Blind Corner and Perishable Goods Page 7

  “I see,” said Mansel. “What’s the alternative?”

  “We take possession,” said Rose Noble, “here and now; you will stay as our guests until the treasure is found. How long that period will be will depend upon your ability to withstand the inclination to drink. When it has been found, and we are gone, your future will depend upon how long it is before somebody passes this way.”

  I never heard words uttered in a tone so cold and merciless, and Ellis appeared almost genial beside this sinister man.

  He was a big, hook-nosed fellow with sandy hair. His face was grey and flabby, and he was very fat. He had a curious way of hooding his eyes, but when he drew back his lids—and this was seldom—you seemed to be looking upon two coals of fire, that were consumed with hatred of everything they saw.

  When he had spoken, there was a little silence.

  Then:

  “That’s the stuff,” said Punter, with half a laugh.

  “You think so?” said Mansel swiftly. “Well, we shall see.”

  He rose. “And now I’m going to be less generous than you. I’m going to give you no choice—except to withdraw. I’m not going to look for the treasure while you sit and watch me do it. I’m in no hurry; in fact, I’ve time to bum. I’ve taken a lease on this place for fifty years; the fishing round about here is such as I love, and at the present moment, though it doesn’t seem to interest you, I’ve got my hands full with this well. But don’t think, from what I say, that you’re free of these grounds. I’ve a right to order you off, and I’m going to do it right NOW. If after this, you return, you’ll return as trespassers, and you can take it from me that, so far as this estate is concerned, trespassers will be shot.”

  With that, he looked round the courtyard, and, seeing, I suppose, something in his movement which they did not understand, the five men followed his gaze.

  Asprawl in the mouth of the loft, Bell was covering Rose Noble; each of the two open windows was framing a rifle barrel, with a head and shoulders behind; and Hanbury stood in the gateway, and I was in the mouth of the road.

  There was a long silence.

  At length:

  “That’s two tricks to you,” said Rose Noble, rubbing his nose. “But I don’t think you’ll get any more. An ace and a King look pretty, but they only take one trick each, and I’d rather hold the rest of the suit.”

  “Are you quite sure you do?” said Mansel.

  “Yes,” said Rose Noble, “and let me tell you this. Before the game’s over you’ll remember this afternoon . . . and the sunshine . . . and the air . . . and the pretty blue sky . . . And when you remember them, you’ll curse the — that bore you, and—”

  Mansel had knocked him down, and, pistol in hand, was flat against the trunk of the lime-tree against which Rose Noble had lately been leaning, before a man could cry out or a shot could be fired. I have never seen any movements so swiftly made; indeed, looking back at the episode, I cannot honestly say that I remember it in detail, for, though I was looking on, the matter was over before I knew it had begun, and I think that the wits of all present were similarly outrun, for an age seemed to elapse before Ellis started forward with a yell, and a hand to his hip.

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Mansel, looking along his barrel into Ellis’s eyes. And then: “Put up your hands.”

  I thought the fellow would have fallen down in a fit, for all the blood in his body seemed to go into his face, which grew more black than red, and he put a hand to his throat as though he were choking.

  Rose Noble lay as he had fallen, flat on his back. “Put up your hands,” said Mansel.

  Ellis did so.

  “You in the cap,” said Mansel, addressing the man who had driven, “take your seat in the car and turn her round.”

  When this was done, he bade them take up Rose Noble and put him into the car. They did so. Then he called the bearers to stand by Ellis’s side.

  “You three will follow the car, with your hands above your heads. Drive on.”

  The car moved off, but for a moment it looked as though the three pedestrians would rebel. However, I suppose they thought better of it, for, after looking at one another, like sulky dogs, with one accord they turned, and, using what dignity they could, walked out of the courtyard and down the road. Carson and Rowley followed as far as the bend; and that was the finish of a passage which was to spoil for ever my enjoyment of “strong” play-acting, be it never so excellently done; for this was the real thing, and to this day the bare remembrance of the affair will quicken the beating of my heart and set my nerves tingling.

  Here let me say that Mansel was a good deal troubled about Rose Noble, fearing that the blow he had dealt him might prove fatal for, as I afterwards learned, he had been a famous boxer, but had long abandoned the sport for fear of killing his man.

  However, as I shall show, he need have felt no concern.

  Before we returned to the well, the six of us sought for points at which a man could play sentry with some success. This was by no means easy because of the woods, but, after a while, we found a ruined shrine on the top of a hill, which commanded the road for some way beyond the bend, and all that side of the estate. The shrine was about six hundred yards from the house but there was no point near one half so valuable. With a sentinel there, we should be safe upon three sides, for to our North lay the river, and from the shrine you could watch the East and South: but the West was the devil. Search as we would, we could find no point at all whence the eye could observe so much as a third of the ground, and I think it would have taken four sentries to make that side secure. We had, therefore, perforce to be content with the hill-top beyond the great well. We did no more than settle these points that afternoon, nor did we visit them again the next day, but thereafter, from dawn to sunset, they were to be regularly occupied. This, to our great inconvenience: but it could not be helped.

  We had scarce got back to the wall and found that the water had risen eighteen inches in the last three hours, when the landlord of the inn arrived.

