Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER XIX.

THE THREAT AND ITS EX­ECU­TION--EVE­LINE LOST.

Quick­ly ar­rang­ing things in her room, and restor­ing the lamp to its ac­cus­tomed place, so that ev­ery ar­ti­cle should ap­pear in usu­al or­der and noth­ing be­tray her se­cret, Eve­line--the knock­ing at her door be­ing just then re­peat­ed--de­mand­ed:

“Who is there?”

“It is hard­ly worth your while to ask that ques­tion, when you know there can be but one per­son hav­ing ac­cess to this place.”

“Ex­cuse me, sir; but I have un­der­stood that _you_ were on­ly here by cour­tesy, the rooms be­long­ing to an­oth­er.”

“Well, I am here, at any rate, and have the mas­tery as well as the oc­cu­pan­cy of the place. Will you open the door?”

“If I please.”

“Well, _do_ you please?”

“And if I do not?”

“Then I shall en­ter by an­oth­er way.”

“As I am not over­ly anx­ious to see a _mas­ter_, you may en­ter as you can.”

“Very well.”

Eve­line chose not to open the door for two rea­sons: first, she wished to as­cer­tain whether or not there _was_ a se­cret pas­sage be­tween the rooms; and, sec­ond­ly, if Duf­fel's as­ser­tion in re­gard to the mat­ter should prove true, she wished to know at what point the en­trance was sit­uat­ed, that, if need be, in any fu­ture move­ments she might make, ob­struc­tions could be placed in the way of ingress. One thing, how­ev­er, per­plexed her a lit­tle; she could not keep her eyes on all sides of the room at once, and Duf­fel might come from some quar­ter un­awares, and take her at ad­van­tage, ere she could meet his at­tack. Thought is very rapid in times of dan­ger, if pres­ence of mind is re­tained, and the dif­fi­cul­ty stat­ed had fixed her at­ten­tion but a few sec­onds, ere sev­er­al plans of re­lease had sug­gest­ed them­selves and been aban­doned; but at length it oc­curred to her, that as it was im­pos­si­ble for the se­cret door to be in the same place as the oth­er one, she would be per­fect­ly safe, in tak­ing a po­si­tion against the lat­ter, from any pos­si­bil­ity of sur­prise, and stand­ing there she could seem more at her ease than in any oth­er po­si­tion, where her con­tin­ued watch­ful­ness would be­tray anx­iety.

She had scarce­ly placed her­self in the pos­ture de­sired, be­fore she saw a por­tion of the wall to her right slow­ly move from its place, and present­ly a mass, the size of a small door, stood out fair­ly in­to the room, and from be­hind it stole the vil­lain, in such a man­ner as to leave no doubt of his in­ten­tions to sur­prise her, if pos­si­ble. See­ing she was pre­pared for his re­cep­tion, and aware of his en­trance, he closed the door, and, bold­ly step­ping in­to the room, ad­dressed her thus:

“So, in­cred­ulous fair one, you see I am here, notwith­stand­ing your dis­be­lief in my word.”

“Yes; I see you are here.”

“Well, that is a very cor­dial wel­come to an old friend, cer­tain­ly. In what school have you tak­en lessons in hos­pi­tal­ity and po­lite­ness?”

“In one where I have learned to treat in­so­lence ac­cord­ing to its deserts.”

“In­deed! then I think we must have grad­uat­ed at the same in­sti­tu­tion. Per­haps we had as well try each oth­er's skill and pro­fi­cien­cy, and the one that shall prove the aptest schol­ar be de­clared vic­tor in the con­test be­tween us. Do you ac­cept the chal­lenge?”

“I ac­cept noth­ing from you; your pre­tend­ed friend­ship I de­spise; your threats I hold in as much con­tempt as I do their au­thor; your in­tend­ed in­sults I will pay back even to death, sir!” and as she spoke, there was a flash­ing light in her eye which gave the vil­lain to un­der­stand she meant all she said; but as­sum­ing not to heed his con­vic­tions on that point, here plied, with as much seem­ing ease as he could com­mand:

“Oh, I have heard such talk be­fore.”

