<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></SPAN>CHAPTER II</h2>
<h3>THE KEY TO THE DOOR</h3>
<p>"The road you called, and I believed to be, an unblazed trail through a
grave forest, I am beginning to see is just the old sordid, musty Bridge
of Sighs across which common malefactors are led," wrote John Allard to
Robert three months after his departure from Sun-Kist. "But if we can
agree with Browning's dictum, there is a certain virtue simply in
keeping on at a task assumed, even if the end be questionable. And I am
keeping on. Do not fancy I am saying this to trouble you, or in weak
regret. All is going better than we dared hope, as you know; and I see
no danger near, at present. No; it is only that I have been fearing I
gave you some edged doctrines; do not close your hand upon them, for
they cut. You can not write to me, of course, since you do not know
where I am. Nor shall I myself write again, even with this guarded and
unsigned precaution. When this venture ends, I am going away from
America; I think I shall enlist in France's Foreign Legion. Not because
I am afraid, but because I want to work. Yet, in spite of success, it
seems to me that, like Saxon Harold, I hear a cry in the night:
'<i>Sanguelac, the arrow, the arrow!</i>'"</p>
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<p>There was nothing in the quiet, sun-filled, little hut nestled on the
mountain-side, to indicate that here rested one end of the <i>Ponte degli
Sospiri</i>. Yet to one of the two men here at bay, the dark bridge arched
away as a thing visible.</p>
<p>A siege had been held there all the June afternoon, until now this
grateful lull had fallen,—a siege whose tale was punctuated with the
snap of bullets, the crash of loosened stones down the cliff, and the
shouts of men below. No one yet had ventured on the steep, narrow path
winding up to the hut, although there was but one defender, and so far
the battle had been bloodless. But neither the big Irishman leaning by
the door, nor John Allard, lying helpless on a rough cot, had any doubt
of the final result. They were simply waiting for the end to come.</p>
<p>"Desmond, have you hurt any of them?" Allard asked suddenly, rousing
himself from a reverie bordering on stupor.</p>
<p>"I have not," answered the other in accents just touched with Hibernian
softness. "But I am thinking they will not come up until dusk. Bird shot
scatters."</p>
<p>"Our own men have gone safely?"</p>
<p>"They have. And if you had not slipped through that hole in the old
floor and broken your ankle—"</p>
<p>Allard raised himself on his elbow. Fever lent an artificial brightness
to his firm young face and shadowed gray eyes, the waving chestnut hair
clung boyishly around a forehead which had acquired one straight line
between the brows during the five months since he had left Sun-Kist.</p>
<p>"You should not have stayed, Desmond," he said earnestly. "You can not
help me; I have my own way out of this. You must go now, at least, and
try the mountain. I ask you to go."</p>
<p>"And if I do, it must be at dusk. Look out that door; not a cloud or a
shade—and me with a hundred yards of bare mountain-side to cross. Lie
easy, sir."</p>
<p>"Desmond!"</p>
<p>"Oh, it's a word slipped! Old times are close enough for their ways to
come to my tongue in the rush."</p>
<p>Allard shook his head, but sank back upon the pillow and let his gaze go
out the open door opposite. Far below, the silver and azure Hudson
widened into the Tappan Zee, set in purple and emerald hills which
curved softly away to the distant outposts of the Palisades. Fair and
tranquil, warmly palpitating under the summer sunshine, the scene was
cruel in its placid indifference to the struggle here upon the
cliff-like mountain. The very breeze that fluttered in brought taunting
perfumes of cedar and blossom from a country-side out of reach; poised
airily between earth and sky, a snowy sea-gull flaunted its unvalued
liberty. Sighing, the Californian dropped the curtain of his lashes
before a world no longer his. He had been so near safety, the arrow had
been held so long upon the cord, that disaster came now with a double
keenness of stroke.</p>
<p>"Desmond," he said, after a pause, "we have nothing to do with old times
or titles. I can trust your will, I know; but do not let your memory
betray me. I mean, words <i>must</i> not slip. I hope you are going to get
out of this safely; I can not, of course. After my—capture," a curious
expression flickered across his face, "no matter how things end, you may
count that I will say nothing of you or the others. Will you, at all
times in the future, remember that I am just Leroy?"</p>
<p>"I will," the big man replied briefly. "And the others don't know
anything."</p>
<p>"No; there is only you. You it would not help if the truth were made
public; it would only excite more attention. You yourself do not want
your former record connected with your stay here. If you escape, you
will be free and comparatively rich; leave me my secret, Desmond; I
shall have nothing else."</p>
<p>"You needn't worry about me," Desmond reassured, his eyes on the ribbon
of path that was visible. "It might be better, I'm thinking, to do the
worrying about how you'll come out of this."</p>
<p>"<i>Fiat justicia</i>," Allard returned, with a cool endurance quite free
from bitterness. "Or, more intelligibly, I must pay for my cakes and
ale. Only carry your part through, and do not talk."</p>
<p>"You needn't worry. There's a man around that big boulder down there!
