Come, come, Dick, it's no use to be talk­ing in that man­ner. You know I am no more of a cow­ard than your­self; and so what's the use of such an ado about noth­ing. Didn't you tell me yes­ter­day you would stand by me in this af­fair? Come, now, keep your word, and don't prove your­self a liar af­ter such a boast of truth­ful­ness, just a mo­ment ago?”

“Yes, there it is ag'in. You told me it was for our per­son­al safe­ty, and such like stuff, that you were goin' to take the gal along; and now you de­fy the whole or­der, and are goin' to blow them all to atoms! I take it that makes quite a dif­fer­ence.”

“Didn't I tell you the girl was to go any how? And didn't you say it would hard­ly be fair to help an en­emy and not a friend? Come, where is your hon­or now?”

“That promise, I tell you, was ob­tained un­der false pre­tens­es, and is not bind­ing!”

“A pret­ty ex­cuse, in­deed!--Well to bring the mat­ter to a point at once, I now state dis­tinct­ly that I am go­ing to take the girl with me, be­cause I wish to do so, and for that rea­son alone; and I want you to help me. Will you do it? That's the ques­tion, and I want a pos­itive an­swer, yea or nay, and no more palaver on the sub­ject. Say, will you stand by your old friend in this last great hour of need?”

"I s'pose I'll have to; but it goes might­ily ag'in' the grain, to be mixed up in these wom­en af­fairs, and I feel as mean as a kill-​sheep dog, when I find my­self at such a dirty work.

“Well, that mat­ter is set­tled, then, and I hope we shall have peace and agree­ment be­tween us here­after. I know when you say you'll do a thing, you'll do it, and I want a re­li­able com­pan­ion to stand by me just now. Once we get in­to our new quar­ters, in old Vir­ginia, I shall feel safe, as we can bid de­fi­ance to our en­emies.”

“Well, let us be off, then, as quick as pos­si­ble; for, to tell the truth, I don't like this part of the coun­try much; it's git­tin' en­tire­ly too hot for our biz­ness, and is by no means as safe as it might be.”

“We must be off to-​mor­row, if we can fin­ish all our ar­range­ments, which I hope we shall be able to do, if we lose no time. We must have our hors­es ready to-​night, at all events; for it may suit to start in the night, if we fail to get away to-​mor­row. I am not sure but it will be the best plan to leave in the night, any how.”

“Cer­tain­ly, it will be.”

“Well, it's set­tled, then, that we leave to-​mor­row night; and that be­ing the case, I must has­ten away to get the key made. You stay here till the sen­tinel re­turns, and then meet me at the usu­al place this af­ter­noon, and we will have ev­ery­thing ar­ranged in or­der.”

With this the vil­lains part­ed, Bill go­ing out of the pas­sage, and Dick in­to the cave.

To all this Eve­line was an ab­sorbed, but to them un­known, lis­ten­er. How the great hope of the morn­ing died in her bo­som, as the fear­ful truth was re­vealed to her, that an­oth­er snare was laid to en­tan­gle her feet--that her new­ly found friends were but en­emies in dis­guise. In­stead of lib­er­ators, who would re­store her to home and friends, they were vile mis­cre­ants, des­tin­ing her to a fate no bet­ter than that which now sur­round­ed her, and re­moved still fur­ther from the pos­si­bil­ity of suc­cor. For a lit­tle time she clung to the hope that Dick would hold out in her be­half; but this last prop was tak­en away, and she felt that there was no help from any quar­ter, and that self-​de­pen­dence was her on­ly safe­guard.

Ah, how des­olate was her heart in that hour! How like a lone reed in the pelt­ing tem­pest did she feel her­self to be! Sur­round­ed by en­emies on all hands, a pris­on­er in a dun­geon, with no friend­ly arm to lean up­on, no kind voice of sym­pa­thy to en­cour­age and strength­en her, she felt al­most like giv­ing over the strug­gle, and ly­ing down to die where she stood.

