Now, here was what had startled Richard Shelton.
The sun had moved away from the hall windows, and
at the same time the fire had blazed up high on the
wide hearth, and shed a changeful glow upon the roof
and hangings. In this light the figure of the
black hunter had winked at him with a white eyelid.
He continued staring at the eye. The light shone
upon it like a gem; it was liquid, it was alive.
Again the white eyelid closed upon it for a fraction
of a second, and the next moment it was gone.
There could be no mistake. The live eye that
had been watching him through a hole in the tapestry
was gone. The firelight no longer shone on a
reflecting surface.
And instantly Dick awoke to the terrors of his position.
Hatch’s warning, the mute signals of the priest,
this eye that had observed him from the wall, ran
together in his mind. He saw he had been put
upon his trial, that he had once more betrayed his
suspicions, and that, short of some miracle, he was
lost.
“If I cannot get me forth out of this house,”
he thought, “I am a dead man! And this
poor Matcham, too—to what a cockatrice’s
nest have I not led him!”
He was still so thinking, when there came one in haste,
to bid him help in changing his arms, his clothing,
and his two or three books, to a new chamber.
“A new chamber?” he repeated. “Wherefore
so? What chamber?”
“’Tis one above the chapel,” answered
the messenger.
“It hath stood long empty,” said Dick,
musing. “What manner of room is it?”
“Nay, a brave room,” returned the man.
“But yet”—lowering his voice—“they
call it haunted.”
“Haunted?” repeated Dick, with a chill.
“I have not heard of it. Nay, then, and
by whom?”
The messenger looked about him; and then, in a low
whisper, “By the sacrist of St. John’s,”
he said. “They had him there to sleep one
night, and in the morning—whew!—he
was gone. The devil had taken him, they said;
the more betoken, he had drunk late the night before.”
Dick followed the man with black forebodings.
From the battlements nothing further was observed.
The sun journeyed westward, and at last went down;
but, to the eyes of all these eager sentinels, no
living thing appeared in the neighbourhood of Tunstall
House.
When the night was at length fairly come, Throgmorton
was led to a room overlooking an angle of the moat.
Thence he was lowered with every precaution; the
ripple of his swimming was audible for a brief period;
then a black figure was observed to land by the branches
of a willow and crawl away among the grass. For
some half hour Sir Daniel and Hatch stood eagerly
giving ear; but all remained quiet. The messenger
had got away in safety.
Sir Daniel’s brow grew clearer. He turned
to Hatch.
