Читать книгу: «Little Nobody», страница 7

CHAPTER XX

Marie did not see Van Zandt's eyes looking admiringly at her beautiful hair.

She was gazing with eager eyes at the narrow door that had shut her in with him whom she had dared so much to find and save.

She saw with some dismay that its inner surface was just what it had appeared when she had moved her fingers over it in the dark—perfectly smooth, without seam, knob, or lock, and no apparent way of moving it from its place.

Van Zandt gave her the lamp to hold, and put his shoulder to the immovable door, but his whole strength availed nothing against its grim solidity.

Then he spent an anxious hour trying the steps and the sides of the door in an effort to find its mysterious open sesame.

Not an iota of success rewarded his frantic efforts.

But he would not give way to despair.

"I shall have to cut our way out," he said. "But, as I have no hatchet, it will be slow work with my jack-knife. You may have to hold that lamp for hours, ma'amselle, while I whittle a hole in the door big enough for you to creep through."

"That is nothing. I shall not be tired," she replied, bravely.

But she was not called upon for this exhibition of patience.

The first few strokes of the knife revealed to him the appalling fact that the inside of the door was not of wood, but iron—iron so heavily coated with thick paint that it had cleverly deceived the superficial touch.

Then indeed she caught a gleam of trouble in his eyes—trouble that was almost despair. Her own face paled, and a sigh of dismay escaped her lips.

When he heard it, he forced a smile.

"Do not be frightened; we will find some other way," he said.

And they went back to the room and searched the walls carefully to see if there was any weak spot by which they might effect an escape. Windows there were none, and the ventilation of the room had been cleverly effected by pipes that were let into the ceiling above. The walls around were damp and cool, showing that they were built into the earth; but they were thick and heavy, and Van Zandt's jack-knife made no impression on the heavy oaken planks beneath the handsome wall-papering.

Two hours were spent in this vain quest for means of egress from their prison, and drops of dew beaded the young man's face. He was weak from his illness and from the fast that had lasted all day, and sat down at last to rest and to think what he should do next.

"Oh, how tired and weak you must be! I am so sorry I eat your breakfast! I shouldn't have done so, but I thought we should get out of here directly!" exclaimed the girl, regretfully.

She brought him the wine and poured out a glass, which she forced him to taste. It ran warmly through his veins, and courage returned to him again.

"Now, no more for me," he said, pressing back the little hand that offered the second glass. "Drink that yourself ma'amselle, and we must keep the rest for you, for we can not tell how long it may be before we get out of this."

"I do not need it; I am strong enough without it," she replied, and replaced the untouched glass on the stand. Then she saw him looking at her with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

"I have a new thought," he said. "Perhaps if we could make ourselves heard from down here, some one might come to our relief. Let us halloo, ma'amselle, with all our might."

It would have been ludicrous if it had not been so pitiful to hear them shouting in concert at the top of their voices. Indeed, they paused now and then to look at each other with laughing eyes, and to pant with exhaustion from their efforts, but the shouting was kept up at intervals until Van Zandt's watch recorded the hour of midnight.

Then he said, wearily:

"There is no help for it. We shall have to pass the night here, I suppose."

He opened the door and began to push his sofa out into the narrow little passage.

"What are you going to do?" Marie asked him, with large eyes of wonder.

"I am simply converting this passage into a temporary bedroom for myself," he answered. "Good-night, Ma'amselle Marie; I leave you my room and bed. Lie down and rest, and in the morning we will try to devise some new plan for our escape."

He opened and shut the door, and Marie was alone. She threw herself wearily on the luxurious bed, and in spite of hunger and thirst and terror, slept heavily for hours.

When she awakened, she felt sure that day must be far advanced. She found a large pitcher of water and poured out some into a basin and bathed her face and hands. Then she peeped out into the dark passage for Van Zandt.

He was sitting up composedly on his sofa, as if he had been awake for hours.

