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"Only Mother Borton going down stairs," I thought, with a smile at my fears. There was nothing to be gained by sitting up, and the candle was past its final inch. I felt that I could not sleep, but I would lie down on the bed and rest my tired limbs, that I might refresh myself for the demands of the day. I kicked off my boots, put my revolver under my hand, and lay down.
Here was a strange predicament. I had heard nothing of the noise of the key before I lost myself in slumber. Mother Borton must have turned it as an additional precaution as I slept. But how was I to get out? I hesitated to make a noise that could attract attention. It might bring some one less kindly disposed than my hostess of the night. But there was no other way.
"I don't know," she said slowly. "But you know something," I argued. "Maybe you know what I know better than I knows it myself," growled Mother Borton with a significant glance. I resigned myself to await her humor. "Not at all," said I carelessly. "I only know that you've come to tell me something, and that you'll tell it in your own good time."
As I watched Dicky advance and greet the new-comer with apparent inquiry, a low harsh voice behind gave me a start of surprise. "This is your wine, I think," and a lean, wrinkled arm passed over my shoulder, and a wrinkled face came near my own. I turned quickly. It was Mother Borton, leering at me with no apparent interest but in her errand.
I thanked Mother Borton and pressed her hand, and she held the candle as I tiptoed down the stairs, joined my waiting guards, and went out into the night. The fresh, cool air of the early morning hours was grateful after the close and tainted atmosphere of the den we had left, but I had other things to think of than the pleasure of once more filling my lungs. "Where are Barkhouse and Phillips?"
"Is she badly hurt?" I asked. "I've seen worse," he answered in a low voice, "but " and he completed the sentence by shrugging his shoulders, as though he had small hopes for his patient. Mother Borton turned her head on the pillow, and her gaunt face lighted up at the sight of me.
"Excuse me," I said, "I have lost my way, I fear." "Not at all," said Mother Borton. "You are in the right place." "I was afraid I had intruded," I said apologetically. "I expected you," she repeated. "Shut the door." I glanced about the room. There was no sign of another person to be seen, and no other door. I obeyed her. "You might as well sit down," she said with some petulance.
To be locked, thus, in a dark room of this house in which I had already been attacked, was enough to shake my spirit and resolution for the moment. What lay without the door, my apprehension asked me. Was it part of the plot to get the secret it was supposed I held? Had Mother Borton been murdered, and the house seized?
"Where now?" whispered Fitzhugh. "To the stable." As we slipped along to the corner a man stepped out before us. "Don't shoot," he said; "it's me, Broderick. Tell Mother Borton I wouldn't have done it for anybody but her." "I'm obliged to you just the same," I said. "And here's a bit of drink money. Now, where are my men?" "Don't know. In the lockup, I reckon." "How is that?"
I hastened after Mother Borton, who was glowering at me from the doorway, and followed her footsteps in silence to the floor above. There was a dim light and a foul smell in the upper hall, both of which came from a lamp that burned with a low flame on a bracket by the forward stair.
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