THE JAPNESE PARASOL

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1022, 12 July 1930, Page 23

THE JAPNESE PARASOL

CHAPTER XXIV. (Continued.) With the return of this partial freedom, her courage, too, came back, and she turned on him in a passion she made no attempt to control. “How dare you treat me like this. Colonel Winthrop?” she flamed. “Take me home at once, you—you abominable cad!’’

To do him justice, he flinched beneath the scoru of her voice and mien. The unutterable contempt of him they conveyed cut him to the quick. He made an involuntry gesture of deprecation.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t speak to me like that, child!” he implored. “I am mad for you—mad, I tell you, aud yet you are perfectly sate. I know you cannot understand, that all this must seem extraordinary, even monstrous to you, but tomorrow I will tell you my plans. See, here are caudles; you can have light all night, and there is a bolt upon your door. It is only for one night; tomorrow will be very different.” "Tomorrow! ” she echoed. “D’you mean to say I have to stay in this — this hovel all night?” Again came that gesture as it he were trying to excuse himself. “It is only tor tonight,” he repeated. “Tomorrow we shall start a new life—a life such as you have never contemplated. You will forgive me then the methods I have been obliged to use to win you.” “To win me!” she flashed, and then something in his sombre eyes warned her that she must be careful. There came to her the realisation of how completely in his power she was down here In these uulmagined depths, unreal even in their dreadful reality. Serious doubts as to the man's sanity assailed her. She became conscious o£ an overwhelming desire to get him on the other side o£ the door, frail protection though even that might prove. She pointed to it now. “Please go,” she said. “I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.” To her surprise he turned and went out without another word, and scarcely was he outside the door when she shot the bolt. But he did not pause. She heard his footsteps fade away down the passage, and then, with a little gasp of dismay, she reseated herself on the bed.

It was certainly a weird situation in which she found herself. She had never had the slightest inkling of this underground way to which the pagoda formed the entrance, and she did not believe that anyone else had! except the colonel. In that case, what hope of rescue had she? The very slightest she told herself. She would be looked for above ground, but who would think o£ looking below, or even dream that any “below” existed? But for the time being she thrust from her the hopelessness that such a thought engendered, and took stock of her immediate surroundings. The “room” in which she was did not measure more than eight feet square. Its w'alls aud floors were of stone, but dryer than the passage outside, its sole furniture the bed, a table, and a chair. But clean sheets and blankets were on the bed—even a pair of pyjamas she guessed must belong to Winthrp—and the door, now, she came to look more closely at is, appeared to be of ancient oak of a comforting strength and thickness. Another thing that intrigued her was the comparative freshness of the air. It was certainly close and heavy but the steady burning of the candle proved that it ivas sufficiently pure, and a glance toward the ceiling showed her a grating through which the outer atmopshere must somehow penetrate, as it was ingeniously allowed to do at intervals along the passage. Another examination of the door decided her. She believed that it was beyond even AVinthrop’s strength lo

force this now that it was fastened. She was young, with the happy faculty of making the best of things, and she was conscious of being very tired. She threw oft her things, got into bed, and, placing matches where they were ready to her hand, blew out the candle. Ten minutes later she was asleep. CHAPTER XXV. She awoke next morning to find the room still almost pitch dark, although a taint glimmering o£ light was filtering through the grating. Striking a match, she was astonished to see that it was seven o'clock. That she should have slept so well surprised her, and she was immeasurably relieved to find that the night had passed without any untoward incident. At once she began to dress, hoping that the night’s peace would prove a happy augury tor the day. Another couple of hours went by, and there was no sign or sound o£ Winthrop. She was just becoming conscious of the tact that she was hungry when she heard the sound of his approaching footsteps. He knocked at her dor. “Are you up?” he asked. “I’m bringing you some breakfast.” At once she opened it. She had to meet him some time, aud for her own sake she wished to keep things on as natural a tooting as possible until some way o£ escape offered itself, as surely, she told herself, it must eventually do. The colonel was carrying a tray. “Cold ham, an egg, and tea,” he announced. “Not a sumptuous repast, but all that my resources allow me to contrive, t hope you slept well.” For all the world it was like the courteous host making the usual convenientional inquiries. That he had carried her off by violence, and immured her in this cellar-like place, did not appear to weigh with him at all, and, despite her anxiety, Gwen felt a strong inclination to laugh. It was an inclination, however, that he was very quickly to quench. On the tray was a morning newspaper, to which AVinthrop drew her attention.

"On page six,” he said, “you will read the confirmation o£ what I told you last night, and which, I think, to some extet you doubted. Well, you’ll doubt no longer now.” There was a triumph in his voice he hardly' troubled to conceal. He set the tray down on the table and went out chuckliDg. “A meddlesome pair,” he flung back at her, “but they won’t meddle any longer!”

Her breakfast forgotten, the girl unfolded the paper with a sick premonition of what she would see, and with a little moan of anguish she read the paragraph that Lucas had had inserted —the fictitious account of the finding of Hugh’s and his own dead bodies on the shore—with little thought that in deceiving Winthrop he would also destroy for the time being the peace o£ mind of Gwennie Bourne. Hitherto, the inward conviction that she had expressed to Colonel AVinthrop—that Hugh Monro was alive—had sustained her. and now at length her courage on this point began to fail. It seemed to her that this item in the paper was conclusive, and she burst into a sudden flood of tears. With the announcement of his death in front of her, she realised, perhaps