"Oh, dear, monsieur, I have kept you out in the dark for hours! Come in," she exclaimed; and he accepted the invitation with alacrity, pushing in his convenient sofa before him.

Laughingly, he said:

"I began to think you were a second Rip Van Winkle, Ma'amselle Marie;" and, holding out his watch to her, she saw that it was near the middle of the day.

"Oh, how lazy I have been! Forgive me!" she cried, vexed with herself. "You must have been very tired waiting out there in the dark?"

"No, for I was at work trying to find the secret spring of the iron door, but I only wasted my time and strength," he replied, sadly.

"Oh, what are we going to do?" she burst out, in sudden terror.

"That is what I was asking myself at intervals all through the night," said Eliot Van Zandt. "Oh, my child—my brave little girl! what would I not give if only you had not followed Madame Lorraine into this fatal prison! I could suffer alone with a man's fortitude, but for you to share my fate is too dreadful!"

His voice broke and his eyes grew strangely dim. She answered, with pretty gravity:

"It was through your goodness to me that you were first betrayed into her power; and if you have to suffer for it, I want to suffer, too. We are friends, you know. But we must not give up hope yet. I am more sorry than ever that I eat your breakfast; but take a little of the wine, and it will strengthen you."

"After you," he replied, seeing that she would not be satisfied without seeing him take some. He held the glass to her lips, and she swallowed a few drops under protest. He went through the same form, saying to himself that he must save it all for her, for there was nothing else between her and utter starvation.

"What shall we do next? Halloo again?" she asked, with a smile.

"I do not believe my lungs are strong enough to go over that ordeal again. The wound in my breast is not quite healed over yet," he said. "But suppose we sing instead?"

"I do not know how to sing," she answered.

"Very well; I shall have to do all the singing," he replied, good-humoredly. "And, do you know, I think it is a rather good idea to sing, for who knows but it may penetrate to the street, and if it be known that Madame Lorraine be gone away, curiosity may lead some one to investigate into the cause of the mysterious noise, and then we may be found."

"Oh, how clever you are! Do begin at once!" she exclaimed, with a hopeful light in her dark eyes.

"I will," he replied; and somehow the first song that came to his mind was a sweet, sad love song he had been used to sing with his fair young sisters in the far-off Northern home he loved so well:

 
"In days of old, when knights were bold,
And barons held their sway,
A warrior bold, with spurs of gold,
Sung merrily his lay:
'My love is young and fair,
My love hath golden hair,
And eyes so bright and heart so true
That none with her compare;
So what care I, tho' death be nigh,
I'll live for love or die!'
 
 
"So this brave knight, in armor bright,
Went gayly to the fray;
He fought the fight, but ere the night
His soul had passed away.
The plighted ring he wore
Was crushed and wet with gore;
Yet ere he died he bravely cried:
'I've kept the vow I swore;
So what care I, tho' death be nigh,
I've fought for love, and die—
For love I die!'"
 

The girl's beautiful eyes looked at the singer, dark and grave with the strange emotions swelling at her heart. She had heard Mme. Lorraine and the men from the Jockey Club sing their best, but it had not affected her like this. A strange, sweet awe stole over her, mixed with a buoyancy and lightness that was thrilling and yet solemn. With the strange, new sensation there came to her a sudden memory of the chapel at Le Bon Berger, and the soft, murmuring voices of the nuns at prayer. She felt like praying.

He looked at her curiously, and she said, with child-like directness:

"I can not sing, but the nuns at the convent taught me how to pray. I will pray to the good God, and perhaps He will hear me and save us."

The next minute she had thrown herself down by a chair, bowed her golden head on her hands, and a low, soft murmur of prayer filled the room. He hesitated a moment, then went and knelt down by her side, and his deeper, stronger voice filled the room with a strong, manly petition for help and pity.

Then he did not feel like singing again for awhile, so sweet and deep an awe pervaded his mind. Marie sat opposite, her tiny hands folded in her lap, a lovely seriousness on her piquant face.