But this feel­ing of de­spon­den­cy was of short du­ra­tion. Arous­ing to a live­ly sense of her sit­ua­tion, this ap­athy was thrown off, and the na­tive en­er­gy of pur­pose which she had ex­hib­it­ed so strik­ing­ly on for­mer oc­ca­sions, quick­ened her spir­it and re­stored vig­or to her frame. Im­me­di­ate­ly she be­gan to col­lect her thoughts, and cast about to see if there was no way of es­cape from this new dan­ger. At first she thought of mak­ing a con­fi­dant of Duf­fel, and throw­ing her­self up­on his gen­eros­ity; but re­mem­ber­ing all that he had done, she felt that this would be vain, so far as _she_ was con­cerned, while it might save _him_ from mer­it­ed ex­po­sure and pun­ish­ment; and so she at once aban­doned the idea.

In the midst of per­plex­ity and doubt, the thought struck her with the vivid­ness of a flash of in­tel­li­gence, that the pas­sage she was in might com­mu­ni­cate with the out­er world! The very sug­ges­tion caused her to heave a sigh of re­lief. What so prob­able as this sup­po­si­tion? At any rate she had some­thing to do, a def­inite ob­ject to call forth her en­er­gies; and this was no small mat­ter, in the state of mind un­der which she was la­bor­ing at that hour.

Rais­ing her lamp to a lev­el with her face, she passed the light close to the wall, scru­ti­niz­ing ev­ery spot, to see if there was no sign in­dica­tive of an­oth­er spring-​closed door. But no bril­liant frag­ment of sta­lac­tite ap­peared as a re­ward for her search, and she turned away with a feel­ing of dis­ap­point­ment, and heav­iness at her heart. As she did so, for the first time her eye fell up­on a pol­ished sur­face, much re­sem­bling the face of a mir­ror, up­on the op­po­site wall. Look­ing more at­ten­tive­ly, she dis­cov­ered, as it were, trees, shrubs, a run­ning stream of wa­ter, and all the ac­com­pa­ni­ments of a fin­ished land­scape paint­ing. Fear­ful as was her sit­ua­tion, she could not help paus­ing to ad­mire the beau­ty, the nat­ural­ness, the per­fec­tion of the scene. She had nev­er be­held any thing half so vivid, so truth­ful, from the pen­cil of the artist. It ac­tu­al­ly seemed as if wa­ter was run­ning over its grav­el­ly bed, as if the bush­es moved in the breeze; in a word, the whole looked far more like a re­al­ity than a cold paint­ing. As she was gaz­ing in ad­mi­ra­tion up­on this sin­gu­lar ap­pear­ance, a bird ac­tu­al­ly flew over the scene! She could hard­ly be­lieve her sens­es; but soon an­oth­er one fol­lowed, and she knew there was no de­cep­tion in her eyes this time.

Phi­los­ophy was not uni­ver­sal­ly taught in those days, as it is now, and Eve­line did not know how to solve this mys­tery as well as many a school girl could do at the present day; but she had read of the tricks of the ma­gi­cians of Egypt and In­dia, and what seem­ing won­ders they could show in their mag­ic mir­rors; and she came to the con­clu­sion that the rob­bers of the cave had learned the same art, and that be­fore her was one of the sooth­say­ers' glass­es.

But what was the de­sign had in view in plac­ing it in that ob­scure and un­fre­quent­ed place? As this query sug­gest­ed it­self to her mind, a man passed along on the bank of the stream! and in a few min­utes an­oth­er in the op­po­site di­rec­tion; and in the last one she rec­og­nized one of her cap­tors! She at once com­pre­hend­ed the de­sign of the ap­pa­ra­tus; it was to re­veal what was pass­ing with­out to the eye of the in­di­vid­ual with­in, who had doubt­less adopt­ed this method of in­form­ing him­self of pass­ing ex­ter­nal events, as a means of per­son­al safe­ty in case of need. It was, she sup­posed, a de­vice of the cap­tain of the thieves, to save him­self, ei­ther from the min­is­ters of the law or from the vi­olence of those un­der him, in case of re­volt.

It is not our de­sign to en­ter in­to an elab­orate de­scrip­tion of this piece of mech­anism, as ev­ery stu­dent of phi­los­ophy, who is well ac­quaint­ed with the re­flec­tion and re­frac­tion of rays of light, will un­der­stand how an in­ge­nious con­trivance pro­duced the re­sults spo­ken of. The same prin­ci­ple en­ters in­to the ar­range­ment of the _cam­era ob­scu­ra_. There was an aper­ture very art­ful­ly cut through the wall, and so guard­ed on the out­side as to es­cape no­tice; and in this a tube was placed with a set of hap­pi­ly con­trived fix­tures, by the aid of which the scene with­out was ac­cu­rate­ly de­pict­ed on the pol­ished sur­face with­in. It was the work of the cap­tain, as Eve­line sup­posed.