Will I have to shoot bird seed at his legs, I wonder?"</p>
<p>"Not if you can avoid!"</p>
<p>"Oh, I'm not playing at it; rest easy. And don't fear they'll be
believing it's you. When they find me gone and you not able to stand,
they'll guess who was shooting. I'll put all the guns beyond your
reaching them, to help, before I go to-night."</p>
<p>"No!"</p>
<p>The swift monosyllable fell with an energy that brought Desmond's glance
at once to the speaker.</p>
<p>"I shall want my revolver," Allard added more quietly. "I might need
it."</p>
<p>"Just so," assented the other, regarding him oddly, and presently
returned to his guard of the door.</p>
<p>There was a long silence. Gradually the fluffily piled clouds in the
west became tinged with ruddy gold, clouds which bore a fanciful
resemblance to Elysian mountain peaks, as if heaped so in sport by some
imitative baby Titan who had patterned them from the hills below. Sunset
was at hand, and from its brightness Allard wearily averted his face.
Suffering, mental and physical, keyed his nerves to exquisite
sensitiveness; a passionate desire for darkness and silence possessed
him.</p>
<p>Suddenly the roaring crash of the huge shotgun set the cottage
vibrating, and echoed heavily back and forth among the cliffs.</p>
<p>"It's only to scare them," explained Desmond, as his companion started
up. "But I doubt they will wait past dusk. And we needed just one week
more!"</p>
<p>"You mean they will rush the place by daylight? You will go now?"</p>
<p>"I need the dusk more than they do. Still, I won't wait long. You—shall
I get you water?—you moved too quick!"</p>
<p>"It is nothing," Allard panted. But he drank gratefully from the tin
dipper, nevertheless, and in returning it searched with gentler eyes the
hard, intelligent countenance of the giver. "It is nothing I can not
face, all this, if I can be certain you will keep silence."</p>
<p>"I will," he said, and walked back to the door in cautious vigilance.</p>
<p>Allard lay still. Evening: Theodora would be on the veranda in her
pretty dinner gown, perhaps with a flower tucked over her little ear in
the Spanish fashion she mimicked, if this were home. Aunt Rose would be
reading in her favorite chair, Robert lounging near them and pouring out
his usual flood of sparkling gaiety and nonsense. Allard smiled tenderly
and with a touch of defiance; after all, he had won the battle fought
for them, had carried out the task set, before to-day's ruin overtook
him. Moreover, he had his own way of escape, resolved upon since the
first. He almost could be content.</p>
<p>"It's growing dark," broke in Desmond's voice after a time. "I'm
thinking they'll be making that rush mighty soon. I'd give something to
take you along, instead of having to climb like a cat up the bluff."</p>
<p>Allard roused himself.</p>
<p>"Not possible! You should have gone with the rest instead of being here
now." He held out his hot hand for the other's clasp. "Good-by, Desmond.
