Our Novelettes.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1520, 19 February 1886, Page 4

Our Novelettes.

A STRANGE BED.

{Continued.)

What I expected to touch, when I put out n>y hand in the darkness, I do not know; what I did touch was a woman's dress and an icy cold hand. A light! Show a light here, for Heaven's sake!" I exclaimed, in a hoawe whisper. Mr Hardly, who carried a dark lantern, drew back the elide, and turned the brilliant circle of light full on the bed—full on to the face and figure of Joyce, who lay there as I had seen her in imagination, silent and motionlfss, with closed eyes and white parted lip*, and no more sign of life in her still, colourless features than in those of a statue.

The pillows were undi-turbed ; there were no signs of a recent struggle. What did it mean? In a flash, as it were, 1 understood it. It meant that, after I bad left the house, when her master had thought her safe in her own chamber, she had crept back to this room, and had deliberately laid herself down upon the bed to meet the fate from which she had rescued me.

"She is a'ive; she has only fainted," whispered Mr Eardly, putting his hand upon her heart She Hush!" he broke off suddenly. " Listen!" He hastily concealed the light again, and we listened intently. There was a sound of stealthy footsteps ascending the stairs. They came along the landing, paused an instant at the door, and the next moment we heard them enter the lumber-room.

They are there, they have made sure that the light is out. In another moment they will open the door. We'll give 'em a warm reception!" whispered the chief constable, grimly, in my ear. " Lift the girl off the bed, sir, out of the way."

I raised her in my arms, and laid her gently on the floor at the far eod of the room, and then returned and took up my station close to the bed's head, Mr Eardly and the constable standing on the other side. There was a momentary silenco ; then we heard the faint click of the concealed spring -a sound so low that it woidd have been inaudible to ea r s less strained and intent than ours—and wc felt rather than saw that the sec et door was being slowly opened from the other side, leaving a v.>id where the bed's head had been. Mr Eardly waited long enough to allow it to be unclosed to its full width, and then, drawing baok the slide of the lantern, flashed the light full on to the faces of the two murderers, set like an ugly picture, in the frame of the door. With an indescribable cry of mingled astonishment, rage, and terror, they drew back into the other room, and attempted to shut the door ; but, before they could effect it, we scrambled pell-mell through the opening. and threw ourselves upon them. Then followed a scene of confusion, during which we all seemed to be struggling together —oiths, cries of rage and pain, the sound of blows, the sci.filing of feet, all mingled in a horrible mrdley of sounds which I can never forget. A blow from Mr Eardly's lif server felled Reuben Blacklock to the fl.» r, where he lay stunned and motionless The constable and I were struggling with the futher, who fousht like a madman. He had a pistol in his hand—my own—and was trying desperately to disengage his right arm from our grasp.

"Lookout, sir—look out! Take care!" the constable cried, as, by a sudden wrench, the man freed his arm, and pointed the pistol full in my face.

Before he could pull the trigger I struck the weapon up ; there was a sharp repoit—a heavy fall. The bullet he had intended for me had gone through his own brain. The same night Reuben Blacklock was lodged in Beckley lock-up, to he thence transferred in due course to the conrty gaol. Joyce, who had recovered from hor swoon only to fall into another still more death-like, was removed, at Mr Eardly's suggestion, to his own house, and placd under the motherly care of his kind-hearted wife. It was long before her mind recovered from the shock it had sustained on that night ; by slow degrees, however, and thanks to unremitting care and kindness, she was restored ; but though no other ill effects remained, it was found that her memory was so far impaired that the events of the past, appeared to her like a confused and troubled dream—a dream which it was painful for her to recall.

As sho was not in a condition to give evidence concerning the murders that had been already committed. Reuben Bl'tcklock was convicted only of the attempt on my own life, and waa sentenced to a long term of transportation.

Polly and I took few mo re journey together, for an unexpected legacy which fell to me shortly afterwards enab'ed me to set up in business for myself, and to marry. Whom ? Joyce.

For more than fifty years she has been my wife— as true and tender a wife at ever a nun had—and, as I look back through the long pact to the night when first we met, I bless the chance which brought us together at the lonely inn on the moor, where T so narrowly escaped taking my last sleep in that Strasoe Bed.