CHAPTER VI.
IN DEADLY PERIL.
The moon rose over the tops of the wooded hills, and shed its silvery light upon the weird, lonely scene until the white fog from the river obscured everything with a sheet of spectral white.
To Gipsy, cold, wet, and suffering, the minutes dragged like hours, until her brave heart began to fail, and she alternately wept and prayed like a lost child in her despair.
“Oh, God, must I die here alone, without a friend to pity or to save?”
Almost as if in answer to her prayer, she caught the sudden sound of footsteps and laughter in the road, approaching opposite her hiding-place.
Her heart leaped wildly with the hope of rescue, then sank heavily again with a new fear.
Her first thought was of the men servants from The Crags, but these were strange voices, mixed with coarse, ribald laughter, that made the chilled blood run colder still in her young veins.
She remembered suddenly that she was only a helpless young girl, and to judge from their ruffianly voices and oaths, it might be better to die here alone in her misery than to fall into their hands.
“Oh, Heaven guide me, show me whether it is better to remain here and die, or to cry out to these strangers for help and succor in my distress?” she prayed dumbly.
The men were cursing the fog that kept them from seeing the road, and stopping almost in front of her, they lighted a small bull’s-eye lantern that threw a fitful gleam on their burly forms, clad in rough clothing that suggested tramps to Gipsy’s alarmed mind.
She almost cried out in fear the next moment, when she saw that their faces were hidden by stubbly beards and black crape masks.
She put her hand over her lips, to repress their startled cry, and held her breath lest they should hear it, they were so horribly near.
“I am going to rest before I go another step,” cried one of the worthies, throwing himself down so close to the fissure in the rock that Gipsy trembled with fear, while he added:
“Say, Larkin, are you sure that the girl brought all her jewels with her in her trunk? Because I don’t want to run the risk of the prison-pen without getting swag enough to pay me.”
“Her maid--my sweetheart, you know--swore to me that she had all her jewels--diamonds, rubies, and pearls, worth ten thousand dollars--in a case in that little leather trunk. Her mother didn’t want her to bring them along, but Miss Ritchie vowed she would, and that settled it. She is a termagant, Hattie says, and wouldn’t bring her because she was determined to make a servant of a gipsy girl at The Crags, to humiliate the girl. If she would have brought Hattie, she would have managed to leave open a door and make all plain sailing for us. But she’s been there before, and has given me the lay of the land. They keep but two men servants, who sleep in a small annex to the main building. No one will be in our way but young Willoughby, and us two can easily settle his hash, and the girl’s, too, if she resists--d’ye see?”
“Yaas, I see, and, if you’re rested enough, we’ll move on, Jack, for I’m anxious to git done the job by midnight, and git away before day. Maybe, too, if we git time enough to look about the dining-room, we can swag some of the silver plate. Come, git a move on ye, and say, if we could git a chance at the gipsy girl, maybe she’d be willin’ to open a door for us, eh? We might play the long-lost brother racket----”
They trudged on heavily out of sight, and the girl, who had listened like one paralyzed with horror, gasped like one dying, as she comprehended the terrible truth.
The ruffians were burglars from the city, in collusion with Lelia’s maid to rob her mistress of her valuable jewels, and even to take her life if she offered resistance.
And Laurie Willoughby was to be murdered, too--handsome, brown-eyed Laurie, who had spoken to her so kindly and gently a few hours ago. These ruffianly hands would throttle him, perhaps, or plunge a dagger into his heart!
Oh, Heaven, how terrible it all was! Could she only get there to warn them, she would be willing to crawl all the way, even if she died the next moment.
She would make the attempt, anyway, and, getting down on her hands and knees, Gipsy dragged herself through the spectral mist to the road, and began her brave effort to reach The Crags.
But every movement added fresh agony and brought moans of pain from her pale lips.
She would have given anything to have known even the hour of the night. It seemed to her that the midnight hour must be already past.
Yet it could not be, for the men who had gone ahead just now--the horrible masked burglars--had said they intended to finish their job by midnight.
In almost intolerable pain, she crept over the ground, her poor little hands torn and bleeding with stones and brier scratches.
Surely the beautiful stars never looked on a sadder, more pitiable sight.
* * * * *
“We must be near the scene of her disappearance now. Flash your lantern around, Crawford, and let me see the sides of the cliff,” said Laurie, adding regretfully: “It is very unfortunate, this heavy fog! One cannot see one’s hand before one’s face.” Then to the driver: “What ails the horses? Why are you stopping short?”
“They are frightened, sir; they will not budge a peg. There must be something in the road.”
“Get down with your lantern and see,” exclaimed Laurie.
The negro man obeyed, and the next moment he cried out in a sort of horror mixed with pity:
“Gord A’mighty, no wonder dem hosses wouldn’t budge! An’ a massy, too, dey didn’t, Mars’ Laurie!”
“What is it?” queried the young man.
“Fore de Lud, ’tis pore li’l’ Gipsy Darke, a-layin’ ’cross de road, daid as a doar-nail!” came the distressed reply.
Like a flash, the young man shot out of the light Jersey wagon into the road.
He knelt down, and saw by the lantern’s light in the spectral fog a silent figure lying on its side in the road, the white, deathlike face, with closed eyes upturned to his in pallid beauty--the girl he was seeking--Gipsy Darke!