As this con­trivance was ev­ident­ly in­tend­ed to give in­for­ma­tion of dan­ger from with­out, it must cer­tain­ly be con­nect­ed in some man­ner with the means of es­cape; else what was it worth? Such was the con­clu­sion to which Eve­line ar­rived, as she phi­los­ophized up­on the mat­ter. And she re­flect­ed fur­ther, what oth­er method of es­cape was there, save a se­cret medi­um of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the out­er world? None at all, ex­cept it be a qui­et wait­ing with­in the pas­sage she now her­self oc­cu­pied, which she could not bring her­self to be­lieve was the case; so she re­newed her search for the door of egress.

On minute­ly ex­am­in­ing the mir­ror, she saw at one side of it a small pro­jec­tion, like a ball of ivory, and press­ing hard up­on it, a door, of which the mir­ror it­self was a sec­tion, sprang a lit­tle way open. She threw it back wide on its hinges, and hold­ing her lamp in the open­ing, saw at her feet a flight of stairs lead­ing down in­to the gloom be­low. A damp cur­rent of air came up from this sub­ter­ranean cav­ity, and its clam­my cold­ness sent a chill al­most of hor­ror through the frame of the ag­itat­ed girl. One less res­olute than her­self would have shrunk at the idea of ex­plor­ing so dis­mal a look­ing place; but not so she. Sum­mon­ing all her en­er­gy, she bold­ly de­scend­ed the steps, which had ev­ident­ly been cut out by the hands of man, and soon found her­self at the bot­tom of the course. In front of her, all was sol­id earth and rock; but on turn­ing to the right she dis­cov­ered an open­ing, fol­low­ing which it was but a lit­tle while till she saw light ahead, and a few more steps brought her to the mar­gin of the stream, along the bank of which was the path to the cave. That path, then, was im­me­di­ate­ly above her! And here she was with the wide world be­fore her! How her heart bound­ed!

Her first thought was to fly im­me­di­ate­ly; but pru­dence dic­tat­ed a cau­tious sur­vey of the place be­fore ven­tur­ing her all in an at­tempt at flight.

She ac­cord­ing­ly ven­tured out in the most guard­ed man­ner, to make ex­plo­rations. The wa­ter was but a lit­tle way be­low where she stood, and when in a high stage must ev­ident­ly flood the place she oc­cu­pied and the steps lead­ing up out of it. But as the stream was now very low, she had a fine op­por­tu­ni­ty for mak­ing ob­ser­va­tions. Step­ping down to the edge of the wa­ter, she had an ex­cel­lent view of the stream both ways. The banks were very high on each side, steep, and in­ac­ces­si­ble; so much so, in­deed, that for a mo­ment she was in de­spair of get­ting from her prison, now that she had found the way out. A clos­er in­spec­tion of the bank where she stood showed her the pos­si­bil­ity of es­cape, by fol­low­ing the wa­ter's edge to some point be­low or above, where the high bank re­ced­ed. This was enough; all she want­ed was the bare like­li­hood or pos­si­bil­ity of es­cape, and she would ven­ture all up­on the tri­al.

Hav­ing made these hasty ob­ser­va­tions, she start­ed back, to make prepa­ra­tions for an im­me­di­ate de­par­ture. When she reached the up­per pas­sage and closed the door, she glanced at the mir­ror to see what was go­ing on with­out. What was her dis­ap­point­ment and hor­ror, to see Duf­fel's im­age pass­ing be­fore her on his way to the cave! She had hoped to get off be­fore his re­turn; but now that hope was gone. She must meet him again; and to what des­per­ate ex­trem­ities might he not pro­ceed in the in­ter­view in which she must now be com­pelled to take a part! Then she re­mem­bered that she had left the door from her room to the pas­sage ajar, and he might reach it be­fore she could get there, and re­veal­ing to him her se­cret, cut off her last and on­ly hope of es­cape. The thought awoke all her en­er­gies, and dash­ing along the nar­row way at the top of her speed, stoop­ing as she ran, to avoid the low places, she reached her room and closed the door of the pas­sage, just as she heard a knock at the oth­er one, open­ing in­to the larg­er room.