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<h2> CHAPTER XIX — REVELATION </h2>
<p>Doom, astounded, threw the dagger from him with an exclamation. His eyes,
large and burning yet with passion, were wholly for Count Victor, though
his daughter Olivia stood there at his side holding the light that had
revealed the furies to each other, her hair in dark brown cataracts on her
shoulders, and eddying in bewitching curls upon her ears and temples, that
gleamed below like the foam of mountain pools.</p>
<p>"Father! father! what does this mean?" she cried. "There is some fearful
mistake here."</p>
<p>"That is not to exaggerate the position, at all events," thought Count
Victor, breathing hard, putting the knife unobserved behind him. He smiled
to this vision and shrugged his shoulders. He left the elucidation of the
mystery to the other gentleman, this counsellor of forgiveness and peace,
clad head to foot in the garb he contemned, and capable of some excellent
practice with daggers in the darkness.</p>
<p>"I'll never be able to say how much I regret this, Count Victor," said
Doom. "Good God! your hands were going, and in a second or two more—"</p>
<p>"For so hurried a farce," said Count Victor, "the lowered light was
something of a mistake, <i>n'est ce pas?</i> I—I—I just missed
the point of the joke," and he glanced at the dagger glittering sinister
in the corner of the stair.</p>
<p>"I have known your mistake all along," cried Olivia. "Oh! it is a stupid
thing this. I will tell you! It is my father should have told you before."</p>
<p>The clangour of the outer door closing recalled that there was danger
still below. Olivia put a frightened hand on her father's arm. "A thousand
pardons, Montaiglon," cried he; "but here's a task to finish." And without
a word more of excuse or explanation he plunged downstairs.</p>
<p>Count Victor looked dubiously after him, and made no move to follow.</p>
<p>"Surely you will not be leaving him alone there," said Olivia. "Oh! you
have not your sword. I will get your sword." And before he could reply she
had flown to his room. She returned with the weapon. Her hand was all
trembling as she held it out to him. He took it slowly; there seemed no
need for haste below now, for all was silent except the voices of Doom and
Mungo.</p>
<p>"It is very good of you, Mademoiselle Olivia," said he. "I thank you, but—but—you
find me in a quandary. Am I to consider M. le Baron as ally or—or—or—"
He hesitated to put the brutal alternative to the daughter.</p>
<p>Olivia stamped her foot impetuously, her visage disturbed by emotions of
anxiety, vexation, and shame.</p>
<p>"Oh, go! go!" she cried. "You will not, surely, be taking my father for a
traitor to his own house—for a murderer."</p>
<p>"I desire to make the least of a pleasantry I am incapable of
comprehending, yet his dagger was uncomfortably close to my ribs a minute
or two ago," sard Count Victor reflectively.</p>
<p>"Oh!" she cried. "Is not this a coil? I must even go myself," and she made
to descend.</p>
<p>"Nay, nay," said Count Victor softly, holding her back. "Nay, nay; I will
go if your whole ancestry were ranked at the foot."</p>
<p>"It is the most stupid thing," she cried, as he left her; "I will explain
when you come up. My father is a Highland gentleman."</p>
<p>"So, by the way, was Drimdarroch," said Montaiglon, but that was to
himself. He smiled back into the illumination of the lady's candle, then
descended into the darkness with a brow tense and frowning, and his weapon
prepared for anything.</p>
<p>The stair was vacant, so was the corridor. The outer door was open; the
sound of the sea came in faint murmurs, the mingled odours of pine and
wrack borne with it. Out in the heavens a moon swung among her stars most
queenly and sedate, careless altogether of this mortal world of strife and
terrors; the sea had a golden roadway. A lantern light bobbed on the outer
edge of the rock, shining through Olivia's bower like a will-o'-the-wisp,
and he could hear in low tones the voices of Doom and his servant. Out at
sea, but invisible, for beyond the moon's influence, a boat was being
rowed fast: the beat of the oars on the thole-pins came distinctly. And in
the wood behind, now cut off from them by the riding waves, owls called
incessantly.</p>
<p>It was like a night in a dream, like some vast wheeling chimera of fever—that
plangent sea before, those terrors fleeing, and behind, a maiden left with
her duenna in a castle demoniac.</p>
<p>Doom and Mungo came back from the rock edge, silently almost, brooding
over a mystery, and the three looked at each other.</p>
<p>"Well, they are gone," said the Baron at last, showing the way to his
guest.</p>
<p>"What, gone!" said Montaiglon, incapable of restraining his irony. "Not
all of them?"</p>
<p>"O Lord! but this is the nicht!" cried the little servant who carried the
lantern. "I micht hae bided a' my days in Fife and never kent what war
was. The only thing that daunts me is that I should hae missed my chance
o' a whup at them, for they had me trussed like a cock before I put my
feet below me when they pu'd me oot."</p>
<p>He drew the bars with nervous fingers, and seemed to dread his master as
much as he had done the enemy. Olivia had come down to the corridor; aloft
Annapla had renewed her lamentations; the four of them stood clustered in
the narrow passage at the stair-foot.</p>
<p>"What for did ye open the door, Mungo?" asked Doom,—not the Doom of
doleful days, of melancholy evenings of study and of sour memories, not
the done man, but one alert and eager, a soldier, in the poise of his
body, the set of his limbs, the spirit of his eye.</p>
<p>"Here's a new man!" thought Montaiglon, silently regarding him. "Devilry
appears to have a marvellous power of stimulation."</p>
<p>"I opened the door," said Mungo, much perturbed.</p>
<p>"For what?" said Doom shortly.</p>
<p>"There was a knock."</p>
<p>"I heard it. The knock was obvious; it dirled the very roof of the house.
