"She is better where she is," answered Foster--"one of you is enough to perplex a plain head. But will you taste any refreshment?"
"Oh no, no--my chamber--my chamber! I trust," she said apprehensively, "I may secure it on the inside?"
"With all my heart," answered Foster, "so I may secure it on the outside;" and taking a light, he led the way to a part of the building where Amy had never been, and conducted her up a stair of great height, preceded by one of the old women with a lamp. At the head of the stair, which seemed of almost immeasurable height, they crossed a short wooden gallery, formed of black oak, and very narrow, at the farther end of which was a strong oaken door, which opened and admitted them into the miser"s apartment, homely in its accommodations in the very last degree, and, except in name, little different from a prison-room.
Foster stopped at the door, and gave the lamp to the Countess, without either offering or permitting the attendance of the old woman who had carried it. The lady stood not on ceremony, but taking it hastily, barred the door, and secured it with the ample means provided on the inside for that purpose.
Varney, meanwhile, had lurked behind on the stairs; but hearing the door barred, he now came up on tiptoe, and Foster, winking to him, pointed with self-complacence to a piece of concealed machinery in the wall, which, playing with much ease and little noise, dropped a part of the wooden gallery, after the manner of a drawbridge, so as to cut off all communication between the door of the bedroom, which he usually inhabited, and the landing-place of the high, winding stair which ascended to it. The rope by which this machinery was wrought was generally carried within the bedchamber, it being Foster"s object to provide against invasion from without; but now that it was intended to secure the prisoner within, the cord had been brought over to the landing-place, and was there made fast, when Foster with much complacency had dropped the unsuspected trap-door.
Varney looked with great attention at the machinery, and peeped more than once down the abyss which was opened by the fall of the trap-door.
It was dark as pitch, and seemed profoundly deep, going, as Foster informed his confederate in a whisper, nigh to the lowest vault of the Castle. Varney cast once more a fixed and long look down into this sable gulf, and then followed Foster to the part of the manor-house most usually inhabited.
When they arrived in the parlour which we have mentioned, Varney requested Foster to get them supper, and some of the choicest wine. "I will seek Alasco," he added; "we have work for him to do, and we must put him in good heart."
Foster groaned at this intimation, but made no remonstrance. The old woman a.s.sured Varney that Alasco had scarce eaten or drunken since her master"s departure, living perpetually shut up in the laboratory, and talking as if the world"s continuance depended on what he was doing there.
"I will teach him that the world hath other claims on him," said Varney, seizing a light, and going in quest of the alchemist. He returned, after a considerable absence, very pale, but yet with his habitual sneer on his cheek and nostril. "Our friend," he said, "has exhaled."
"How!--what mean you?" said Foster--"run away--fled with my forty pounds, that should have been multiplied a thousand-fold? I will have Hue and Cry!"
"I will tell thee a surer way," said Varney.
"How!--which way?" exclaimed Foster; "I will have back my forty pounds--I deemed them as surely a thousand times multiplied--I will have back my in-put, at the least."
"Go hang thyself, then, and sue Alasco in the Devil"s Court of Chancery, for thither he has carried the cause."
"How!--what dost thou mean is he dead?"
"Ay, truly is he," said Varney; "and properly swollen already in the face and body. He had been mixing some of his devil"s medicines, and the gla.s.s mask which he used constantly had fallen from his face, so that the subtle poison entered the brain, and did its work."
"SANCTA MARIA!" said Foster--"I mean, G.o.d in His mercy preserve us from covetousness and deadly sin!--Had he not had projection, think you? Saw you no ingots in the crucibles?"
"Nay, I looked not but at the dead carrion," answered Varney; "an ugly spectacle--he was swollen like a corpse three days exposed on the wheel.
Pah! give me a cup of wine."
"I will go," said Foster, "I will examine myself--" He took the lamp, and hastened to the door, but there hesitated and paused. "Will you not go with me?" said he to Varney.
"To what purpose?" said Varney; "I have seen and smelled enough to spoil my appet.i.te. I broke the window, however, and let in the air; it reeked of sulphur, and such like suffocating steams, as if the very devil had been there."
"And might it not be the act of the demon himself?" said Foster, still hesitating; "I have heard he is powerful at such times, and with such people."
