The Sapphire Cross

What and if, in utter despair, she had —

He could not finish the thought, but shudderingly dashed on, in a headlong career, till he reached the lake, when he could just make out the splashing and panting in the water.

All was plain enough now: some one was drowning near to the bridge, but more towards the side next the house, while he was in the park.

He would have dashed in upon the instant, but his good sense told him that his plan should be to run along the brink to the bridge, which he did with all the speed he could command, when, divesting himself of coat, vest, and hat, he threw them on the railing, tearing his sleeve, as he hurriedly dragged it off, his every nerve stirred, as from beneath him arose McCray’s wild and despairing cry. The next instant, though, Norton had climbed the railing, heedless that he swept his garments into the lake, and then, standing upon a portion of the woodwork, he gazed down at the black water for a few moments, striving to make out the centre of the fast-fading rings, before, with a plunge, he cut the air, divided the waters, and disappeared.

In a few moments he was again on the surface, swimming round, and preparing to dive again, feeling that he had come too late, and that in the darkness it was impossible to render aid, when, within a yard of where he was swimming, and seen but for an instant, the fingers and a portion of a clutching hand were visible above the surface, and ere they could sink far, Norton had grasped them in his hand. The next minute he had avoided a dangerous embrace, and was striking out for the nearest point, the slippery piles of the bridge, where, if he could swim so far with his burden, he could, perhaps, hold up the drowning man till assistance came.

It was a hard task, but Norton was a bold and strong swimmer, and before long he was grasping at the slimy woodwork, to slip back again and again; but, at last, he managed to get one arm over a cross-piece, and his legs twined round an upright, while with his disengaged arm he did all that he could under the circumstances – held the heads of the men above water.

To his great joy he now heard voices, and saw a light moving about in the grounds, when, shouting loudly, he saw a hurried movement of the light, and two or three more cries brought the seekers in the right direction.

“Quick, men – quick!” he cried, as some one ran up, and held down the light, while others clustered round on the bank.

“Fetch the boat up,” cried Sir Murray; and his voice sent a thrill through Norton’s frame, as he felt that he would have to face him. But he was too much exhausted by his exertions to think much of the threatened encounter. He knew he could hold out but a few minutes longer, and he once more called to them to hasten.

“Who is it? What have you got there?” cried the man with the light.

“Two drowning men,” was the hoarse reply; “and I can hold on but a few minutes longer.”

But now came the plash plash of oars, and in a very short time the boat was by the bridge – a small pleasure-boat, into which, with great difficulty, the two men, still tightly locked together, were dragged.

“We can’t take you this time very well,” said one of the grooms, who was in the boat.

“Yes – yes,” said another, “we must manage him somehow.”

“I can wait till you return,” said Norton quietly, for, relieved of his burden, he was able to stretch first one, and then another, cramped limb, and besides, now that he had a little time for thought, the peculiarity of his position struck him. From the scattered words let fall by the servants, he had learned that an attempt had been made to rob the Castle, and that one, if not both the men he had rescued must be connected with the attempt. But, while setting aside as absurd the idea that he could in any way be connected with the matter, he was troubled about the light in which Sir Murray’s distempered mind would view his presence in the park at such an hour, and he watched, with no little anxiety, the putting off of the boat.

The man with the lanthorn still kept to the bank, and the bridge remained deserted; so, after a few moments’ thought, Philip Norton took a firm hold of one of the cross-pieces of wood, drew himself safely up from the water, and then, all dripping as he was, he climbed the pier till he could reach the railings, and step over. Then, after a little search, he found his hat, but his coat and vest, which he had left hanging upon the rail, were, as we have seen, floating below, upon the surface of the lake.

Meanwhile, his suspicious nature charged, as it were, with so much inflammable matter, ready to blaze up at the contact of the slightest spark, Sir Murray Gernon stood on the bank, waiting the return of the boat. He had heard plainly enough the voice calling for help, and felt sure that he recognised it. Hence, then, he watched eagerly the return of the little skiff, from out of which were lifted the apparently lifeless bodies of McCray and Gurdon.

“The villain! I half suspected him,” exclaimed Sir Murray, as he had the lanthorn held down, and recognised in the first the lineaments of his late butler. “But quick – back, and bring off the other. Who was it, do you know?”

“Couldn’t tell, Sir Murray,” said the groom in the boat. “Seemed to know the voice, too.”

“Back at once, then,” said the baronet, his brow knitting as he tried to solve this new riddle; for if it were, as he so strongly suspected, Captain Norton, what was he doing in the park at that time of night? Lady Gernon had made her appearance, dressed, when there was the alarm in the house.