Without you this thing would never have worked at all."</p>
<p>"It's not so. Many a time this game has been tried and has fallen
through half-way; and it's not thousands are made at it. You did it,
with the gentleman's brain and knowledge and wit. Not that it matters
now."</p>
<p>"Not very much. You are forgetting my revolver."</p>
<p>"No, I am not forgetting. You will not need it." He turned away to add
the last one to the pile of weapons in the opposite corner.</p>
<p>Allard rose on his arm, his eyes flashing wide and keen.</p>
<p>"You have no idea what I need, Desmond. Give me that revolver."</p>
<p>"You would shoot no one, and it would be of no use."</p>
<p>"Desmond, we have been friends; give me that."</p>
<p>"I can't," he answered sullenly.</p>
<p>"Why not?"</p>
<p>"Because I know for what you want it, sir."</p>
<p>Allard flung back his head and confronted the defiant face opposite with
the fevered anger of his own.</p>
<p>"And if so, is it your affair? Have you, you who have led your life,
grown sentimental? You, who know from where I come and to where I am
going,—you will interfere? You are wasting our time; give me my
revolver, and go."</p>
<p>But the other made no move, although sending an anxious glance through
the doorway.</p>
<p>"One gets out of prison," he said obstinately, "as I've tried myself.
But that that you mean—there's no coming back. You are over young for
that, sir."</p>
<p>"You have been paid for helping me," Allard retorted, his voice savage
with pain, "not for teaching me philosophy. Go take your liberty, if you
can, and leave me mine. There is one door out for me, and one key. I
trusted you; I might have kept the thing with me if I had imagined
this."</p>
<p>Desmond flushed, but turned coolly.</p>
<p>"I'll go, it's time. If I was paid for helping, I gave the help. I never
was paid for this you are asking."</p>
<p>"Desmond, Desmond, you leave me so!"</p>
<p>He turned on the threshold, a square, obstinate figure against the
violet twilight.</p>
<p>"I'd never do it," he said quite gently, "if I didn't know you'd thank
me some day."</p>
<p>"Desmond—"</p>
<p>"Good-by, sir."</p>
<p>"Desmond—"</p>
<p>The doorway was empty; the evening serenata of a robin filled the hush.
Allard's head sank on his arm in the darkest moment of the last somber
months.</p>
<p>But presently he looked up again. Still dressed as when the accident had
happened a few hours before, he possessed a tiny box of cartridges, and
only the width of the room separated him from his desire. He
impulsively tossed aside the blanket and slipped to the floor.</p>
<p>The fall drew a gasp of pain. All before faded to insignificance beside
the anguish of movement. It was not the ankle only; the injury had gone
farther than that. Colorless, catching his breath with difficulty,
Allard dragged himself inch by inch toward the goal.</p>
<p>Desmond was almost forgotten when the first shot on the mountain-side
rang out. Startled from the mists of suffering, Allard paused an
instant. Then as a very fusillade reverberated among the cliffs, he
toiled on with redoubled haste. They would come next for him.</p>
<p>It had a pearl and silver handle, that revolver. He had treasured it
because it was a gift from Robert, and a souvenir too frequently
duplicated to betray his identity. Now the pearl shone a glistening spot
in the surrounding grayness, beckoning, tantalizing. It was so far
across the room, so very far!</p>
<p>Shots again! He struggled yet more desperately, and the resulting pang
brought waves of faintness above his head. If he could only rest, so.</p>
<p>Some one was shouting, half exultantly, half fearfully, and other voices
replied in equal excitement. Some one was killed, they were saying, had
fallen from the cliff. Desmond, perhaps? Allard roused himself fiercely
and saw with gratitude how near the coveted object lay. A little
farther, only a little; but it cost.</p>
<p>The rush and patter of feet grew louder,—the steady approach of the
hunters. It hardly mattered, for the cool white handle was in the grasp
of his outstretched hand. He had won, won doubly. He had accomplished
his task, and he held the key to the door. Robert's face leaned toward
him, warm with relief and praise; Theodora was in the room, bringing
fragrances of sandalwood and rose—</p>
<p>Once more he drove back the mists and dragged the revolver to him,
smiling, but with knit brows.</p>
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