But it was not necessary to open at a knock at this time of morning; ye
must have had a reason. Hospitality like that to half-a-dozen rogues from
Arroquhar, who had already made a warm night for ye, was surely stretched
a little too far. What did ye open for?"</p>
<p>Mungo seemed to range his mind for a reply. He looked to Montaiglon, but
got no answer in the Frenchman's face; he looked over Montaiglon's
shoulder at Olivia, standing yet in the tremour of her fears, and his eye
lingered. It was no wonder, thought Count Victor, that it lingered there.</p>
<p>"Come, come, I'm waiting my answer!" cried Doom, in a voice that might
have stirred a corps in the battlefield.</p>
<p>"I thought there wasna mair than ane," said Mungo.</p>
<p>"But even one! At this time of morning! And is it your custom to open to a
summons of that kind without finding out who calls?"</p>
<p>"I thought I kent the voice," said Mungo, furtively looking again at
Olivia.</p>
<p>"And whose was it, this voice that could command so ready and foolish an
acquiescence on the part of my honest sentinel Mungo Boyd?" asked Doom
incredulously.</p>
<p>"Ye can ask that!" replied the servant desperately; "it's mair than I can
tell. All I ken is that I thought the voice fair-spoken, and I alloo it
was a daft-like thing to do, but I pu'ed the bar, I had nae sooner dune't
nor I was gripped by the thrapple and kep' doon by a couple o' the
blackguards that held me a' the time the ither three or four were—"</p>
<p>Doom caught him by the collar and shook him angrily.</p>
<p>"Ye lie, ye Fife cat; I see't in your face!"</p>
<p>"I can speak as to the single voice and its humility, and to the sudden
plucking forth of this gentleman," said Count Victor quietly, at sea over
this examination. But for the presence of the woman he would have cried
out at the mockery of the thing.</p>
<p>"You must hear my explanation, Montaiglon," said Doom. "If you will come
to the hall, I will give it. Olivia, you will come too. I should have
taken your hints of yesterday morning, and the explanation of this might
have been unnecessary."</p>
<p>Doom and his guest went to the <i>salle</i>; Olivia lingered a moment
behind.</p>
<p>"Who was it, Mungo?" said she, whisperingly to the servant. "I know by the
face of you that you are keeping something from my father."</p>
<p>"Am I?" said he. "Humph! It's Fife very soon for Mungo Boyd, I'm tellin'
ye."</p>
<p>"But who was it?" she persisted.</p>
<p>"The Arroquhar men," said he curtly; "and that's all I ken aboot it," and
he turned to leave her.</p>
<p>"And that is not the truth, Mungo," said Olivia, with great dignity. "I
think with my father that you are telling what is not the true word," and
she said no more, but followed to the <i>salle</i>.</p>
<p>On the stairway Count Victor had trod upon the button he had drawn from
the skirts of his assailant; he picked it up without a word, to keep it as
a souvenir. Doom preceded him into the room, lit some candles hurriedly at
the smouldering fire, and turned to offer him a chair.</p>
<p>"Our—our friends are gone," said he. "You seem to have badly wounded
one of them, for the others carried him bleeding to the water-side, as we
have seen from his blood-marks on the rock: they have gone, as they
apparently must have come, by boat. Sit down, Olivia."</p>
<p>His daughter had entered. She had hurriedly coiled her hair up, and the
happy carelessness of it pleased Montaiglon's eye like a picture.</p>
<p>Still he said nothing; he could not trust himself to speak, facing, as he
fancied yet he did, a traitor.</p>
<p>"I see from your face you must still be dubious of me," said Doom. He
waited for no reply, but paced up and down the room excitedly, the pleats
of his kilt and the thongs of his purse swinging to his movements: a
handsome figure, as Mont-aiglon could not but confess. "I am still
shattered at the nerve to think that I had almost taken your life there in
a fool's blunder. You must wonder to see me in this—in this
costume."</p>
<p>He could not even yet come to his explanation, and Olivia must help him.</p>
<p>"What my father would tell you, if he was not in such a trouble, Count
