Martyr—built stoutly for protection against marauders in that lonely hollow of the moorlands. On the thick high wall about the courtyard I believed that I could discern rusting iron spikes. And knowing myself held fast in a prison chosen for me by my Uncle Charles—surely by him—and guarded by his rogues, I must have despaired but for my hope that Mr. Bradbury might have survived the attack upon the coach, and would p. 80not rest till he found and rescued me. I recalled his apprehension when we were overtaken by the darkness, and his play with the pistols before our disaster. I remembered seeing him flung out from the door of the coach, and the red discharge of his pistols, as they struck the road. How had the astute Mr. Bradbury come thus to underestimate his man, Charles Craike, with consequences disastrous to himself and likely to prove disastrous to me? p. 79 p. 80 I was in no mood for lying down on the wretched pallet. I tore off my cravat and bound it about my broken head. I was sick and weary, but I feared to sleep, lest they come upon me silently in the dark, and make an end of me. And I knew that he, whose name they would not utter before me, but who was surely Charles Craike, was expected at the house that night; I determined to overcome my heavy weariness, and stay awake awaiting his coming. I heard their voices, as I stood by the bed. Roger growling yet, and Martin laughing his mocking laugh, while they sat waiting in the room below, whence came that thin smoke rising through the rotting floor. I knelt down then, and with my hands I widened the breach in the rotting wood, hoping to hear what passed between these rogues, and what they plotted against me. The light p. 81shone soon more clearly; a chink in the ceiling below was visible; surely I had only to lie down and press my ear against the breach to hear their very words. p. 81 I was deterred from my purpose by a sudden cry from the gate, and the loud baying of a hound at the rear of the house. Starting up, I stole to the window, and drawing back the sacking, set me to watch who came. I heard the doors below me open and clash; presently I saw the lantern shine through the dark, for the clouds held the moon, though it seemed rapidly to approach to a break between cloud and cloud. Overhead the wind went wailing; it beat against the house, as though to tumble it to ruins; I stood shivering, for the bitter cold of the night and for my terrors; the strip of sacking bellied out like a sail as I clung to it. And to the crying of the wind he came.
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