  He was full of the strangers, who had stopped to ask their way at the inn and had lately returned in such disorder of mind, and was plainly agog to know their business and what was afoot.

  We told him that of them we knew nothing till ten days ago, when they had stopped us in a forest with plain intent to rob. We told how we had bayed them, and how I had crippled their car, and supposed that it was sheer rage and a desire to revenge that injury which had induced the villains to dog us to Wagensburg. But Mansel added, he imagined we had settled their hash and, unless they were passing venomous, we should not be troubled again.

  “All the same,” said he, “they are armed, and I’m taking no chances at all. So, when you come up to see us, come by day, for by night all men look alike, and we don’t want to hurt our friends.”

  The landlord seemed perturbed at our tale, because, while Ellis and the driver had presently left in the car, the other malefactors were proposing to stay at his inn. Rose Noble, who was still unconscious, had been carried upstairs to bed, and, though no German had been spoken, the others had made him know that they must have lodging and food. They had not asked for a doctor, and seemed untroubled by the condition of their friend; except for one battered suit-case, they had no luggage; their manner was overbearing and such as might be expected of lawless men.

  We purposely offered him cold comfort, and, such was his agitation to think that he had been saddled with such undesirable guests, that the poor man displayed little interest in what he had come to see, and, merely inquiring what headway we were making against the springs, abstractedly accepted an order for supplies and set off on his way back to Lerai, like a man in an ugly dream.

  By sundown we had taken another seventeen feet of water out of the well.

  We were so much exhausted with our labour that not one of us was fit to descend, but we were all highly pleased to think that our net gain that day had been twenty-three feet and a half, and that now but thirty-nine fee
t of water remained in the well. Indeed, though no one said so, I believe each hoped in his heart that by the evening of the next day we should discover the shaft.

  I suppose, that in view of our progress, it was natural to nurse such hopes, for, though we knew that the water would rise in the night, we had so far no knowledge of the well beyond that it had a reputation which had never been determinedly attacked; but our chagrin in the morning was the more bitter, and it was when we pulled up our measuring-line in the grey of the dawn that for the first time we knew that, when the Count committed his two leather bags to the well, he made them wards of a Court which respected no man, which just and unjust alike might seek to move in vain.

  The forces of Nature were against us, and whilst we slept, the springs had undone our labour, much as Penelope unravelled her famous web.

  During the night, the water had risen no less than thirteen feet.

  This was a great blow, for, though we were yet ten feet six to the good, it showed that the day before we must have passed springs which gave at a great pace, and that it was more than likely that the lower we went, the slighter would be our gain, until at length we should lose as much by night as we had won by day. In that case, the shaft would only be discovered by a furious spell of work, at the end of which, however exhausted we might be, an effort to reach the chamber would have to be instantly made, while those who did not descend must ceaselessly labour to keep the water down, and so save their fellows from being trapped.

  Now, this was all conjecture, to which, I fancy, the dreariness of the hour and a threatening sky made generous godmothers, but there was no blinking the facts that our supper and a short night’s rest had proved extremely expensive, and that, without a sufficiency of food and sleep, we should never be able to counter the activity of the springs.

  That any of the thieves would return to trouble us this day seemed so improbable that we took no precautions beyond keeping a servant in the house, and, except that Hanbury and Carson spent an hour laying wire to the west of the castle, to complete our system, we were five to fight the water all day long.

  When, half an hour after sunset, the last bucketful was pulled up, there were only nineteen feet of water left in the well.

  Had it been possible, we would have returned after supper and made one mighty effort to reach the shaft, but, though Mansel and Carson and I could, I believe, have continued, George Hanbury and Rowley and Bell could hardly stand for fatigue, and would, I think, have fallen asleep at their work: and, since to ask men so weary to play sentry would have been waste of breath, there was nothing to do but look forward to the following day.

  Mansel, however, consented to my going down the well, to see what was to be seen, and locate, if I could, with a bar the mouth of the shaft.

  Carson made a small seat, like that of a swing; and this was made fast to the chain. Beneath the seat was shook, and on this we hung the lamp, the bar we lashed so that it dangled below, just clear of my feet. Then I put on a coat and a lifeline, and they let me down.

  The journey seemed unending, and I soon unhooked the lamp and looked about me whilst I was going down.

  The condition of the masonry was as perfect as it had been above, but between most of the edges of the stones a thin blade of a knife would have passed, and this, I suppose, meant that they had been laid without cement to suffer the entry of the springs. That these were active was manifest, for fifty feet down the walls were running with water; but there was no gush anywhere, and where the great springs rose I could not tell. When I came to the pool, it was troubled on every side, yet so faint y that, had I not already known what to expect, I would not have believed that so unobtrusive an industry could have been so swift and masterful.

  I then hung up the search-light, and took hold of the bar, and, signalling them to lower me till the water was over my knees, began to seek the shaft with all my might. But everything was against me. The bar was too short and too heavy; the water seemed like treacle to my weary arms; if I leaned to one side, my seat swung at once to the other, as though it would cast me out, At last, by rocking myself to and fro, I managed to sound every side for about three feet; but I could do no better and, when I had almost lost my seat for the second time, I took a last look round and gave the signal for the others to pull me up.

