Frenchman's Creek

In a moment he had done what he wished. "Watch him," he said swiftly, "he cannot move," and Dona heard the Frenchman slip away from her in the darkness, and climb the stairs again to the cell above. "Have you got him, William?" he said, and there was a funny strangled sob from the room above, and the sound of something heavy being dragged along the floor. She could hear the gagged man gasping for breath beside her, and all the while the heavy dragging sound from above, and a sudden desire to laugh rose in her throat, a terrible strained feeling of hysteria, and she knew if she gave way to it she would never stop, it would swell up within her like a scream.

Then the Frenchman called to her from above, "Open the door, Dona, and see if the road is clear," and she felt her way to it in the darkness, her hands fumbling with the heavy bolts. She wrenched it open, and looked out, and from the direction of the house she heard the sound of wheels, and down the drive towards the keep came the physician's carriage; she could hear the driver crack his whip and call to his horse.

She turned back inside the keep to warn them, but already the Frenchman was at her side, and she looked up into his face, and in his eyes she saw the reckless laughter that she had seen before when he had pricked the curled wig from Godolphin's head, and "By heaven," he said softly, "it's the physician going home at last."

He stepped out bare-headed into the drive, holding up his hand. "What are you doing?" she whispered, "are you mad, are you crazy?" But he laughed, taking no notice. The driver pulled up his horse at the entrance to the keep, and the long thin face of the physician appeared at the carriage window.

"Who are you, what do you want?" he said in querulous tones, and the Frenchman put his hands on the window, and smiled, and "Did you give his lordship an heir then, and is he pleased with his baby?" he said.

"Pleased my foot," swore the physician. "There are twin daughters up there at the hall, and I'll thank you to take your hands off my carriage window and to let me pass, for all I want is my supper and my bed."

"Ah, but you'll give us a ride first, won't you?" said the Frenchman, and in a moment he had knocked the driver from his seat, tumbling him down into the drive below, and "Climb beside me, Dona," he said; "we'll ride in style if we ride at all." She did as he bade her, shaking with laughter. And there was William, in his strange black coat, without his wig and without his hat, slamming the door of the keep behind him, a pistol in his hand pointing in the face of the startled physician. "Get inside, William," called the Frenchman, "and give the doctor a glass of ale, if you have any left, for by the Lord, he's had a harder time tonight than we have had these last few minutes."

Down the drive sped the carriage, the physician's horse breaking into a gallop, who had never galloped before, and they came abreast the park-gates, firmly shut. "Open them wide!" called the Frenchman, as a sleepy head appeared at the window of the lodge. "Your master has twin daughters, and the physician wants his supper, and as for me and my cabin-boy, we've had ale enough this night to last us for thirty years."

The gates were flung back, the lodge-keeper staring at them in astonishment, his mouth wide open, while from within the carriage came the protesting cries of the physician.

"Where are we bound, William?" called the Frenchman, and William thrust his round face through the window of the carriage. "There are horses a mile up the road, m'sieu," he said, "but we are bound for Porthleven on the coast."

"We are bound for perdition, for all I care," he answered, and he put his arm round Dona, and kissed her. "Don't you know," he said, "that this is my last night in the world, and I'm going to be hanged in the morning?"

And with the horse galloping like a mad thing, and the white dust flying from the wheels, the carriage swung out onto the hard highroad.

CHAPTER XXIV

The adventure was over now, and the madness, and the laughter. Somewhere back on the road lay a carriage tumbled in a ditch, and a horse without bridle or rein grazed beside a hedge. There was a physician who walked along the highroad in search of his supper, and there were guards who lay bound and gagged upon a dungeon floor.

These things belonged to the evening, and had no place in the night that had come. For it was long past midnight now, and darker than it would ever be again. The stars were clustered thick like little pin-pricks of light, and the crescent moon had gone.