“Yes, and like the base cow­ard you are, you sprang from the dag­ger at your breast, even though it was but a wom­an's hand that held it.”

“Girl! don't pre­sume too far on my for­bear­ance! I warn you in time to be­ware of that!”

“I pre­sume noth­ing on any good trait of char­ac­ter or no­ble­ness of soul you may pos­sess, sir, but on your _cow­ardice_!”

“Do you wish to drive me to ex­tremes?”

“You are al­ready on the ex­tremest verge of all that is vile and loath­some.”

“By the fu­ries of h----, I'll not en­dure this longer!”

“Oh, yes, you will; you need not ex­pect any oth­er treat­ment so long as you con­tin­ue to force your un­wel­come and dis­gust­ing pres­ence up­on me. I have not tak­en lessons in the school of which you were talk­ing, in vain: and as you set your­self up as a ri­val, just ex­er­cise your skill; I ask no fa­vors, and fear not your op­po­si­tion.”

“Yes, you do; with all your boast­ing, you fear me, cow­ard though I be, at this very mo­ment.”

“Yes, ex­act­ly as I fear the prox­im­ity of any oth­er cor­rupt thing with which it is un­pleas­ant to come in con­tact. There is a cer­tain small an­imal of the cat species, bear­ing, how­ev­er, an­oth­er and very sig­nif­icant name, with which it would be about as dis­agree­able to come in con­tact as with your­self; as I would fear it, so I fear you; in my es­ti­ma­tion you are equal­ly vile and equal­ly to be avoid­ed.”

Again Duf­fel grew red in the face with rage, and he was on the point of seiz­ing and over­pow­er­ing Eve­line; but his eye fell up­on the dag­ger, which she held in her hand, and pru­dence or cow­ardice held him back. His re­sponse was giv­en with sav­age mal­ice:

“I'll take the fire out of your tem­per, ere you are many hours old­er; mark that! You have gone too far for me longer to con­tin­ue my gen­tle deal­ings to­ward you. I have en­deav­ored to per­suade you, I have ex­pos­tu­lat­ed with you, and made all rea­son­able of­fers to in­duce you to ac­qui­esce peace­ably in your fate, which I would have made an hon­or­able and en­vi­able one; but you have treat­ed all my kind­ness with con­tu­me­ly and mis­con­strued my for­bear­ance in­to cow­ardice. Now you must pre­pare for the worst.”

“Sir--vil­lain, rather, ev­ery word you have ut­tered is as false as the pit of night, and you know it! Yes, sir, you know that as you stood there and spoke, un­mit­igat­ed false­hoods fell from your lips while ev­ery dec­la­ra­tion! And know­ing this, and know­ing that _I_ know it, al­so, you have the au­dac­ity and the in­so­lent im­pu­dence to say that you have of­fered me an hon­or­able po­si­tion in life! Is it pos­si­ble that you are so fall­en as not to know that in a truth­ful, vir­tu­ous, and no­ble soul there can be noth­ing so ab­hor­rent as ly­ing, vil­lainy, and cow­ardice? Talk of hon­or! Bet­ter might Sa­tan take of good­ness!”

“Go on! you are on­ly plac­ing thorns in your path, ev­ery one of which will pierce you as a pang of agony.”

“I have no doubt you would like to in­tim­idate me by such omi­nous re­marks; but I have heard sim­ilar ones from the same source be­fore; and know­ing the dis­tance which sep­arates their au­thor from truth, you may well rest as­sured I place im­plic­it con­fi­dence in their fal­si­ty.”

“I'll prove to you how true they are, then; in one thing, at least, you shall be con­vinced of my ve­rac­ity; and that is, that I am now in earnest, and mean to re­main in earnest un­til my wish­es are ac­com­plished, and you, the vic­tim of my plea­sure, be­come a sup­pli­ant for mer­cy and restora­tion to an hon­or­able po­si­tion in so­ci­ety.”

“_Nev­er!_”

“We shall see; I have been talk­ing,--from this time on, I _act_!”

