"I think there"s no more gla.s.s. Please, are you very much hurt?"
"Earle will tell me I ought to have been blown into a thousand fragments," was the rather grim reply. "I think I"ve got off cheap. But I"ve had a tremendous electric shock; and I"m a good bit cut and burnt, I expect. If only my eyes are spared, I"ll not grumble at anything else.
How came you here, child? I thought I should have an hour or more to wait till Earle got back."
Esther explained then what had happened, for Mr. Trelawny, although in much pain, had all his wits about him; and when he knew that Mr. Earle might be detained, he said to Esther,--
"Then you must be my attendant messenger instead. Go up by those stairs into the house, and fetch down Merriman and another of the men. I don"t think I can get up there without more help than your little hands can give."
Esther quickly obeyed. She knew the way up into the house, and the key was in the door, so that she had no difficulty in getting there. The hall above was almost as dark by that time as the cave below; for the storm had gathered fast, and the black clouds seemed hanging right over them. But Esther had other things to think of now, and she quickly summoned the men, and sent them down to Mr. Trelawny; and then, being used in her own house to illness, she ran for the housekeeper, and begged her to get oil and linen rag and wine and soup ready, because Mr.
Trelawny had burnt and hurt himself, and somebody must look after him, till the doctor came, and he could not well be sent for till after the storm had gone by, for it was going to be a very bad one.
So before very long Mr. Trelawny was lying at full length upon a great wide oak settle in the hall, and Esther was gently bathing his cut and blackened and blistered face and hands, and covering up the bad places with oiled rag, as she had seen Genefer do when cook had burnt herself one day.
Mr. Trelawny kept his eyes closed, and he drew his breath rather harshly, like one in pain, and his brows were drawn into great wrinkles.
"Do I hurt you?" Esther asked from time to time. The housekeeper seemed to think that Esther had better do the actual handling of the patient while she kept her supplied with the things she wanted. Mr. Trelawny"s servants--and especially the women servants--stood in considerable awe of him. He never liked any attentions from a woman that a man could bestow, and the housekeeper preferred to remain discreetly in the background, leaving Esther to play the part of nurse.
Esther was well used to the _role_, and had a gentle, self-contained way with her that had come from her long tendance upon her mother. Her touch was very soft and gentle, but it was not uncertain and timid. Indeed she did not feel at all afraid of Mr. Trelawny now, only afraid of hunting him.
"No, no, child," he answered when she put the question; "your little hands are like velvet. They don"t hurt at all. But what"s all that noise overhead?"
"It"s the rain," answered Esther. "There is such a storm coming up.
Hark! don"t you hear the thunder? And there was such a flash of lightning."
Mr. Trelawny put his hand up to his eyes, and made an effort to open them, but desisted almost immediately, with an exclamation of suffering.
Esther clasped her soft little hands round one of his in token of sympathy. She could understand the terrible fear which must possess him just now.
The servants had moved away by this time. They knew that the master did not like being looked at and fussed over. He had made a sign with his hand which they had understood to be one of dismissal, and Esther was alone with him now in this big place.
The storm was raging fearfully, but the child was not frightened. She had other things to think of, and she was thinking very hard.
"I hope Mr. Earle has got the boys safe," she said, with a tone of anxiety in her voice.
There was no reply. Mr. Trelawny was suffering keenly both in mind and body. Esther looked at him, and realized that this was so. She hardly meant to speak the words out loud, but they came into her head and they pa.s.sed her lips almost before she was aware of it.
"Jesus can stop the storms and make them quiet again, and keep people safe in them. And He can make blind people see."
There was no reply; but Esther felt one of the bandaged hands feel about as if for something, and she put her own little hand into it at once.
The fingers closed over it, and the man and the child sat thus together for a very long time.
Then there was a little stir in the hall, as the butler appeared, bringing tea; and Mr. Trelawny told Esther to get some, and give him a cup, as he was very thirsty.
She was glad enough to serve him, and did so daintily and cleverly; and before they had finished, the storm had very much abated. The rain still fell, and the wind blew; but the sun was beginning to shine out again, and Esther knew that the worst was over now.