  Now, I had looked to see if the niches I had found in the sides the day before ran all the way down the well; and I had found that they did so. But not until I was rising did it occur to me that, as the niches had been used, so they could serve again, and that the value of a stage, however rough, from which to search for the shaft or conduct any operations would be inestimable. Before, therefore, they landed me, I begged Mansel to send for a lath with which I might measure how long the beams must be; and, after a little, he let me have my way.

  The measurement took some time, for, remembering how nearly I had twice lost my seat, I dared make no movement at all except with my hands, and Mansel and Carson had to hold me close to the wall. Then I could not see, until they had fixed the light, and twice the lath had to be returned and sawn to another length. However, at last it was over, and I was pulled up. And after supper, that night Carson and I cut two rafters out of an outhouse roof; and, since of the wood in the stables three planks remained, before we lay down to sleep we had our stage.

  4. The Attack on the Well

  During the night the water rose twenty feet.

  It went against the grain to post two sentries, when with twelve, or even ten, arms we might have had the wall empty by four o’clock. But to be surprised at such gruelling labour would have meant for us the end of everything; for, shaken and stripped and breathless, we could have put up no fight, and, except for the parapet of the well, there was no cover to hand.

  Still, it seemed very likely that four of us, working hard, would be able to draw so much water before the sun went down that, with the help of the stage, we should find the mouth of the shaft. And, once we knew on which side of the well that lay, though the springs should deny us passage, at least we should have a second string to our bow.

  With this object, we laboured till lunch-time, like men possessed—at least, Mansel and the servants laboured, whilst I sat above on the peak with a rifle across my knees. Hanbury was at the shrine.

  At one Rowley took my place, and Carson Hanbury’s.

  This relief had not long been done, and we were at lunch in the meadow, when—as Hanbury had told us would happen, for he had seen him en route—the landlord of the inn arrived.

  As he emerged from the wood, he looked around him, and, when he saw us at meat, he threw up his hands.

  I felt sure, as did Mansel, that Rose Noble was dead, but it soon appeared that the fellow was only distressed to find that our zeal to attempt to empty the well was unabated.

  “Sirs,” he cried, bubbling, “it is dreadful to see you so bent upon so hopeless a task. You are killing yourselves in vain. I have sought everywhere for helpers, but, when I tell them for what their help is required, they laugh me to scorn. You will not get a man in all Carinthia. And the trout lie in the streams about you, thick as autumn leaves.”

  Mansel laughed.

  “The springs are the devil,” he said, “but we haven’t given up hope.”

  “Ah, sir,” said the innkeeper, “but listen. You have not begun. You are still dealing with the first spring. When you are twenty feet down—”

  “Make it forty,” said Mansel. “To be exact, forty-three.”

  Lest he should think we were boasting, we took him to the well and showed him the measuring-line, his amazement was ludicrous, for he seemed unable to speak and gaped upon us as though we were demigods; and such in his sight, I suppose, we were, for in three days we had gone far to shatter a tradition which had endured for a century and a half.

  Then Mansel asked him of his guests. Of these he spoke abstractedly; but we learned that Rose Noble was recovered, and that Ellis had come back this morning and taken the three away—he knew not whi
ther, but imagined to Salzburg. They had paid him nothing for their lodging, of which they had constantly complained, but had made him understand that they would come back. What more he said I cannot remember, save that the stores we had ordered were piled by the kitchen door, and after a little he left, still plainly bewildered by the progress which we had made.

  I was for instantly withdrawing the two sentinels and making a mighty effort to get the treasure that night, but to this Mansel would not consent, for fear that Rose Noble and Ellis were not gone at all, but had pretended departure in the hope that the news would reach us and throw us off our guard. He suggested, instead, that Hanbury and I should only work for two hours, and should then relieve Carson and Rowley, “for in that way,” he said, “at sundown Carson and Rowley will be done and can go to bed, but you and Hanbury will be as fresh as paint; and, if Bell and I go gently this afternoon, we shall still have something to spare at nine o’clock.”

  To Hanbury and me this arrangement seemed more than good, except that we both begged Mansel to give himself a rest. But of this he would not hear. For the next two hours, therefore, we worked as hard as we could, but the honours of that day went to Carson and Rowley, for, while I sat on my hill-top, I could hear them at work, and, knowing how severe was the labour, I would not have believed that two men could maintain the pace they did for nearly five hours.

  When I came in at sundown, the two were ready to drop, but they looked very pleased, and Mansel told me with a smile that they had uncovered the shaft.

  Half an hour back, he said, the suck and gurgle of air disputing with water had told its tale, and, though to ascend at once might be impossible, enough of the mouth was open for us to survey the shaft.

  Then Hanbury and I made haste to fetch the stage, and Carson and Rowley were ordered back to the house. They were reluctant to go, but Mansel was determined that they should have food and rest, “and, if you stay here,” said he, “you will have neither, but will drift into helping us when you’re too tired to help yourselves. It’s possible that we may need you in two hours’ time; so go and eat and sleep, while you have the chance.”