CHAPTER IX.

THE ABDUCTORS.

What was this mystery concerning the movements and intentions of Lewie Baronald, on which the Earl of Drumlanrig had so abruptly but unconsciously thrown a light?

When last they met and parted, Lewie had given no hint of any desire for foreign service, and certainly, with the relations then existing between himself and her, it was the last thing to be thought of.

'Oh,' thought Dolores, 'that I were at home to consult mamma on this amazing subject!'

Her bearers seemed to crawl; she narrowly opened and shut her fan again and again in her impatience, and stamped her little foot on the floor of the sedan in her irritation and anxiety.

Yes! that horrid General--that odious uncle, the eccentric woman-hater, was no doubt at the bottom of it, and had thus resolved to separate Lewie from her, and hot tears started to her eyes at the thought.

Though in the immediate vicinity of the Hague, the road was as lonely as those who awaited her thereon could have wished. The blue dome of heaven, a dome studded with diamonds--each itself a world--was overhead; and steady and silvery was the light of the uprisen moon, above the far expanse of the level landscape.

Suddenly Dolores heard the sound of voices; there were threats on one hand and expostulation on the other. The sedan, with a violent jolt, was suddenly deposited on the ground, and its bearers were dashed aside, as she supposed, by foot-pads. Then a shriek of dismay escaped Dolores, when a man, whose face was half-concealed by a crape mask, threw up the roof of the sedan, opened the door and attempted to drag her out by the hand.

She saw another similarly masked, and a caleche, with a pair of horses, close by.

Never dreaming of outrage for a moment, she thought that she must be the victim of some extraordinary mistake, till she recognised the voice of Maurice Morganstjern, when her alarm and astonishment instantly changed to indignation.

'Maurice,' she exclaimed, 'for whom do you mistake me? What outrage is this?'

'No mistake at all, my pretty cousin; will you please to take your seat in this caleche?' he replied deliberately.

'For what purpose?'

'Time will show, beloved Dolores.'

'Loose my hand. I wish none of your fair words; they are ever hateful and unwelcome to my ear: more so than ever when you come thus--as you must be--intoxicated,' she added, believing this to be the case.

'Beware, cousin--beware! You know how I love you, and yet you spurn me. Come, Schrekhorn, and help me to lift her into the caleche. For all the past bitterness I shall have a sweet revenge; and, Dolores, you will learn to love me, when you will have none else in this world to cling to.'

On seeing the Heer van Schrekhorn, of whose character she had heard something, approach her, the girl looked wildly round in terror: the road was lonely; her home was at some distance, yet the lights in its windows were visible; but no help was nigh. She now perceived that nothing less than her forcible abduction was daringly intended; but what lay in the future beyond that, she could scarcely realise.

Her first fears returned with double force, for she knew the recklessness of the two men at whose mercy she found herself. How lovely and helpless she looked!

Ruffian and coward though he was, Maurice Morganstjern was a consummate egotist, and her continued indifference and contempt of him had deeply wounded his _amour propre_, and roused a spirit of revenge.

'It is useless to fight against Fate, Cousin Dolores; and Fate decrees that you are to be mine!' said he, firmly grasping her hand.

'Oh that I were a man!' exclaimed Dolores.

'For what purpose?'

'To strike you to the earth for your insolence and daring.'

'In that case I would not seek to carry you off; so, I thank Heaven that you are not a man, sweet cousin!' He placed his face close to hers, and lowering his voice, said through his clenched teeth: 'Listen to me, Dolores; you have, I fear, plighted yourself to the Scotsman Baronald in ignorance of yourself, and now I am here to rescue you from the death in life to which your girlish folly would doom you. I will soon teach you to forget that artful interloper, if you ever thought seriously about him, which I cannot believe, and our marriage will alter all your ideas.'

These references to her lover infuriated Dolores, who was a high-spirited girl; but he wound his arms round her despite all her efforts. With all her strength she kept him, however, at arms' length, exclaiming:

'I hate you--oh, how I hate you!'

'Cease this nonsense, cousin; a day is coming when you will love me as much as you may think you hate me now!'

'And what will cause the change?' she asked scornfully.

'Marriage.'

'Why waste time thus?' asked the Heer van Schrekhorn, who had not yet spoken, and who listened to all this with manifest impatience and uneasiness; 'we know not who may come upon us; so into the caleche with her at once!' he added with an oath.

