Under any other circumstances than the present one of trouble, and difficulty; and deep anxiety, Henry Bannerworth must have laughed at these singular little episodes between Jack and the admiral; but his mind was now by far too much harassed to permit him to do so.
"Let him go, let him go, my dear sir," said Mr. Chillingworth to the admiral, who showed some signs of an intention to pursue Jack; "he no doubt has been drinking again."
"I'll turn him off the first moment I catch him sober enough to understand me," said the admiral.
"Well, well; do as you please; but now let me ask a favour of both of you."
"What is it?"
"That you will leave Bannerworth Hall to me for a week."
"What for?"
"I hope to make some discoveries connected with it which shall well reward you for the trouble."
"It's no trouble," said Henry; "and for myself, I have amply sufficient faith, both in your judgment and in your friendship, doctor, to accede to any request which you may make to me."
"And I," said the admiral. "Be it so--be it so. For one week, you say?"
"Yes--for one week. I hope, by the end of that time, to have achieved something worth the telling you of; and I promise you that, if I am at all disappointed in my expectation, that I will frankly and freely communicate to you all I know and all I suspect."
"Then that's a bargain."
"It is."
"And what's to be done at once?"
"Why, nothing, but to take the greatest possible care that Bannerworth Hall is not left another hour without some one in it; and in order that such should be the case, I have to request that you two will remain here until I go to the town, and make preparations for taking quiet possession of it myself, which I will do in the course of two hours, at most."
"Don't be longer," said the admiral, for I am so desperately hungry, that I shall certainly begin to eat somebody, if you are."
"Depend upon me."
"Very well," said Henry; "you may depend we will wait here until you come back."
The doctor at once hurried from the garden, leaving Henry and the admiral to amuse themselves as best they might, with conjectures as to what he was really about, until his return.
CHAPTER LXII.
THE MYSTERIOUS MEETING IN THE RUIN AGAIN.--THE VAMPYRE'S ATTACK UPON THE CONSTABLE.
[Illustration]
It is now necessary that we return once more to that mysterious ruin, in the intricacies of which Varney, when pursued by the mob, had succeeded in finding a refuge which defied all the exertions which were made for his discovery. Our readers must be well aware, that, connected with that ruin, are some secrets of great importance to our story; and we will now, at the solemn hour of midnight, take another glance at what is doing within its recesses.
At that solemn hour it is not probable that any one would seek that gloomy place from choice. Some lover of the picturesque certainly might visit it; but such was not the inciting cause of the pilgrimage with those who were soon to stand within its gloomy precincts.
Other motives dictated their presence in that spot--motives of rapine; peradventure of murder itself.
As the neighbouring clocks sounded the hour of twelve, and the faint strokes were borne gently on the wind to that isolated ruin, there might have been seen a tall man standing by the porch of what had once been a large doorway to some portion of the ruin.
His form was enveloped in a large cloak, which was of such ample material that he seemed well able to wrap it several times around him, and then leave a considerable portion of it floating idly in the gentle wind.
He stood as still, as calm, and as motionless as a statue, for a considerable time, before any degree of impatience began to show itself.
Then he took from his pocket a large antique watch, the white face of which just enabled him to see what the time was, and, in a voice which had in it some amount of petulance and anger, he said,--
"Not come yet, and nearly half an hour beyond the time! What can have detained him? This is, indeed, trifling with the most important moments of a man's existence."
Even as he spoke, he heard, from some distance off, the sound of a short, quick footstep. He bent forwards to listen, and then, in a tone of satisfaction, he said,--
"He comes--he comes!"
But he who thus waited for some confederate among these dim and old grey ruins, advanced not a step to meet him. On the contrary, such seemed the amount of cold-blooded caution which he possessed, that the nearer the man--who was evidently advancing--got to the place, the further back did he who had preceded him shrink into the shadow of the dim and crumbling walls, which had, for some years now past, seemed to bend to the passing blast, and to be on the point of yielding to the destroying hand of time.