for the first time in all its intensity, what Hugh had meant to her. For a long while her grief prevented her from dwelling on her own situation, but gradually it dawned upon her that with the loss of Lucas and her fiance, she had been bereft ot her two most possible helpers, and that escape from AVinthrop’s clutches must now rest entirely with herself. So far, leaving out of consideration his outrageous abduction of her, he had treated her well —but how long would he continue to do so? Picking up the candle, she determined to attempt an investigation of the passage outside. If she could only find her way hack to the pagoda, and hit upon the hidden spring which gave access to it, then freedom would be hers. Freedom! She thrilled at the thought, and quietly and carefully turned the handle of her door. The latter was not locked, as she feared it might be, and next instaDt she was outside. But a glance showed her that the way To the pagoda was cut off. A shaft of light came from the open door ot a room similar to her own. aud she could hear AVinthrop moving about inside. He must inevitably see her as she passed with her candle. Therefore she turned, in the opposite direction, -with no idea where it would lead her, hut hopeful that, as at the summer-house, there would prove to be an exit at the further end. She wandered along the passage which was not straight, but twisting and turning, and the candle casting her shadow eerily on the damp and mildewed walls. The extent ot this subterranean tunnel astounded her; there seemed no finish to it as she hurried on. Then all at once she stopped, and glanced back, conscious of the pounding of her heart within her breast.

She could see nor hear nothing, but 1 all the same there came upon her an 1 indefinable knowledge of pursuit. And pursuit there was. AVinthrop's I quick ear had caught the stealthy : opening of her door, and though she ’ had shaded the flame of her candle i with her hand, his eye had noted the i added illumination in the tunnel. He 1 paused in what he was doing, and ! waited, expecting her to attempt to : pass his door. : But when she did not do so, he rea- : lised that she had gone in the oppo- : site direction, and, tiptoeing to the 1 passage, was just in time to see her 1 flitting figure rounding the first, beud. Smiling evilly, he returned, and stood ; for a minute in thought. Then, lift- : mg the lid of a box-like receptacle, he took something out —something cold, clammy, and living, that squirmed and hissed angrily at being disturbed. AA'intbrop's lips drew back from his teeth as he regarded it. “Escape, would you, my girl?” he muttered. “I —think not.” His left baud grasping what he had taken from the box, his right hand holding his electric torch, the colonel began to follow' in her wake. His method of doing so was peculiar. There was something horrible about it, something feline. Lucas had referred to him as a tiger. He would

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have realised the justness ot the epithet had he seen that grim stalking. The light from her candle gave away Gwen’s whereabouts, and her pursuer's methods were as follows: He would let her get round a bend, and then, holding his light toward the ground so that it threw no ray ahead, he would race down the straight and stand listening to her retreating footsteps, to repeat the process at every succeeding turn. As it knowing that she could not get away from him, he made no real attempt to come up with her. I’he chase itself must have afforded him an unholy and sinister glee. In just such a fashion will a cat stalk } a helpless fledgling which has fallen j from the nest. Pi'esently the steadiness of her light j told him that she had stopped, and he i guessed that some inkling had come to her that she was being followed. Ho chuckled at the thought, dousing his light completely, prepared to retreat in his turn should she retrace her steps. But she did not. Failing to see or hear anything, she proceeded on her way, her added speed a measure of her fears. And once more Winthrop resumed his feline hunt. With nerves already' badly shaken, possessed by a tingling apprehension of some intangible aud yet very real danger, Gwen wandered on, the interminable passage, sometimes slippery underfoot from the moisture which dripped from roof and walls gradually becoming a nightmare which weighed upon her very soul. In just such surroundings, it struck her, might lost spirits wander for ever in the realms of darkness. From time to time she glanced anxiously at her candle. The latter, jowing to the draught caused by her ! own progression, was burning fast, the j guttering ot its unprotected flame

sending the melting wax in little rivulets to the candlestick. Unless she reached some terminus of the tunnel soon, she would have to return. She • felt that to be left to wander aimlessly in that alley-way without a light < would be to invite madness. She had no matches with her either, should the light blow out. She was, in fact, just debating going back, loth as she was to place herself voluntarily in AVinthrop's power once more, when the floor of the passage began to take on a distinct upward slope. To one side of her, an opening appeared in the wall, but so low } that one would have to go down alj most on all fours to get through. ! Gwen regarded it doubtfully, and then. ■ I straight in front of her. saw that the J ] portion of the tunnel in which she was j terminated la a flight of steps—just such a flight as she had been carried down from the pagoda. Here then, she thought triumphantly, must be the exit she was seeking. Her foot was actually on the first | step when a noise in the passage be-! hind her held her rooted to the spot. • and again there swept over her that dread sense ot pursuit. Winthrop j had closed up the gap between them J in these latter stages. For reasons j of his own, he had no intention of allowing her to mount the stairs. He ! came upon her with a silent rush j before she had made up her mind i whether there was anyone there or j not. It was not his discovery of her. | supremely unwelcome though that was, that brought Gwen’s nerves to I breaking point, but rather what he 1 | carried, and the grin of dreadful merriment that convulsed his normally ! austere features. That grin alone . set the seal on her already half-formed ■ convictions regarding him—no wholly sane man could look like that. But the culmination came when b* \

thrust out his left hand toward her face, and, petrified with terror, she saw that he held in it the counterpart of the cobra which had brought death to the native in the wood —the same evil, hooded head, the darting tongue, the same baneful eyes. Upon her then there flashed the vision of the snake-charmer twisting and writhing in his death agonies: she believed she understood the awful end that tVinthrop bad designed for her in revenge for her attempt to escape. Nearer and nearer to her he thrust the reptile. she smelt the nauseating odour of its breath, fel" the touch of the shooting tongue upon her cheek. It was too much —the candle dropped from her relaxing i hand, and with a shriek that rang and i echoed through the passage she fell I senseless at his feet. ! (To be continued on Monday.)