''Sdeath, but she is as strong as I am!' exclaimed Morganstjern, as he strove to drag her from the sedan.

Her slender figure stood very erect, and with tiny hands she strove to free herself from his odious grasp; but the scorn, indignation, and passionate resentment that flashed in her dark eyes and curled her tender lips, now gave place to much of genuine fear of her assailants and how far their daring might carry them, especially when the Heer laid his brutal hands upon her; and uttering a wild cry she clung to the sedan, and without a resort to extreme violence would not be torn from it.

Meanwhile the driver of the caleche, who was in ignorance of the purpose his employers had in view, looked on somewhat scared, and was thinking of how he might, in the future, be handled by the Burgomaster or other authorities.

Dolores suddenly found her strength give way, and felt about to faint, when she heard a loud and wrathful exclamation as Morganstjern was dashed aside on one hand, Schrekhorn knocked down in a heap on the other, and there towered between her and them a tall military-looking man, wearing a Khevenhüller hat, and having a scarlet roquelaure wrapped round him.

The latter he instantly threw off, and drew his sword, on which the driver of the caleche whipped up his horses, and fled at full speed towards the Hague, leaving his employers to get out of the affair as they best could.

The first impulse of the two conspirators was to unsheath their swords also; but their second was to pause ere attempting to use them, as they recognised in their assailant an officer of the Scots Brigade, and one of high rank apparently by his gold aiguilette.

'Protect me, sir--save me!' implored Dolores.

'Scoundrels!' exclaimed the new-comer, waving in a circle round her his long straight sword, the blade of which glittered in the moonlight, and at sight of which Morganstjern fairly shrunk back; 'scoundrels, come on if you dare!'

'Accursed fool that I have been to delay as I did!' said Morganstjern.

'An accursed fool indeed!' rejoined the Heer furiously.

'Defend yourselves!' exclaimed the officer, attacking them both at once, and in a moment Morganstjern found his sword twisted out of his hand and flung high in the air by a circular parry, while the Heer was rendered defenceless by a thrust between the bones of his sword-arm, on which they both turned and fled, muttering curses loud and deep.

'Heaven sent you to my aid, sir, just in time,' said Dolores, bursting into tears now; 'another moment, and I should have fainted helplessly in their clutches.'

'These seemed no common brawlers--can you name them?' asked General Kinloch, for he it was, as he sheathed his sword, and lifted his Khevenhüller respectfully.

'I can name them; but would, as yet, rather be excused, sir.'

'Henckers! I should like to see both tied to the _Gesteel Paul_' (_i.e._, the whipping-post).

The General now found himself face to face, in the bright moonlight, with a young lady of more than ordinary beauty; but, when the expression of her eyes, her thick brown hair, defined eyelashes, and lovely lips reminded him, as he thought, of a face he had known long ago, and loved to look upon; and her voice, too, was so like the voice of that other, coming as it were out of the mists of memory, he grew cold and rigid in manner, as he said:

'I have no desire to penetrate your secret, young lady, if secret there is that leads you to conceal the names of these men.'

'I have no secrets, sir; but one of these assailants is my near kinsman--a cousin,' replied Dolores, a little haughtily.

'Then allow me to have the honour of escorting you home.'

'I thank you, sir; the gate is close by.'

Again the courteous officer lifted his hat, and held it in one hand, while he led Dolores to the iron gate, which led to the garden-path terminating at the door of the Countess's villa; and then bidding her farewell, he turned away, his good opinion of her by no means increased by her peculiar reticence as to the names of those from whose outrageous conduct he had saved her.

'Odd--very!' he muttered; 'but every woman is an enigma!'

As he was about to close the iron gate, something glittering on the gravelled path caught his eye, and it proved to be a bracelet of considerable value, which had become injured in the struggle between Dolores and her assailants, and thus no doubt dropped from her wrist.

'One of her vain gauds, of course,' muttered the General; 'yet why should she not wear such, as all other female tricksters do?--a pretty creature--a charming girl, in fact! But what the devil am I saying? with all her prettiness she is no doubt false as she is fair--Dead Sea fruit, in fact. I shall send her bauble by my servant to-morrow, and--but no--egad! I'll deliver it in person.'

Returning to the door of the villa, the General used the great knocker, with which--all unknown to him--the hand of his nephew Lewie Baronald was so familiar.