Say­ing this he drew a pis­tol from his pock­et, and hold­ing it be­fore her, went on:

“You see I came pre­pared this time! I was ful­ly re­solved to bring mat­ters to an is­sue at any rate, and more es­pe­cial­ly if you per­sist­ed in your in­sult­ing course of ad­dress. You have done so; the cup of your trans­gres­sions is full, and the time of your pro­ba­tion ex­pired. Now comes the judg­ment!”

He had ex­pect­ed to see her turn pale and trem­ble, and, per­haps, be­come a sup­pli­ant for more time to con­sid­er the mat­ter; but with the ex­cep­tion of a lit­tle clos­er com­pres­sion of the lips, and, if pos­si­ble, a lit­tle more de­ter­mined ex­pres­sion, he saw no change pass over her coun­te­nance. If ter­ror she had, it was kept out of sight. She made no re­ply, and he pro­ceed­ed:

“You think be­cause your dag­ger served you once it will do so again; but it will not. I could ex­ecute my plans im­me­di­ate­ly and at once have you help­less­ly in my pow­er; but I pre­fer to give you one more and the last op­por­tu­ni­ty of de­cid­ing for your­self. Know, then, that as soon as I find this of­fer re­ject­ed, I will send the con­tents of this pis­tol through your right arm, and if that is not enough I have an­oth­er in my pock­et here, which shall pay the same re­spects to your left arm. You will then be at my mer­cy as com­plete­ly as though you were an in­fant. I leave your own fan­cy to pic­ture what will fol­low, un­der­stand­ing my in­ten­tions as you do. With this cer­tain doom be­fore you, will you, Eve­line Man­dev­ille, con­sent to be my wife, now or at some fu­ture day?”

“I WILL NOT!”

The re­ply was clear, bold, de­cid­ed, with­out a tremor of voice or the quiv­er­ing of a mus­cle. The fiendish wretch was awed by her courage, but hav­ing, as he said, re­solved to bring mat­ters to a cri­sis, he went on:

“You have cho­sen your fate, be the con­se­quences up­on your own head!” He raised the pis­tol.

“Will you throw away that dag­ger and per­mit me peace­ably to ap­proach you?”

“_No!_”

“I will ask you three times, and with your third re­fusal I shall fire; so be­ware! Will you throw away the dag­ger?”

“_No!_”

“This is the third and last time I shall ask the ques­tion,” and he re­peat­ed it slow­ly: “Will you throw away t-​h-​e d-​a-​g-​g-​e-​r?” and he brought the weapon to his eye.

“NO!”

There was a pause of a sec­ond, and then a flash of fire, a cloud of smoke, and the re­port of a pis­tol told that his threat was ex­ecut­ed. The bru­tal mon­ster wait­ed a mo­ment for the smoke to clear away from his vi­sion, not lik­ing to ven­ture up­on that omi­nous look­ing dag­ger un­til as­sured of a blood­less vic­to­ry. Poor, de­spi­ca­ble cow­ard!

As he kept his eye fixed to­ward the spot where Eve­line stood, ea­ger to see the re­sult of the shot, he felt some­thing strike his breast, and, turn­ing his eyes down­ward, he be­held the glit­ter­ing dag­ger glance along his left side! A but­ton had turned its course and saved his life! He sprang away, ut­ter­ing an af­fright­ed oath, and grasped for his oth­er pis­tol. It was not in his pock­et! and there he stood un­armed, be­fore the un­hurt but out­raged wom­an he had at­tempt­ed to de­stroy!