By and by he sung again, but this time it was one of the solemn chants, such as might be heard in the choirs of the old cathedrals.

The day wore on like this, and the night fell again, with no sign that the persistent singing had attracted any attention from the outer world.

Sadly enough, and with many grim forebodings, Van Zandt wheeled his sofa again into the narrow passage for his night's rest. As he bid her good-night, Marie said, sadly:

"The oil is getting low in the lamp. I will extinguish it to-night if you have a match to light it in the morning."

He was fortunate enough to find a little match-case in his pocket filled with matches that he carried for lighting his cigars; so Marie extinguished the lamp until morning, and they turned on a very dim light that day, for they feared that they should soon be left in total darkness. To-day, also, the last of the wine was used, Marie insisting that they should share alike, for both began to feel the deathly weakness of hunger paralyzing their energies. The singing at intervals was still persevered in, although Van Zandt's voice began to fail strangely from the weakness of hunger and illness. Hope failed him, too, as this, the third day of their mutual imprisonment waned to a close, and he regretted bitterly that he had allowed Marie to force him to take a share of the precious sherry.

Faint and fainter waxed the light, and the two victims of Mme. Lorraine's malignity began to realize that the horrors of Cimmerian darkness were about to be added to those of starvation and isolation.

"Sing something," said Marie, from the depths of the arm-chair where she was resting.

He fancied that her voice sounded strange and faint, and his heart sunk heavily. He wished again that the poor child had never ventured into this horrible trap from which there seemed to be no release but death. But he had already wished it a hundred times before—alas, to no avail!

"Sing," she murmured again, sadly. "See, the light is almost gone, but it will not seem so dreary when you sing."

He said to himself that he would be willing to sing until the last breath left his lips, could he but lighten one pang of the suffering girl whose devotion to him had brought down such a cruel fate upon her head.

So, although his throat was sore, his head dizzy, and his heart like lead in his breast, he sung feebly, but bravely, a song that yesterday she had said she liked. It was sweet; but sad. He had no heart for gay ones now:

 
"Out in the country, close to the road-side,
One little daisy there chanced to grow;
It was so happy there in the sunshine—
No one the daisy's joy could know;
Watching the white clouds, hearing a song there,
List'ning in wonder all day long.
'Oh,' said the daisy, 'had I a song-voice,
Yonder forever I'd send my song.'
 
 
"It was a lark that sung in the heaven,
While all the world stood still to hear,
Many a maiden looked from her knitting,
And in her heart there crept a tear.
Down came the lark and sung to the daisy,
Sung to it only songs of love;
Till in the twilight slumbered the daisy,
Turning its sweet face to heaven above.
 
 
"Ah! for the morrow bringeth such sorrow,
Captured the lark, and life grew dim,
There, too, the daisy, torn from the way-side,
Prisoned and dying, wept for him.
Once more the lark sung; fainter his voice grew;
Her little song was hushed and o'er;
Two little lives gone out of the sunshine,
Out of this bright world for evermore."
 

He paused and looked at her in the dim light. The young face was very pale, the dark eyes hollow with purple rings around them.

"I would give the world, were it mine, for food for this dying child!" he thought, in bitter anguish.

With a languid smile and in childish innocence, she said:

"I like your little song, Monsieur Van Zandt. Do you know, I think it suits us two? You are the lark, and I the little daisy. And—and—we need not hope any longer, I am afraid. We will soon be gone out of life, like the lark and the little daisy."

The last words were so faint as to be scarcely audible. Her eyes had closed while she uttered them, and now the golden head fell languidly against the back of her chair.

With a cry of alarm, Eliot Van Zandt sprung to her side, and discovered, to his dismay, that she was quite unconscious.

CHAPTER XXI

"Unconscious, and not a drop of wine or water with which to revive her—not even a breath of fresh air, though the whole world is so full of it!" he murmured, in despair.

