"Will you begin, Elizabeth? I declare to you my whole cage of teeth is loose----"
"Help!" called Miss Gabriel. Her voice, despite herself, quavered a little at first. "Help! Help!"
"Help--help--help!" chirupped Mrs. Pope, much as an extremely nervous person seeks to attract the attention of a waiter.
"Louder ... much louder. He-lp!"
"Help--help--he-lp! Oh, Elizabeth, and in a churchyard, too!"
"Louder still.... He-el-lp!"
"Help!... It"s like waking the dead...."
"He-el-lp!"
"Hi, there! Who is it, and whatever on earth"s the matter?" answered a voice from somewhere on their right.
"Oh, listen, Elizabeth! Heaven be praised!..."
"Who is it?" sounded the voice again, and a dot of light shone through the wall of fog.
"Answer him, Elizabeth!"
"Him? It isn"t a man"s voice, but a woman"s ... unless the fog.... Hi, there! Help! Here are two ladies.... Why, it"s--it"s Mrs. Treacher!"
For the fog had parted suddenly, and through it, as through a breach in a wall, stepped Mrs. Treacher with a lantern, which she held up close to their faces.
"Eh? Mrs. Pope and Miss Gabriel? Well, I declare!"
"Bless you, Mrs. Treacher! But, however came you here?"
"Why not?" asked Mrs. Treacher, after a pause.
"Here, in the churchyard!... You don"t tell me you"ve lost your way, too?"
"No, I don"t," answered Mrs. Treacher, shortly, lifting her lantern.
"Churchyard? What churchyard?"
"We thought.... We were under the impression...." Miss Gabriel"s voice rocked a little before she recovered her self-command. "Would you mind telling us where we are, and what railings are these?"
"You"re on Garrison Hill," said Mrs. Treacher, who disliked Miss Gabriel. "And you have hold of the rails round the old powder magazine.
But what you"re tryin" to do with "em, and at this hour of night, I"ll leave you to explain."
But here, for the first time since their troubles began, Mrs. Pope came to her companion"s help. She did so by leaning back limply against the railings and declaring that she, for her part, was going to faint.
Mrs. Treacher caught her as she dropped, and with Miss Gabriel"s help supported her up the slope to the Barracks, less than fifty yards above.
"The Barracks?" exclaimed Miss Gabriel, halting as Mrs. Treacher"s lantern revealed to her through the fast-thinning fog a portion of the whitewashed facade. "Oh, but I couldn"t--on any account whatever!"
"You"ll have to," answered Mrs. Treacher, shortly, "that is, unless you"d rather have her laid outside on the bare road, and in a dead faint, too."
Indeed, Mrs. Pope was in a state of collapse that silenced all scruples. Mrs. Treacher--a powerfully-built woman--caught up the all but inanimate lady in both arms, and bore her into the pa.s.sage, nodding to Miss Gabriel to unhitch from its nail a lamp which hung, backed by a tin reflector, just within the doorway.
"Unhasp the door to the left, please. We"ll rest her down in the Commandant"s parlour. There"s a sofa--though he do mostly use to keep his books and papers upon it." She laid down her burden. "Oh, you needn"t fear to look about you! The men folk be all off to the wreck, and won"t be back till Lord knows when."
Miss Gabriel, however, was not looking about her. Her gaze, following the ray of the lamp as she held it aloft, travelled across the stooping shoulders of Mrs. Treacher and fastened itself upon a garment of gaudily-striped woolwork--her antimaca.s.sar--lying across the arm of the sofa where the Commandant had tossed it impatiently.
"Terribly messy a man always is when left to himself," said Mrs.
Treacher, rising and stepping to a corner cupboard. "If he keeps such a thing as a drop of brandy on the premises, it"ll be here, I reckon."
But the cupboard was empty. For the sternest of reasons the Commandant had, for two or three years past, denied himself the taste of strong waters.
Mrs. Treacher pa.s.sed the back of her hand across the bridge of her nose. "I"ll step over to the Castle," she announced, "for a drop of gin I keep against Treacher"s attacks." (Let not Mrs. Treacher"s idiom frighten the reader. She meant only that her husband suffered from an internal trouble which need not be specified, and that she kept the gin by her as a precaution.)
"And there"s a quill pen of the Commandant"s on the writing-table," she added; "if you"ll burn the feather of it under her nose."
She bustled off. Miss Gabriel stepped to the table, picked up the quill, and held it over the lamp"s flame; but her eyes still questioned the antimaca.s.sar. She was bending close to it when Mrs. Pope emitted a fluttering sigh and lifted her eyelids feebly.
"You are feeling better, dear?" asked Miss Gabriel, solicitously.
At this moment the latch of the door rattled gently. She looked up in surprise, for Mrs. Treacher could scarcely have gone and returned in so short a while.
The door opened. On the threshold stood a vision--a woman clad in furs--a woman with diamonds flashing on her white throat where the furs parted.
Miss Gabriel gasped.
The apparition stood for a moment, looked her in the eyes, and was gone, closing the door softly.
Miss Gabriel tottered, and sank back against the sofa"s edge.
CHAPTER VIII
A BRIEF REVENGE
"Ladies?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Commandant. "In my quarters?"
Vashti nodded demurely. "I think you might have told me," she said in a tone of mild reproach.
"But--my dear young lady----"
"Thank you--"
"Hey?"
"--for calling me young." She reached out a hand, and, taking the lantern from him, held it high so that the beams fell on her face. "It is many years since our first meeting, and unhappily we have the date of it fixed. Give me credit that I reminded you; for I don"t mind confessing that, though it hasn"t come to a quarrel yet, my looking-gla.s.s and I are not the friends we were."