Eve­line, though ex­cit­ed, was un­usu­al­ly self-​pos­sessed dur­ing all the in­ter­view just re­lat­ed. She felt the im­mi­nence of her dan­ger, but it on­ly aroused her fac­ul­ties to a more acute ob­ser­va­tion of ev­ery in­ci­dent and cir­cum­stance that might, by any pos­si­ble chance, be turned to ad­van­tage. When she saw that Duf­fel was re­solved to put his threat in ex­ecu­tion, she de­ter­mined to make him the vic­tim in­stead of her­self, if it were pos­si­ble to do so. In speak­ing of this re­served pis­tol he un­con­scious­ly placed his hand in his pock­et--a side coat pock­et--and drew the weapon up, so that the breech rest­ed up­on the up­per and out­er edge of the re­cep­ta­cle in the gar­ment. Eve­line no­ticed this, and in a mo­ment her plan of ac­tion was formed. She did not like the thought of killing a hu­man be­ing, but as Duf­fel had pro­ceed­ed to such ex­tremes, she felt that if it was not her du­ty to slay him un­der the cir­cum­stances, she would, at least, be jus­ti­fi­able in so do­ing. She, there­fore, set­tled it in her mind to go to this ex­treme length, much as she shrank from a deed of blood, in case the mon­ster fired at her. She took in the idea at once that a puff of smoke would con­ceal her move­ments for a mo­ment, and, un­der its friend­ly cov­er, feel­ing sure of her abil­ity to avoid the shot, she would smite the vil­lain to the heart and seize the pis­tol at the same in­stant, to use in case the thrust should prove in­ef­fec­tu­al. Hav­ing her mind di­vid­ed be­tween the two acts, both of which must be done in the same breath, she did not aim the dag­ger with as much pre­ci­sion as un­der oth­er cir­cum­stances she might have done, and the re­sult was as al­ready stat­ed; the pis­tol, how­ev­er, she safe­ly se­cured; and when she saw Duf­fel feel for it, and per­ceived his dis­ap­point­ment and alarm at not find­ing it, she said:

“Here it is, sir, and for once you are in my pow­er! It is now my turn!”

The mis­cre­ant cow­ered be­fore her de­ter­mined gaze.

“Pre­pare for your end!”

“I crave your mer­cy.”

“_Mer­cy!_ You, vile, un­man­ly wretch! did _you_ show mer­cy?”

“I was ex­cit­ed,--spare me!”

“Down on your knees, then, and beg for your life!”

He hes­itat­ed to de­mean him­self thus, she raised the pis­tol, and there was a fire in her eye which spoke vol­umes to the craven soul of the poltroon. He obeyed, fell up­on his knees and begged his life at her hands, promis­ing to lib­er­ate her if she would grant his prayer. When he ceased plead­ing, and paused for her re­ply, she an­swered:

“Know, base cow­ard, that, wom­an as I am, I would scorn to take the life of an un­armed en­emy. I was on­ly try­ing you to as­cer­tain how low you would de­grade and how de­bas­ing­ly de­mean your­self to beg for mer­cy. I would have made you swear to take me from this place, but I knew you would per­jure your­self the mo­ment an op­por­tu­ni­ty af­ford­ed, and I did not care to bur­den your guilty soul with an­oth­er crime. For the same rea­son I de­cline ac­cept­ing your prof­fer to take me away. I know you would prove treach­er­ous, and I will not trust my­self in your hands. Go, now, and re­mem­ber that the next time you en­ter this room in my pres­ence, you die! I will not per­mit an­oth­er in­sult of the kind; no, sir, _nev­er_! Open that door and leave!”

He obeyed; she fol­lowed him with the pis­tol pre­sent­ed, un­til he was out of the cap­tain's room. He closed the door in­to the out­er cave with a slam, and locked it, and then called out:

“Madam, you were a fool for not se­cur­ing the keys while you had me in your pow­er. I now curse and de­fy you, and swear that I will make you re­pent this day's work in the dust and ash­es of hu­mil­ia­tion. I shall not come alone next time, but with fifty men; and you _shall_ be over­pow­ered and feel the weight of my vengeance! I'll wring your proud heart till it bleeds, and in your degra­da­tion will scorn you!”

She did not wait to hear more of his ha­rangue, but has­tened back in­to her room, shut and bolt­ed her door, placed ev­ery mov­able ob­ject in the apart­ment against the one by which Duf­fel had en­tered, and then en­ter­ing the se­cret pas­sage, ran to the mir­ror to see if the vil­lain left. She had been there but a few min­utes when he passed, curs­ing as he went, and swear­ing to be re­venged.

