that it should be far less than the ten demanded of a direct assault upon the cliff's face, I confidently assumed. And indeed, a little over half that time had elapsed, when I found myself confronted with the wooden door, and the faint line of light at its edges, that proclaimed me come to the cavern itself. I placed my ear against it, and stood as still as a mouse.
“At the very least, Crawford, allow Mademoiselle Le-Fevre to go free,” came a grim voice; I recognised Sidmouth, and knew that his every illusion regarding Crawford's purpose must be now o'erthrown. “She has done nothing to deserve arrest, and her brother is wounded, as you may plainly see. Send them out to the boat—at pistol point, if need be—and keep me hostage to their word. I may fully vouch that they shall depart without a backwards glance, if I so command it”
“Do you think me a fool? Should I allow a boat to land, and armed men with it, before the dragoons are come? 1 have not spent a decade in flight of the law, to fall victim to another rogue. No, Sidmouth, you shall remain within, and the signal go unsent, and the boat remain offshore.”
There was a faint groan of suffering—from the injured Philippe, 1 supposed. It was because of the boy that I had assumed Sidmouth would seek hiding so near to the Grange, rather than in the wilds of the Pinny, or simply flying along the Crewkerne road. He was not the sort to leave his ailing cousin, and since any attempt at removal by waggon should delay them insupportably, they must go by boat, and be borne swiftly out of harm's way, or die in the attempt.
There was a rapid cursing in French from Seraphine, and the sound of a woman spitting.
“You may rest easy, Mademoiselle,” came Crawford's voice. “By my lights, we have not long to wait”
Where, oh, where, was Lord Harold?
“What was that?” Crawford's voice held a note of apprehension. “A sound, like a rock falling.” A pause, during which I assume the Reverend peered cautiously from the cavern's mouth. “Not the dragoons—they should have no need for stealth,” he mused. “Some other, then. Sidmouth!”
Footsteps crossed the cavern swifdy, and I heard with a shudder a cry of pain from Seraphine and the cocking of a pistol. “Your beloved dies, unless you speak the truth. What manner of man is beyond the cavern mouth? Is it Dagliesh, your black dog? Or one of your lily-bearers, perhaps? Out with it!”
“You had better keep your ball for the defence of your prize,” Sidmouth drily rejoined, “than spend it in terrorizing my cousin. I have no notion who might be beyond.”
He spoke strongly, with much of bravado; but there was something like hope in his voice. A sudden in-drawing of breath, and an ill-suppressed whimper from Seraphine, was his only reward.
A gunshot rang out, and I jumped, in a fever of anxiety that Crawford had carried out his ruthless aim; but even as the thought occurred, I knew the ball to have been fired from some distance, the beach beyond, perhaps, and not from within the cavern. It must, it could only be, Lord Harold. There was the sound of a scuffle, and a dragging of a body across the floor of the cave, and then Crawford's voice was very nearly at my ear.
“The girl comes with me, Sidmouth, as proof against your aims. If I am pursued, she dies—even if I must die with her. But if your man outside makes no attempt to follow, you have my word that she shall live.”
I knew with sharp certainty that Crawford intended some retreat up the very tunnel whose doorway I commanded, with Seraphine as his hostage, and I felt my heart race. I pressed myself against the tunnel wall, my breath suspended, and raised Lord Harold's pistol high in both hands. 1 should have only one chance, or be overcome.
The door was thrust wide, and Crawford backed into the passage, his left arm hooked about the throat of Seraphine, who struggled futilely, with rolling eyes; and in his right hand, an upraised gun, that trembled with a cowardly anxiety.
So much? saw, before I brought the butt of Lord Harold's pistol down upon his skull, with all the force in my slender frame and a guttural yell that shocked even my overwrought senses—and Crawford swayed a moment on his feet, then crumpled to the ground.