Sheriff Benthwick himself was at their head.
In great surprise, as if they had come in quest of him, Mr. Berners went forward to receive the party.
Lyon Berners was known to have been the companion of his fugitive wife, and therefore a sort of an outlaw; yet the sheriff took off his hat, and accosted him respectfully.
"Mr. Berners, I am greatly surprised to see you here," he said.
"Not less than myself at seeing you," answered Lyon.
"We are here to seek out a set of burglars whom we have reason to believe have their lair in this chapel," said Mr. Benthwick.
"Then your errand is not to me," observed Lyon.
"Certainly not! Though, should I find Mrs. Berners here, as well as yourself, as I think now highly probable, I shall have a most painful duty to perform."
"Ah, sir! within the last terrible month, I have become all too much accustomed to the sight of friends with "painful duties to perform," as they delicately put it. But you will be spared the pain. Mrs. Berners is not here with me."
"Not here with you? Then where is she?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Benthwick," said Mr. Berners, gravely; "you certainly forget yourself; you cannot possibly expect me to tell you--even if I knew myself," he added, in an undertone.
"No, I cannot, indeed," admitted the sheriff. "Nor did I come here to look for Mrs. Berners, having had neither information nor suspicion that she was here; nevertheless, if I find her I shall be constrained to arrest her. Were it not for my duty, I could almost pray that I might not find her."
"I do not think you will," said Mr. Berners, grimly.
And meanwhile the officers and the militia-men, at a sign from the sheriff, had surrounded the chapel so that it would be impossible for any one who might be within its walls to escape from it.
"Now, Mr. Berners, as you a.s.sure me that your wife is not within this building, perhaps you may have no objection to enter it with me," said the sheriff.
"Not the least in the world," answered Lyon Berners, leading the way into the chapel, as the sheriff dismounted from his horse, threw the bridle to an attendant, and followed.
The interior was soon thoroughly searched, having nothing but its bare walls and vacant windows, with the exception of Sybil"s forsaken bed near the altar, the smouldering fire in what had once been the middle aisle, and the little pile of brushwood in the corner.
"There is certainly no one here but yourself, Mr. Berners; yet here are signs of human habitation," said the sheriff significantly.
Lyon Berners laughed painfully. And then he thought it would be safest to inform the sheriff of some part of the truth, rather than to leave him to his own conjectures, which might cover the whole case. So he answered:
"I do not mind telling you, Mr. Benthwick, that myself and my injured wife took refuge in this place immediately after the terrible tragedy that so unjustly compromised her safety. We remained here several days, and then departed. These things that you notice had been brought for our accommodation, and were left here when we went away."
"So you were not at Pendleton"s?"
"Not for an hour."
"That is strange. But how comes it that you are here now without your wife, Mr. Berners?"
"Sir, I have told you all that I mean to tell, and now my lips are sealed on the subject of my wife," said Lyon Berners, firmly.
"I cannot and do not blame you in the least," said the sheriff, kindly.
"All that we have to do now, is to pursue our search for the burglars, and if in the course of it we should come upon Mrs. Berners, we must do our duty," he concluded.
"To that proposition Mr. Berners a.s.sented with a silent bow and bitterly compressed lips. The sheriff then went to the door of the vault, and stooping down with his hands upon his knees, peered through the iron grating, more in curiosity than in any hope of finding a clue to the robbers. And in fact he discovered nothing but the head of that narrow staircase whose foot disappeared in the darkness below.
"Phew! what a damp, deadly air comes up from that foul pit! it hasn"t been opened in half a century, I suppose," exclaimed Mr. Benthwick, taking hold of the rusty bars and trying to shake the grating; but finding it immovable, he ceased his efforts and turned away.
Then he went to the chapel door, and called his men around him, saying:
"There is no sign of the miscreants inside the ruin; we must search for them outside."
And he divided his party into four detachments; and one he sent up the narrow path leading to the fountain, another he sent up on the heights, and another down in the glen; while he himself led the fourth back upon the path leading through the thicket. And they beat the woods in all directions without coming upon the "trail" of the burglars. But Sheriff Benthwick, in going through the thicket with his little party, met a harmless negro on a tired horse with a little dog before him. The sheriff knew the negro, and accosted him by name.
"Joe, what are you doing here, so far from your home?"
Joe was ready with his answer:
"If you please, marster, I am coming to fetch away some truck left here by a picnic party from our house."
"Ah! a picnic party! I know all about that picnic party! I have been up to the old ruin and had a talk with your master, and he has told me of it," said the sheriff cunningly, hoping to betray the negro into some admissions that might be of service to him in tracing Sybil.
But his cunning was no match for Joe"s.
"Well, marster," he said, "if Ma.r.s.e Lyon telled you all about that, you must be satisfied into your honorable mind, as I am a telling of the truth, and does come after the truck left in the chapel, which you may see my wagon a-standin" out there on the road beyant for yourself."
"Then if you have a wagon, why do you come on horseback?"
"Lor"s marster, I couldn"t no ways get a wagon through this here thicket."
The sheriff felt that that was true, and that he had been making a fool of himself. He made a great many more inquiries, but received no satisfaction from astute Joe. He asked no question about the little dog, considering her of no importance. And at length, having no pretext to stop the negro, he let him pa.s.s and go on.
Joe, glad to be relieved, touched up his horse and trotted briskly through the thicket, and through the graveyard, to the ruined door of the old chapel. Here he dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and put down the little Skye terrier, who no sooner found herself at liberty, than she bounded into the church and ran with joyous leaps and barks, and jumped upon her master, licking, or kissing, as she understood kissing, his hands and face all over with her little tongue, and a.s.suring him how glad she was to see him.
"Nelly, Nelly, good Nelly, pretty Nelly," said Mr. Berners, caressing her soft, curly brown hair.
But Nelly grew fidgety; something was wanting--the best thing of all was wanting--her mistress! So she jumped from her master"s lap, not forgetting to kiss him good-by, by a direct lick upon his lips, and then she ran snuffing and whining about the floor of the chapel until she came to the mattress and blankets, where she began wildly to root and paw about, whining piteously all the while.
"Nelly, good dog," said Mr. Berners, taking the blanket and holding it to her nose. "Sybil, Sybil! seek her, seek her!"
The little Skye terrier looked up with a world of intelligence and devotion in her brown eyes, and re-commenced her rooting and pawing and snuffing around the bedding, and for some little time was at fault; but at length, with a quick bark of delight, she struck a line of scent, and with her nose close to the floor, cautiously followed it to the door of the vault, at which she stopped and began to scratch and bark wildly, hysterically--running back to her master and whining, and then running forward to the door, and barking and scratching with all her might and main.
"There she is, Marster. Mistess is down in that vault, so sure"s I"m a livin" n.i.g.g.e.r," exclaimed Joe, who now came up to the door.
"Good Heaven! she could not live there an hour; the very air is death!
But if there, with a breath of life remaining, she must hear and answer us," exclaimed Lyon Berners, in breathless haste, as he went to the door of the vault; and putting his lips close to the bars, called loudly:
"Sybil, Sybil! my darling, are you there?"
But though he bent his ear and listened in the dead silence and dread suspense, no breath of answer came. And little Nelly, who had ceased her noise, began to whine again.
Lyon Berners soothed her into quietness, and began to call again and again; but still no breath of response from the dark and silent depths below.