I believed it to be nothing more nor less than a heartless and stupid "hoax."
The striking of the hall-clock roused me from my meditations. I counted the strokes--midnight!
I rose to go up to my room. Everybody else in the farm had retired to bed, as usual, more than an hour since. The stillness in the house was breathless. I walked softly, by instinct, as I crossed the room to look out at the night. A lovely moonlight met my view; it was like the moonlight on the fatal evening when Naomi had met John Jago on the garden walk.
My bedroom candle was on the side-table; I had just lighted it. I was just leaving the room, when the door suddenly opened, and Naomi herself stood before me!
Recovering the first shook of her sudden appearance, I saw instantly in her eager eyes, in her deadly-pale cheeks, that something serious had happened. A large cloak was thrown over her; a white handkerchief was tied over her head. Her hair was in disorder; she had evidently just risen in fear and in haste from her bed.
"What is it?" I asked, advancing to meet her.
She clung, trembling with agitation, to my arm.
"John Jago!" she whispered.
You will think my obstinacy invincible. I could hardly believe it, even then!
"Where?" I asked.
"In the back-yard," she replied, "under my bedroom window!"
The emergency was far too serious to allow of any consideration for the small proprieties of every-day life.
"Let me see him!" I said.
"I am here to fetch you," she answered, in her frank and fearless way. "Come upstairs with me."
Her room was on the first floor of the house, and was the only bedroom which looked out on the back-yard. On our way up the stairs she told me what had happened.
"I was in bed," she said, "but not asleep, when I heard a pebble strike against the window-pane. I waited, wondering what it meant. Another pebble was thrown against the glass. So far, I was surprised, but not frightened. I got up, and ran to the window to look out. There was John Jago looking up at me in the moonlight!"
"Did he see you?"
"Yes. He said, 'Come down and speak to me! I have something serious to say to you!'"
"Did you answer him?"
"As soon as I could catch my breath, I said, 'Wait a little,' and ran downstairs to you. What shall I do?"
"Let me see him, and I will tell you."
We entered her room. Keeping cautiously behind the window-curtain, I looked out.
There he was! His beard and mustache were shaved off; his hair was close cut. But there was no disguising his wild, brown eyes, or the peculiar movement of his spare, wiry figure, as he walked slowly to and fro in the moonlight waiting for Naomi. For the moment, my own agitation almost overpowered me; I had so firmly disbelieved that John Jago was a living man!
"What shall I do?" Naomi repeated.
"Is the door of the dairy open?" I asked.
"No; but the door of the tool-house, round the corner, is not locked."
"Very good. Show yourself at the window, and say to him, 'I am coming directly.'"
The brave girl obeyed me without a moment's hesitation.
There had been no doubt about his eyes and his gait; there was no doubt now about his voice, as he answered softly from below--"All right!"
"Keep him talking to you where he is now," I said to Naomi, "until I have time to get round by the other way to the tool-house. Then pretend to be fearful of discovery at the dairy, and bring him round the corner, so that I can hear him behind the door."
We left the house together, and separated silently. Naomi followed my instructions with a woman's quick intelligence where stratagems are concerned. I had hardly been a minute in the tool-house before I heard him speaking to Naomi on the other side of the door.
The first words which I caught distinctly related to his motive for secretly leaving the farm. Mortified pride--doubly mortified by Naomi's contemptuous refusal and by the personal indignity offered to him by Ambrose--was at the bottom of his conduct in absenting himself from Morwick. He owned that he had seen the advertisement, and that it had actually encouraged him to keep in hiding!
"After being laughed at and insulted and denied, I was glad," said the miserable wretch, "to see that some of you had serious reason to wish me back again. It rests with you, Miss Naomi, to keep me here, and to persuade me to save Ambrose by showing myself and owning to my name."
"What do you mean?" I heard Naomi ask, sternly.
He lowered his voice; but I could still hear him.
"Promise you will marry me," he said, "and I will go before the magistrate to-morrow, and show him that I am a living man."
"Suppose I refuse?"
"In that case you will lose me again, and none of you will find me till Ambrose is hanged."
"Are you villain enough, John Jago, to mean what you say?" asked the girl, raising her voice.
"If you attempt to give the alarm," he answered, "as true as God's above us, you will feel my hand on your throat! It's my turn now, miss; and I am not to be trifled with. Will you have me for your husband--yes or no?"
"No!" she answered, loudly and firmly.
I burst open the door, and seized him as he lifted his hand on her. He had not suffered from the nervous derangement which had weakened me, and he was the stronger man of the two. Naomi saved my life. She struck up his pistol as he pulled it out of his pocket with his free hand and presented it at my head. The bullet was fired into the air. I tripped up his heels at the same moment The report of the pistol had alarmed the house. We two together kept him on the ground until help arrived.
CHAPTER XII.
THE END OF IT.
JOHN JAGO was brought before the magistrate, and John Jago was identified the next day.
The lives of Ambrose and Silas were, of course, no longer in peril, so far as human justice was concerned. But there were legal delays to be encountered, and legal formalities to be observed, before the brothers could be released from prison in the characters of innocent men.
During the interval which thus elapsed, certain events happened which may be briefly mentioned here before I close my narrative.