"It is light again now," she said. "It was so dark all that time--almost as dark as the cave."
Mr. Trelawny looked more himself now. The pain of his burns was soothed by the dressing laid upon them, and the lines in his face had smoothed themselves out.
"Ah, the cave!" he repeated. "I thought that the cave was your special abhorrence, Esther. How came you to be there all alone to-day?"
"I came after you," answered Esther. "I heard somebody groan and call for help."
"Did you know who was calling?"
"No, the voice sounded so m.u.f.fled and strange."
"I wonder you weren"t afraid, you timid little mouse. Suppose it had been some great, rough smuggler fellow, such as used to live in that cave long ago!"
"But I knew he was hurt; he was groaning and calling for help."
"And that gave you courage?"
Esther hesitated.
"I don"t think I felt very brave, but I knew I ought to go."
"Why ought you?"
"O Uncle Robert, you know we ought always to help people when they are in trouble--especially if they are hurt."
"Didn"t you think you might get hurt too?"
Esther"s face was rosy now, though he could not see it.
"I thought a great many silly things," she confessed softly. "I think I have been very silly and cowardly often, but I"m going to try not to be any more. I don"t think I should mind going down into the cave again now."
"Tell me what you thought about it before," said Mr. Trelawny, in his imperious way; and though it was rather a hard command to obey, Esther thought it might, perhaps, amuse him to hear some of the things that she and the boys together had imagined about him, and perhaps he would tell her then how much of it all was true. So she told what Puck had said about the tanks where skeletons were pickled, and about the electric eye, and the elixir of life, and the different things that different persons had said, and the interpretation the boys had put upon their words, and how she had fancied that the groans she heard that day must proceed from some miserable captive destined for one of the tanks. It was rather hard to say all this, for some of it sounded quite silly now; but Esther bravely persevered, for she thought if she could once talk it right out she might never feel so frightened again.
Mr. Trelawny lay still, and she could not quite see the expression on his face, because it was partly covered up; but at last he seemed able to contain himself no longer, and he broke into a real laugh--not quite so loud or so gruff as usual, but very hearty for all that.
At the sound of that laugh Esther"s fears seemed to take wing. It must all have been nonsense, she was sure. n.o.body who had really been doing wicked and cruel things would laugh to know that they had been found out.
"I shall have to take you over my laboratory one of these days, and really show you my pickled skeletons, and my electric eye, and all the other mysteries. Now you need not shake, my dear. I have nothing in pickle worse than a specimen animal; and as for the electric eye, that is very far from being perfect, and it will be a long while before I can make you understand its use, or what we mean by the term. Anyhow, it is not an eye that we carry about with us. In your mind it would not be an eye at all, though it has some a.n.a.logy to one. And as for the elixir of life, my dear, I would not drink of it if I were to find it. To live forever in this mortal world of ours would be a poor sort of thing; and we know that there is an elixir of life preparing for us, of which we shall all drink one day--all to whom it is given, that is. And then there will be new heavens and a new earth, and we shall all be glorified together."
Esther sat very still, trying to take in the magnitude of that idea, and feeling that she should never be afraid of Mr. Trelawny again, now that she had spoken so freely of her fears to him, and he had been so kind, and had said such nice things.
The shadows were beginning to fall now, and she was wondering how long she would have to stay here. She did not mean to leave Mr. Trelawny till Mr. Earle got back to take care of him; but she began to wish that he would come, and that she might get news of the boys.
At last the sound of a firm, ringing step was heard without, and Esther sprang to her feet. The big door was open, for it was quite warm still, though the rain had taken the sultriness out of the air. She ran out, and met Mr. Earle face to face. He was wet through and almost dripping, but he looked as quiet and composed as ever.
"O Mr. Earle, where are the boys?"
"Safe at home in bed, like a pair of drowned rats. It was a good thing you came to warn me, Esther, or they might have been miles out at sea by this time, or else at the bottom of it."
Esther"s face paled a little.
"O Mr. Earle, what did they do?"