The read­er may won­der why Eve­line did not shoot the wretch when she had him in her pow­er, but the truth was, she knew noth­ing about us­ing fire-​arms, and feared to make the at­tempt, lest, fail­ing, she should be again in his hands. She knew, too, that it would not be pru­dent to trust her­self to be led out of the cave by him, as the mo­ment he met one of his fol­low­ers he would be­tray her, and she would be again a pris­on­er. Still she would have made this ven­ture, had not the se­cret pas­sage held out to her a more hope­ful mode of es­cape.

All these con­sid­er­ations, dan­gers and prob­abil­ities flashed through her mind with the fleet­ness of thought, and she came to con­clu­sions with the same ra­pid­ity. Doubt­less, she pur­sued the best course. She could pre­sume on Duf­fel's cow­ardice, but she dare not trust his word or his oath.

So soon as her per­se­cu­tor passed out from the cave, as shown by the mir­ror, she has­tened back to her room to make prepa­ra­tions for leav­ing the den of in­famy in which she had been con­fined, feel­ing well as­sured that but a few hours would be suf­fered to elapse, ere Duf­fel, with as many ad­her­ents as he deemed nec­es­sary to ac­com­plish his ends, would re­turn, to wreak his piti­less vengeance up­on her. Mak­ing ev­ery­thing ready for her de­par­ture, she await­ed the dark­ness of the ap­proach­ing night, that in its friend­ly man­tle she might find pro­tec­tion and shel­ter. But ere the light of day had with­drawn, she again ven­tured out in­to the stream for the pur­pose of more ful­ly re­con­noi­ter­ing the place, and fix­ing in her mind the rel­ative po­si­tion of things, ob­sta­cles and dis­tance, and to ob­tain such knowl­edge in gen­er­al as might fa­cil­itate her es­cape.

Night came; she left her room, the com­mon door locked and bolt­ed, the se­cret one clogged with the fur­ni­ture of the room, so that it would re­quire the unit­ed strength of sev­er­al men to force it open. The door of the se­cret pas­sage which she had learned to open and shut from both sides, was closed af­ter her, and alone she passed along that damp aisle, paused a mo­ment be­fore the mir­ror to note whether it re­flect­ed the scene with­out, and see­ing up­on its face but blank dark­ness, she opened the last door be­tween her­self and the world in­to which she was go­ing, closed it as she passed through its por­tals, de­scend­ed the stairs, reached the out­er ex­trem­ity of the pas­sage, put out her lamp, and the next minute stood on the peb­bles at the mar­gin of the stream. A brief sur­vey of the coast in all di­rec­tions sat­is­fied her that she was not ob­served, and with­out more de­lay she moved down the stream as rapid­ly as the na­ture of the ground and her want of ex­pe­ri­ence in such places and mode of trav­el would per­mit.

It was about a mile from the start­ing point be­fore she reached the first re­ces­sion of the high bank, that af­ford­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to leave the stream, which she im­proved with­out de­lay, and af­ter a la­bo­ri­ous as­cent of an in­clined plane, more than a hun­dred yards in ex­tent and quite steep, she found her­self on the high bluff, with the cave in the dis­tance.

But now a new and be­fore un­thought of dif­fi­cul­ty faced her. She was in a wilder­ness, with no com­pass by which to di­rect her course, and no friend­ly guide to con­duct her to the habi­ta­tions of men. For a mo­ment she was al­most par­alyzed by the mag­ni­tude of this un­tried dan­ger, and hope well nigh fled from her breast. But rous­ing her en­er­gies she bold­ly looked her fate in the face, and com­mit­ted her­self in­to the hands of that Prov­idence who had so of­ten be­friend­ed her in for­mer times of per­il, and then shap­ing her course as well as she could by the stars, she plunged in­to the dense for­est, with her face, as she be­lieved, to­ward home, which she hoped to reach some time the next day.

Alas for her hopes! in less than an hour she was to­tal­ly be­wil­dered and lost in the wilder­ness! She felt her lone­li­ness and help­less­ness now more than when fac­ing her ma­lig­nant en­emy; and to add to the hor­rors of her sit­ua­tion, howls of wild beasts soon greet­ed her ears!