For a few moments the rush of blood to his head seemed to blind him, and his knees shook, for he fancied that he was about to have another seizure. But he recovered himself in a few moments, and again took up the train of thought. John Gurdon – burglarious entry – Norton apparently in league with him, and ready to try and save his life. What did it all mean? Was Norton a greater scoundrel even than he had given him the credit of being, and was this some new plot for aggrandising himself at the weak husband’s expense? If so, who were mixed up in it?

He staggered again, as the blood flew to his head, in his vain endeavours to piece together the scraps of the puzzle, so as to make a defined whole. But once more, with an effort, he shook off the weakness, and, stooping down, he scooped up some water in the hollow of his hand, and bathed his face, for he was now alone, the servants who had accompanied him having borne the two insensible men to the house.

The next minute the boat returned, and her prow struck the bank.

“Well?” said Sir Murray, eagerly, for the men were alone.

“He’s gone, sir,” said the groom, solemnly. “The piles are very slippery, and the poor fellow, whoever he was, could hold on no longer. We’ve been feeling about with the sculls, but we can’t find him.”

Again that rushing of blood to the head and the choking sensation, and Sir Murray Gernon gasped for air, as he staggered about like a drunken man.

Could it be possible? Was it Norton, and was he removed from his path? – removed by his own act while engaged in some nefarious scheme?

For a few moments a strange sense of mingled exultation and horror oppressed the baronet, and he stood staring vacantly in the faces of his servants.

Would he like them to go and try again? though, as the water was so deep, there was not much chance of finding the poor fellow till morning.

Yes, he would like them to go; and he would come with them himself; and, entering the boat, Sir Murray made the weary men row on and on, backwards and forwards, through the two openings of the wooden bridge, as, armed himself with the weed-grapnel in the prow, he dragged it over the same ground again and again, expecting at each check it received that it was hooked in the body of the man whom he looked upon as the blight of his existence.

At length, the men being completely worn out, the search was given up till daylight, and Sir Murray returned to the Castle, to find McCray sitting up in bed with a blanket round him, sipping whisky and water, hot and strong.

“Gude sake, Sir Mooray!” he exclaimed, as his master entered. “We won the day. I ken a’ aboot it – how ye shot one and took the ither; and Jock Gurdon’s coming round – the villin! – and no more dead than I am. But it had got verra close to the end, Sir Mooray.”

“My brave fellow!” exclaimed his master – “you did nobly.”

“Hoot! just naething at a’, Sir Mooray. But winna ye try the whuskee?”

“No, my good fellow. But I don’t know how I am to reward you.”

“Hoot! then, Sir Mooray, I’ll just tell ye,” said the Scot, whose eye was even now on the main chance. “Tam Wilkins is a gude servant, but he’s auld, and past the gairden. Suppose ye mak’ me head-gairdener, and give Jenny Barker a hint that she’d better marry me as soon as we’ve transported Jock Gurdon.”

“My good fellow, I’ll stand your friend, depend upon it,” said the baronet, smiling in spite of himself. But the next moment he frowned heavily, as he said, in a low voice: “Do you know who it was that saved you?”

“No, Sir Mooray, unless it was one of the lads in the bit skiff. But this is rare whuskee, Sir Mooray!”

Sir Murray frowned more deeply before speaking again.

“Did you see any one with the villain you so nobly captured? Though how you came to suspect the attack I don’t know.”

“Not a soul; only the two ye’ve taken, Sir Mooray,” said Sandy, reddening, perhaps from the effect of the whisky. “And as to suspecting, I have no suspicion in me; but I jist like to see of a night that naebody’s after the grapes or bit of wall-fruit, for Tam Wilkins is getting past minding it.”

There was nothing more to be learned here, and, day breaking soon after, Sir Murray summoned two more of his men – a couple who had not been so harassed – and proceeded once more to drag the lake, more assistance and better implements being at the same time sent for.

But first he had himself rowed carefully over the water, peering down as he went, but the dragging had fouled the lake, so that this was soon given up as useless, and Sir Murray was about once more to lower the grapnel, when one of the men pointed out, with scared face, what appeared to be the body of a man floating at a short distance.

To reach the spot took but a few moments, and one of the men reached over to draw in a coat and vest, saturated, so that it was a wonder they could have floated.

“His clothes, Sir Murray,” said the man, lifting up the coat, when, from the breast, a packet of letters fell out, the directions blurred with the action of the water; but on two of them plainly enough could still be read:

Captain Norton,

Merland Hall.

Gurdon’s Lot

“Let the lake be dragged until the body is found,” said Sir Murray Gernon, “and set me ashore.”

The men obeyed, and watched their master with wondering eyes as he strode off towards the house, his brow knit, and head bent, for he wanted to be alone and to think.