Victor, is what I did my best to let you know last night. It is just that
he breaks the laws of George the king in this small affair of our Highland
tartan. It is a fancy of his to be wearing it in an evening, and the bats
in the chapel upstairs are too blind to know what a rebel it is that must
be play-acting old days and old styles among them."</p>
<p>A faint light came suddenly to Count Victor.</p>
<p>"Ah!" said he, "it is not, mademoiselle, that the bats alone are blind;
here is a very blind Montaiglon. I implore your pardon, M. le Baron. It is
good to be frank, though it is sometimes unpleasant, and I must plead
guilty to an imbecile misapprehension."</p>
<p>Doom flushed, and took the proffered hand.</p>
<p>"My good Montaiglon," said he, "I'm the most shamefaced man this day in
the shire of Argyll. Need I be telling you that I have all Olivia's
sentiment and none of her honest courage?"</p>
<p>"My dear father!" cried Olivia fondly, looking with melting eyes at her
parent; and Count Victor, too, thought this mummer no inadmirable figure.</p>
<p>"It is nothing more than my indulgence in the tartan that makes your host
look sometimes scarcely trustworthy; and my secret got its right
punishment this night. I will not be able to wear a kilt with an easy
conscience for some time to come."</p>
<p>"My faith! Baron, that were a penance out of all proportion!" said Count
Victor, laughing. "If you nearly gave me the key of the Olympian meadows
there, 'tis I that have brought these outlaws about your ears."</p>
<p>"What beats me is that they should make so much ado about a trifle."</p>
<p>"A trifle!" said Count Victor. "True, in a sense. The wretch but died. We
must all die; we all know it, though none of us believe it."</p>
<p>"I am glad to say that after all you only wounded yon Macfarlane; so
Petullo learned but yesterday, and I clean forgot to tell you sooner."</p>
<p>Montaiglon looked mightily relieved.</p>
<p>"So!" said he; "I shall give a score of the best candles to St. Denys—if
I remember when I get home again. You could not have told me such good
tidings a moment too soon, dear M. le Baron, though of course a small
affair like that would naturally escape one's memory."</p>
<p>"He was as good as dead, by all rumour; but being a thief and an Arroquhar
man, he naturally recovered: and now it's the oddest thing in the world
that an accident of the nature, that is all, as Black Andy well must know,
in the ordinary way of business, should bring about so much <i>fracas</i>."</p>
<p>"It was part of my delusion," said Count Victor, "to fancy Mungo not
entirely innocent. As you observed, he opened the door with an excess of
hospitality."</p>
<p>"Yes, that was droll," confessed Doom, reflectively. "That was droll,
indeed; but Mungo hates the very name of Arroquhar, and all that comes
from it."</p>
<p>"Except our Annapla," suggested Olivia, smiling.</p>
<p>"Oh, except Annapla, of course!" said her father. "He's to marry her to
avert her Evil Eye."</p>
<p>"And is she a Macfarlane?" asked Montaiglon, surprised.</p>
<p>"No less," replied Doom. "She's a cousin of Andy's; but there's little
love lost between them."</p>
<p>"Speaking of bats!" thought Count Victor, but he did not hint at his new
conclusions. "Well, I am glad," said he; "they left me but remorse last
time; this time here's a souvenir," and he showed the button.</p>
<p>It was a silver chamfered lozenge, conspicuous and unforgettable.</p>
<p>"Stolen gear, doubtless," guessed the Baron, looking at it with
indifference. "Silver buttons are not rife between here and the pass of
Balmaha."</p>
<p>"Let me see it, please?" said Olivia.</p>
<p>She took it in her hand but for a moment, turned slightly aside to look
more closely at it in the sconce-light, paled with some emotion, and gave
it back with slightly trembling fingers.</p>
<p>"I have a headache," she said suddenly. "I am not so brave as I thought I
was; you will let me say good night?"</p>
<p>She smiled to Count Victor with a face most wan.</p>
<p>"My dear, you are like a ghost," said her father, and as she left the room
he looked after her affectionately.</p>
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