He flew to the water-pitcher in a wild hope, and found there a few spoonfuls which he had begged her to drink in the morning. She had pretended to do so, but here it was untouched. So terrible was his own thirst that his heart leaped at sight of it, but not for worlds would he have appropriated even one small drop from his companion in misery.

Hastily pouring it into a glass, he pressed it against her lips, moistening them gently until they parted, and a few drops of the precious fluid passed between them and down her parched throat. A sigh heaved her breast, and her eyes unclosed.

Eliot Van Zandt cried out in joy and relief, and laying her head back against his arm, he gently forced her to swallow the remainder of the water. It acted like a charm, for withdrawing her head from his arm, she sat upright, and said, in a weak voice:

"I kept the water for you; I did not want to drink it."

"Nonsense, child; I am strong, and did not need it," lightly. "But do you feel better now?"

"Much better; but I think I will lie down, monsieur, I feel so tired. Is it bed-time yet?" trying to smile.

He looked at his watch by the light that was so feeble now that he could scarcely see the hands moving across its face.

"Yes, it is bed-time. It is past ten o'clock," he said; then, with hesitation: "Are you not too sick for me to leave you, child? I can sit here and watch you while you sleep."

Within himself he thought sadly that the conventionalities of the world were out of place now, when both were hovering on the border of the Unknown Land. Why not sit beside the dying girl and soothe her last sad hours?

But with a pensive smile she answered:

"No; go to your rest, dear friend. I shall do very well alone, but if I feel ill again I will call you."

Thus dismissed, he wheeled his sofa, as usual, into the dark and gloomy little passage outside the door. Then, lingering to press the little hand and say good-night more tenderly than ever in the presentiment that weighed upon him, she startled him by a shrill, frightened cry:

"Oh!"

The light had given one expiring flare and gone out, leaving them in darkness.

"Are you afraid? Shall I leave my door ajar?" he asked, gently.

"No, no," she answered, quickly.

"Very well, then; but I shall not go to sleep. I shall lie awake to guard you from any fancied danger," he said; and sighed, knowing that there was nothing to fear save the grim, gaunt hunger-wolf.

He struck a match that he might smile once more, sadly but tenderly, into the pale, patient face. She smiled bravely in return.

"My good friend, good-night," she said gently; and with a sigh he left her to hold a patient, wakeful vigil outside her door.

Hours passed without a sound from the dark, inner chamber, where Marie lay huddled among the pillows in feverish sleep. At last, dizziness and weariness fairly conquered him; his head drooped to the arm of the sofa, and he, too, slept.

It seemed scarce a minute since his heavy eyes had shut before he started up with a confused cry. Had some one called his name?

Some sort of a sound certainly echoed in his ears; it resolved itself into her voice.

Marie's voice calling out loud and strange and incessant, with incoherent words. He tore open the door wildly and struck one of his precious matches.

She lay there among the pillows, with vacant, wide-open eyes fixed on the ceiling, babbling in wild delirium of cool springs and fountains, of summer showers, of falling dew, her parched lips panting with fever.

"Oh, my God! if the world were mine, I would give it for one draught of water for my suffering little darling!" he cried aloud, with the agony of a man's heart driven to bay.

The dim flame of the match died into darkness again, and he stood by the bed, holding her hot little hand in his, listening in agony to her delirious ravings.

"This is the cruelest hour of my life!" he muttered. "Death, when it comes, will not be half so bitter."

By the aid of another match he looked at his watch. It was five o'clock, and outside he knew that the day was near its dawn; but within the chamber where he watched by the side of the dying girl all was thick darkness and gloom, and his stock of matches was running so low that he dared not light one as often as he wished.

Agonized thoughts kept him grim company while he stood listening to her ravings for water to cool her poor parched tongue and lips.

Soon she would be dead, and her harrowing sufferings all over. Then he would be alone with the dead girl until death mercifully came to his release. Here they would lie, uncoffined and unburied for years, moldering into dust, their cruel fate forever hidden from men. In his far-off home his sisters would grieve for him awhile, then he would be forgotten.