"Still, if it were that Satan of thine," answered Varney, "who thus jades thy imagination, thou art in perfect safety, unless he is a most unconscionable devil indeed. He hath had two good sops of late."
"How TWO sops--what mean you?" said Foster--"what mean you?"
"You will know in time," said Varney;--"and then this other banquet--but thou wilt esteem Her too choice a morsel for the fiend"s tooth--she must have her psalms, and harps, and seraphs."
Anthony Foster heard, and came slowly back to the table. "G.o.d! Sir Richard, and must that then be done?"
"Ay, in very truth, Anthony, or there comes no copyhold in thy way,"
replied his inflexible a.s.sociate.
"I always foresaw it would land there!" said Foster. "But how, Sir Richard, how?--for not to win the world would I put hands on her."
"I cannot blame thee," said Varney; "I should be reluctant to do that myself. We miss Alasco and his manna sorely--ay, and the dog Lambourne."
"Why, where tarries Lambourne?" said Anthony.
"Ask no questions," said Varney, "thou wilt see him one day if thy creed is true. But to our graver matter. I will teach thee a spring, Tony, to catch a pewit. Yonder trap-door--yonder gimcrack of thine, will remain secure in appearance, will it not, though the supports are withdrawn beneath?"
"Ay, marry, will it," said Foster; "so long as it is not trodden on."
"But were the lady to attempt an escape over it," replied Varney, "her weight would carry it down?"
"A mouse"s weight would do it," said Foster.
"Why, then, she dies in attempting her escape, and what could you or I help it, honest Tony? Let us to bed, we will adjust our project to-morrow."
On the next day, when evening approached, Varney summoned Foster to the execution of their plan. Tider and Foster"s old man-servant were sent on a feigned errand down to the village, and Anthony himself, as if anxious to see that the Countess suffered no want of accommodation, visited her place of confinement. He was so much staggered at the mildness and patience with which she seemed to endure her confinement, that he could not help earnestly recommending to her not to cross the threshold of her room on any account whatever, until Lord Leicester should come, "which,"
he added, "I trust in G.o.d, will be very soon." Amy patiently promised that she would resign herself to her fate, and Foster returned to his hardened companion with his conscience half-eased of the perilous load that weighed on it. "I have warned her," he said; "surely in vain is the snare set in the sight of any bird!"
He left, therefore, the Countess"s door unsecured on the outside, and, under the eye of Varney, withdrew the supports which sustained the falling trap, which, therefore, kept its level position merely by a slight adhesion. They withdrew to wait the issue on the ground-floor adjoining; but they waited long in vain. At length Varney, after walking long to and fro, with his face m.u.f.fled in his cloak, threw it suddenly back and exclaimed, "Surely never was a woman fool enough to neglect so fair an opportunity of escape!"
"Perhaps she is resolved," said Foster, "to await her husband"s return."
"True!--most true!" said Varney, rushing out; "I had not thought of that before."
In less than two minutes, Foster, who remained behind, heard the tread of a horse in the courtyard, and then a whistle similar to that which was the Earl"s usual signal. The instant after the door of the Countess"s chamber opened, and in the same moment the trap-door gave way. There was a rushing sound--a heavy fall--a faint groan--and all was over.
At the same instant, Varney called in at the window, in an accent and tone which was an indescribable mixture betwixt horror and raillery, "Is the bird caught?--is the deed done?"
"O G.o.d, forgive us!" replied Anthony Foster.
"Why, thou fool," said Varney, "thy toil is ended, and thy reward secure. Look down into the vault--what seest thou?"
"I see only a heap of white clothes, like a snowdrift," said Foster. "O G.o.d, she moves her arm!"
"Hurl something down on her--thy gold chest, Tony--it is an heavy one."
"Varney, thou art an incarnate fiend!" replied Foster.
"There needs nothing more--she is gone!"
"So pa.s.s our troubles," said Varney, entering the room; "I dreamed not I could have mimicked the Earl"s call so well."
"Oh, if there be judgment in heaven, thou hast deserved it," said Foster, "and wilt meet it! Thou hast destroyed her by means of her best affections--it is a seething of the kid in the mother"s milk!"
"Thou art a fanatical a.s.s," replied Varney; "let us now think how the alarm should be given--the body is to remain where it is."