  It was twenty minutes to eight when we arrived at Mellborough, and, as we had not sent word on, there was no carriage to meet us, nor, as it happened, any spare vehicle. After a brief word or two with the stationmaster, we decided to walk down into the town and order a fly. When we reached the house, the butler stepped forward, his ruddy face blanched and his voice shaking. “Thank God you are come, sir! The man you left here, he’s gone a raving lunatic, and he’s shut himself up there, and got your revolvers out, and swears that no one shall enter the room till you come.” “There’s someone with him,” my father said quickly. The man’s face seemed literally shrunken up with horror. “It’s awful, sir; I’ve been near once, and I’ll never get over it as long as I live. He’s got some poor wretch there, killing him by inches, torturing him like a cat does a mouse. He’s been shrieking for help for hours, and we can do nothing. The poor creature must be nearly dead now. Ah, there it is again, sir! Four of our men have been shot trying to get to him. Listen! Oh, why does he not die!” A low, faint cry, full of a most heart-stirring anguish, floated out from the library window. It was the most awful sound I have ever heard in my life. Following close upon it, drowning its faint echo, came the loud mocking laugh of the torturer, ringing out harsh and mirthless in hideous contrast. A deep, audible shudder passed through the little group of bystanders. Then my father, without a word, started forward across the lawn towards the window and I followed close behind. It seemed to me that everyone must be holding their breath, the silence was so intense. The wind had dropped for a moment, and the moon shone faintly down through a cloud of mist upon the white, eager faces, filled now with a new anxiety. A few swift steps brought us to the window. A lamp was burning upon the writing-table and the interior of the room was clearly visible. On the floor a little distance from the window was a dark shape which, as we drew nearer, we could see to be the prostrate figure of a man. Walking up and down in front of it, with short, uneven steps, was Francis, his hair and dress in wild disorder and his whole appearance betokening that he had recently been engaged in a desperate struggle. Suddenly he turned round and saw us. With a wild cry of rage he rushed to the window, the glass of which was completely wrecked, and glared at us threateningly through the framework. “Away! away!” he shrieked, “or there will be more trouble! I must stay here, I must wait till he comes! Let me be, I tell you!” The revolver, which he clenched in his right hand, was raised and levelled. It was a dreadful moment. “It is I, Mr. Ravenor,” my father answered calmly. “Don’t you know me, Francis?” Again the moon broke through the clouds and shone with a faint light upon my father’s pale, stern face. Francis recognised him at once. He threw his hands high over his head in a wild gesture of welcome and flung open the window. My father walked steadily forward into the room and I followed him. Francis, trembling with eagerness, stood between us. “See,” he cried, pointing downwards, “is it not well done? See! Let me tell you about it. Quick! quick! He came! It was twilight! He was at the cabinet there. I stole out of the darkness. I flung my arms around him. He struggled. Ah, how he struggled; but it was all no use. Ha! ha! ha! I was too strong for him. I held him tighter and tighter, till I nearly strangled him, and he gasped and gurgled and moaned. Oh! it was fine to see him. Then I found a cord in the drawer there and I bound him, and while I fastened the knots I laughed and I talked to him. I talked about that night in the storm when he threw his father”—he pointed a long, quivering finger at me—“threw him into the slate quarry, and about that day when he came to the Castle gate and brought me to the plantation, and suddenly caught me by the throat till he thought he had strangled me, and beat me on the head. Ah, how my head has burned ever since, ever since, ever since! Ah, Milly, come to me! Milly, I am on fire! My head is on fire! Ah, ah!” The foam burst out from between his pallid, quivering lips, and his eyes, red and burning, suddenly closed. A ghastly change crept over his blood-stained, pallid face. He sank backwards and fell heavily upon the floor. We scarcely noticed him, for our eyes were bent elsewhere. The horror of that sight lived with me afterwards for many years, a haunting shadow over my life—disturbing even its sweetest moments, a hideous, maddening memory. I am not going to attempt to describe it. No words could express the horror of it. Such things are not to be written about. Even my father’s iron nerve seemed to give way for a moment, and he stood by my side trembling, with his head buried in his hands. Then he sank on his knees and loosened the cords. “Thank God he is dead,” he murmured fervently, as he felt the cold body and lifeless pulse, and cleared away the last fragments of disguise from the head and face. “You had better call Mr. Carrol in, Philip.” Even as he spoke, a little awed group was silently filling the room, Carrol and his sergeant amongst them. But after all they were cheated of their task, for out in the moonlight John Francis lay stark, the madness gone from his white, still face, and the calm of death reigning there instead. |
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