They set out together, picking their way slowly over the heaps of rubbish that filled the churchyard and lay between them and the narrow path leading through the thicket to the river road.
Little Nelly followed faithfully at their heels.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SECOND FLIGHT.
A beam of comfort, like the moon through clouds, Gilds the black horror and directs their way.--DRYDEN.
It was yet early morning, and Lyon Berners still lay on his comfortable bed in the s.p.a.cious front chamber, at Pendleton Hall. The window shutters were open, admitting a fine view of the wooded mountains, not yet wholly divested of their gay autumn hues. A fine wood fire blazed in the broad fireplace. A nice breakfast stood on a little stand by the bed-side. A good-humored, motherly looking negro woman presided over the little meal, while Captain Pendleton stood by the invalid, trying to persuade him to take nourishment.
"But I have no inclination, dear friend," pleaded Mr. Berners, as he reached out his pale hand, took a morsel of bread from the plate, and put it to his lips.
"You must eat without inclination, then, Berners. It is your duty to live," remarked Captain Pendleton.
"But, in the name of Heaven, what have I left to live for?" groaned the bereaved husband.
"For a future of usefulness, if not of happiness; for a future of duty, if not of domestic joys," replied the captain, earnestly.
Footsteps were heard upon the stairs without, but no one heeded them.
""Duty," "usefulness!"" bitterly echoed Lyon Berners. "I might indeed have lived and labored for them, and for my country and my kind, if--if--_Oh, Sybil! Sybil! Oh, Sybil! Sybil! My young, sweet wife!_" He broke off, and groaned with the insufferable, tearless agony of a strong man"s grief.
"HERE SHE IS, MARSTER! Bress de Lord, here she is, and Nelly too! Nelly found her!" frantically exclaimed Joe, bursting open the chamber door, while Sybil flew past him and threw herself with a sob of delight into the arms of her husband. His brain reeled with the sudden, overwhelming joy, as he clasped his wife to his heart.
"Good Heaven, man! why did you not prepare your master for this?" was the first question Captain Pendleton thought of asking the negro.
Joe stared, and found nothing to answer. He did not understand preparation.
Nelly jumped upon the bed, and insisted upon being recognized; but n.o.body noticed her. n.o.ble humanity is singularly ungrateful to their four-footed friends.
Lyon Berners, forgetful of everybody and everything else in the world, was gazing fondly, wonderingly into his wife"s beautiful pale face.
_His_ face was like marble.
"My own, my own," he murmured. "By what miracle have you been preserved?"
Sybil could not answer; she could only sob for joy at this reunion, forgetful, poor child, of the awful danger in which she still stood.
Captain Pendleton remembered it. He first looked around to take note of who was in the room. There were Mr. and Mrs. Berners, himself, Joe, and the colored woman Margy--only _one_ new witness, if there were no others outside who might have seen the entrance of Sybil.
He went and locked the door, that no one else should enter the chamber.
And then he called Joe apart to the distant window.
"You very reckless fellow! tell me who besides ourselves have seen Mrs.
Berners enter this house."
"Not a singly soul, marster, outen dis room. We walk all de way from de Haunted Chapel, and didn"t meet n.o.body we knowed. Miss Sybil she keep de shawl over her head. Dem as did meet us couldn"t a told who she was or even if she was white or brack. When we got home here, I jes opens de door like I always do, and Miss Sybil she follow me in, likewise Nelly.
n.o.body seed us, likewise we seed n.o.body, "cept it was Jerome, as was jest a pa.s.sin" outen de back door wid a breakfast tray in his hands; but he didn"t see us, acause his back was to us, which that fellow is always too lazy to look over his own shoulder, no matter what may be behind him," said Joe, contemptuously.
"That is true; but lucky on this occasion. Then you are certain that no one out of this room knows of Mrs. Berner"s presence in the house?"
"Sartain sure, marster!" answered Joe, in the most emphatic manner.
"Then I must warn you not to hint--mind, Joe--not so much as to _hint_ the fact to any living soul," said the captain, solemnly.
"Hi, Ma.r.s.e Capping! who you think is a "fernal fool? Not dis Joe,"
answered the negro, indignantly.
"Mind, then, that"s all," repeated the captain, who then dismissed Joe, and beckoned the motherly looking colored woman to come to him.
"Margy," he whispered, "do you understand the horrible danger in which Mrs. Berners stands?"
"Oh, my good Lord, Ma.r.s.e Clement, don"t I understand it? My blood runs cold and hot by turns every time I look at her and think of it,"
muttered the woman, with a dismayed look.
"I am glad you feel and appreciate this peril. It is said that no secret is safe that is known to three persons. This secret is known to five: Mr. and Mrs. Berners, Joe, you, and myself! I think I can rely on the secresy of all," said Captain Pendleton, with a meaning look.
"You can rely on _mine_, Ma.r.s.e Clement! I"d suffer my tongue to be tored out by the roots afore ever I"d breathe a word about her being here,"
said the woman.
"Quite right! Now we must see about concealing her for a few days, until we can ship her off to some foreign country."
"To be sure, marster; but are you certain that no one down stairs saw her when she came in?"
"Quite certain," answered the captain.
Meanwhile Sybil sat down on the chair at the side of Lyon"s bed, and with her hand clasped in his, began to tell the story of her abduction and captivity among the robbers.
Lyon Berners, seeing his host now at leisure, beckoned him to approach and hear the strange story.
Sybil told it briefly to her wondering audience.
"And if they had not carried me off, I should not now be at liberty,"
she concluded.
That this was true, they all agreed.
Now Sybil had to hear the particulars of the explosion, and the names of its victims. She shuddered as Captain Pendleton went over the list.
"One feels the less compa.s.sion, however, when one considers that this was a case of the "engineer hoist with his own petard.""
"Don"t you think, Ma.r.s.e Clement, as Mrs. Berners would be the better for a bit of breakfast?" inquired Aunt Margy.
"Certainly. And here is Berners, touched nothing yet. And everything allowed to grow cold in our excitement and forgetfulness," said Captain Pendleton, anxiously examining into the condition of the tray.