The tiny flame of another match flared into the air at six o'clock. Her ravings had ceased, the hot flush had left her face, the little palms were cool again. She lay with wide-open eyes upon the pillow, breathing faintly—so faintly that he looked for every breath to be her last.

In the anguish of that thought, a wild temptation came to him. Somewhere he had read that debilitated invalids were strengthened and restored to health by drinking the fresh, warm blood of newly slaughtered beeves.

He tore open the blade of his knife and desperately punctured a vein in his arm. The hot, red blood spurted like a fountain, and he caught it in the wine-glass until it was full.

A handkerchief bound tightly about his arm stopped the bleeding of the wound, and, with some difficulty in the darkness, and shuddering with weakness and emotion, he lifted Marie's head on his arm and pressed the glass to her lips.

CHAPTER XXII

He scarcely dared hope that she would have enough strength to swallow his strange medicine, but, to his joy, the dry lips parted and clung to the glass until every drop of the liquid had been drained, then, with a long sigh of relief, her head fell back, and he laid it gently on the pillow.

"Have I revived her, or—killed her?" he muttered, in a fright.

Another match. If it had been the last one, he must have one glimpse of her face now.

It lay pale, with shut eyes, and apparently lifeless, on the white pillow. He felt her pulse hurriedly. A feeble, thread-like pulsation assured him that life still lingered. He sat down sorrowfully in a chair by the bed, holding the pulse beneath his finger, waiting sadly for the last.

Seven o'clock by the light of the last match, and the pulse still throbbed softly, and, he almost dared to hope, more strongly.

"What does it mean? Has my experiment indeed given her a few more hours of life?" he wondered, gladly.

It seemed so, for the thread-like pulse gradually grew stronger, and bending down his head, he caught a faint but regular breathing.

"Marie," he said, softly, and a quickened breath that was almost a gasp assured him that she heard. "I am here by your side," he went on. "It is dark, and I have used all the matches, so I can not watch your face to see if you are better. Can you speak to me, dear?"

"Monsieur," she uttered, faintly, and his heart leaped with joy at the sound.

"You are better," he exclaimed, and she murmured a faint:

"Yes."

Then she seemed to fall asleep. He fought bravely against the deathly weakness that was stealing over him. A passionate prayer was in his heart:

"Lord, send us help before it is too late!"

Hours seemed to pass while he sat there in a strange half-stupor that most likely would merge into delirium, as hers had done. Oh, the gnawings of hunger, the pangs of thirst, how terrible they were!

"Yet, thank Heaven, I have lightened hers for a little while by the life-fluid I freely gave!" he muttered.

Suddenly, in the darkness, a little groping hand fell on his face.

"Are you there still?" asked Marie's voice, weak but clear.

"I am here still," he answered, taking the hand again in his own. The pulse was much better now. She continued, softly: "I feel stronger, but I was surely dying when you gave me the sweet, warm milk to drink. It put new life in my veins, but—" she paused as if a new thought had struck her mind.

"Well?" he said, gently, and she answered:

"I can not imagine where you found the milk. I hope you had some, too. It is so reviving. Did you?"

"Yes, plenty," he replied, with a shudder, and she said:

"I am so glad. But how dreary it is all in the dark! Sing again, please."

It had seemed to him a minute ago that he was almost too weak to speak, but he made a great effort to please her, although he knew that it would exhaust his strength all the sooner. He sung with all the power that remained in his weak lungs. In the darkness and the gloom, the dear old hymn, learned at his mother's knee in childhood, sounded sweetly solemn:

 
"Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!
 
 
"Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes,
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain—"
 

There was a sudden, swift break in the voice that soared upward to the pitying heavens—his strength had not given out, but something wonderful had happened.

From over their heads, and seeming to come through the small pipe provided to ventilate their darksome prison, had come the distinct sound of a human voice.

"Halloo!"