But where was the man himself?

A shudder, part cold and part terror, overcame my body, and I laid my face against the sand. Did he find me here, I should assuredly be lost.

“Miss Austen,” came a voice from above, “and in so abject a posture! Can this be the light angel of old?”

I raised my head slowly, in fear for my life — and gazed squarely into the eyes of Lord Harold Trowbridge.[77]

IT IS NOT FOR ME HERE TO RELATE THE JOY WITH WHICH I GREETED his narrow, calculating face; nor the shock and relief I felt, nor the questions I plied — for I was denied all such, in being grasped roughly by the arm, and dragged into the safety of a cairn, and held with rapidly beating heart against the wet wool of Trowbridge's greatcoat.

“Make no sound,” he commanded in a whisper. “It is as much as your life is worth.”

I nodded once; and in an instant, observed the confident pacing of a man across the shingle with a cocked pistol in his hand, some twenty feet from the rocks behind which we sat. Crawford. Quite careless of discovery — or confident that he should prevail against it.

“He is making for the cavern,” I breathed. The slightest pressure of Trowbridge's hand warned me against further speech. We waited, with breath suspended, until Crawford had achieved the mouth of the cave — and startled us with a sudden cry.

“I say! Sidmouth! Are you there? It's Cholmondeley Crawford. I've come to offer my assistance!”

I stole a glance at Trowbridge. “The man is Sidmouth's enemy.”

“I know.”

“But how?”

“I have had you followed for some days,” he whispered in reply. “Having observed to whom you spoke, I merely spoke to them in turn. What you have deduced, I have seconded. Crawford is the Reverend, and hopes to put Sidmouth in the way of settling his score with the law.” He rose to a half-crouch, and peered around our sheltering stone. “He is being ushered within. We have not a moment to lose. I doubt not that the law follows hard upon his heels, and that he expects to hold Sidmouth and his men at gunpoint until he might hand them over to the dragoons, and pose as hero of the day.”

“But are not the Royalists armed?”

“It shall avail them nothing, if they are taken by surprise. Stay here in safety, and do not move until I return.” He took a step out from the rock, but I clutched at his coattails immediately.

“You would not leave me here!”

“I have no choice, Miss Austen,” Lord Harold said impatiently. “You must find your fortitude where you may.”

“I am coming with you.”

“You cannot.”

“I must,” I insisted, and rose to my feet. “If you do not allow it, I shall scream at the full pitch of my lungs, and bring Crawford down upon you.”

We had parried closely before, but never in the presence of such mortal danger. Tonight Trowbridge was neither amused nor incensed at my insistence; he merely calculated a measure past it, and handed me his pistol. I had never held such a thing before, and had not the slightest notion of how to discharge it.

“It is loaded with ball,” Trowbridge said. “Keep it pointed in the air, and fire at will if the dragoons approach. In this you should be performing a dearer service, and prove less of an encumbrance, than if you dragged at my heels. Not another word!” he commanded; and was gone as swiftly as a star at sunrise.

I gave him a few moments; observed his lean form scuttle along the beach with bent back and arms akimbo, for all the world like a retreating crab; and then turned as noiselessly as I might, and began the slow ascent up the cliff's face.

I DID NOT EXPEND MUCH THOUGHT IN RESOLVING LORD HAROLD'S presence upon Charmouth beach, or his admission that he had had me followed. Sidmouth's support of the Royalists, as I had already divined, had as its object the destruction of Napoleon's reign; and that Harold Trowbridge, servant of the Crown, should be behind the Grange's projects, should hardly astonish. Tho “the Royal Navy stood vigilant against invasion, and the Sea Fencibles[78] were roused along the coasdine, how much more easy should all of Britain sleep, if the tyrant were torn from his throne, and France no longer in thrall! What lives should be saved, at the expense of this one life! Others, did they know of it, might speak with shock of statecraft so dishonourably conducted, behind the veil of proper diplomacy; and were the Royalists unmasked, and Lord Harold's part in their skulduggery exposed, he should bring down upon his head only the usual measure of disapprobation his activities generally enjoyed. But I may, perhaps, look more kindly on Sidmouth and his men, for having two brothers much exposed to the caprice of war; and count as nothing the cloak and the dagger deployed to secure their continued health and safety. In truth, I quite admired His Majesty for undertaking such a course.[79]

After perhaps ten minutes of struggle, I gained the cliff's head; and from there, it was but a short scramble to Captain Fielding's garden, and the wilderness temple. I glanced swiftly around me — at the still shadows cloaking the empty house, and the rank-upon-rank of dormant rose bushes, and the discerning eyes of the stone wood nymphs — and without a second thought, secure in such isolation, I plunged into the tool-shed and made for the tunnel's very mouth.

THE DARKNESS OF THE PASSAGE WAS AS ABSOLUTE AS I REMEMBERED; I felt my way down the initial flight of steps, and along the sloping ground, with as much haste as discretion allowed. I could not recall with certainty how many minutes were required for the completion of the distance; but that it should be far less than the ten demanded of a direct assault upon the cliff's face, I confidently assumed. And indeed, a little over half that time had elapsed, when I found myself confronted with the wooden door, and the faint line of light at its edges, that proclaimed me come to the cavern itself. I placed my ear against it, and stood as still as a mouse.

“At the very least, Crawford, allow Mademoiselle Le-Fevre to go free,” came a grim voice; I recognised Sidmouth, and knew that his every illusion regarding Crawford's purpose must be now o'erthrown. “She has done nothing to deserve arrest, and her brother is wounded, as you may plainly see. Send them out to the boat — at pistol point, if need be — and keep me hostage to their word. I may fully vouch that they shall depart without a backwards glance, if I so command it.”

“Do you think me a fool? Should I allow a boat to land, and armed men with it, before the dragoons are come? 1 have not spent a decade in flight of the law, to fall victim to another rogue. No, Sidmouth, you shall remain within, and the signal go unsent, and the boat remain offshore.”

There was a faint groan of suffering — from the injured Philippe, 1 supposed. It was because of the boy that I had assumed Sidmouth would seek hiding so near to the Grange, rather than in the wilds of the Pinny, or simply flying along the Crewkerne road. He was not the sort to leave his ailing cousin, and since any attempt at removal by waggon should delay them insupportably, they must go by boat, and be borne swiftly out of harm's way, or die in the attempt.

There was a rapid cursing in French from Seraphine, and the sound of a woman spitting.

“You may rest easy, Mademoiselle,” came Crawford's voice. “By my lights, we have not long to wait.”

Where, oh, where, was Lord Harold?

“What was that?” Crawford's voice held a note of apprehension. “A sound, like a rock falling.” A pause, during which I assume the Reverend peered cautiously from the cavern's mouth. “Not the dragoons — they should have no need for stealth,” he mused. “Some other, then. Sidmouth!”