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Page 45
At first the feeble light from their lamps fails to penetrate the
darkness of the gloomy apartment. At the cursory glance, such as they
at first cast round the room, it appears to be empty. Their hearts sink
within them. Have they indeed hoped in vain!
Dora is crying bitterly; Ethel, with her eyes fixed upon Ringwood, is
reading her own disappointment in his face, when suddenly a piercing cry
from Florence wakes the echoes round them.
She has darted forward, and is kneeling over something that even now is
only barely discernible to the others as they come nearer to it. It
looks like a bundle of clothes, but, as they stoop over it, they, too,
can see that it is in reality a human body, and apparently rigid in
death.
But the shriek that has sprung from the very soul of Florence has
reached some still living fibers in the brain of this forlorn creature.
Slowly and with difficulty he raises his head, and opens a pair of
fast-glazing eyes. Mechanically his glance falls upon Florence. His lips
move; a melancholy smile struggles to show itself upon his parched and
blackened lips.
"Florence," he rather sighs than says, and falls back, to all
appearance, dead.
"He is not dead!" cries Florence passionately. "He can not be! Oh, save
him, save him! Adrian, look up--speak to me! Oh, Adrian, make some sign
that you can hear me!"
But he makes no sign. His very breath seems to have left him. Gathering
him tenderly in her arms, Florence presses his worn and wasted face
against her bosom, and pushes back the hair from his forehead. He is so
completely altered, so thorough a wreck has he become, that it is indeed
only the eyes of love that could recognize him. His cheeks have fallen
in, and deep hollows show themselves. His beard has grown, and is now
rough and stubbly; his hair is uncombed, the lines of want, despair, and
cruel starvation have blotted out all the old fairness of his features.
His clothes are hanging loosely about him; his hands, limp and
nerveless, are lying by his side. Who shall tell what agony he suffered
during these past lonely days with death--an awful, creeping, gnawing
death staring him in the face?
A deadly silence has fallen upon the little group now gazing solemnly
down upon his quiet form. Florence, holding him closely to her heart, is
gently rocking him to and fro, as though she will not be dissuaded that
he still lives.
At length Captain Ringwood, stooping pitifully over her, loosens her
hold so far as to enable him to lay his hand upon Adrian's heart. After
a moment, during which they all watch him closely, he starts, and,
looking still closer into the face that a second ago he believed dead,
he says, with subdued but deep excitement--
"There may yet be time! He breathes--his heart beats! Who will help me
to carry him out of this dungeon?"
He shudders as he glances round him.
"I will," replies Florence calmly.
These words of hope have steadied her and braced her nerves. Ethel
and Mrs. Talbot, carrying the lamps, go on before, while Ringwood and
Florence, having lifted the senseless body of Adrian, now indeed
sufficiently light to be an easy burden, follow them.
Reaching the corridor, they cross it hurriedly, and carrying Adrian up
a back staircase that leads to Captain Ringwood's room by a circuitous
route, they gain it without encountering a single soul, and lay him
gently down on Ringwood's bed, almost at the very moment that midnight
chimes from the old tower, and only a few minutes before Arthur
Dynecourt steals from his chamber to make that last visit to his
supposed victim.
CHAPTER XII.
Slowly and with difficulty they coax Sir Adrian back to life. Ringwood
had insisted upon telling the old housekeeper at the castle, who had
been in the family for years, the whole story of her master's rescue,
and she, with tears dropping down her withered cheeks, had helped
Ringwood to remove his clothes and make him comfortable. She had also
sat beside him while the captain, stealing out of the house like a
thief, had galloped down to the village for the doctor, whom he had
smuggled into the house without awaking any of the servants.
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