It had been Lovey Lee\'s part to keep guard during the operations beneath her cottage, and, on the morning of discovery, while Knapps was underground and John Lee lay in a heavy sleep, she stood at her door and scanned the morning. Her mind was on money; within eight-and-forty hours she would receive her reward; and now every glittering dewdrop of the dawn shone beneath her eyes like a gold piece. Then it was that another scintillation—that of steel—struck upon Lovey\'s sight, and she saw the flash of bayonets and the gleam of red coats. They approached swiftly across the Moor, and, divining their significance, the old woman instantly fled out at the rear of her cottage, and climbed and crept with amazing speed into the lonely fastnesses of North Hisworthy Tor above Prince Town. Here, safe as a fox in earth, she remained close hidden until nightfall, and then started for her holt at Hangman\'s Hollow. The fate of the men she had deserted troubled her not at all. To have informed them of danger would have been to lessen her own chance of escape by a full minute, and she had felt no temptation to take such risk. Now was all lost but her liberty; and as she stalked along the nocturnal Moor, like a dark and gigantic bird, the miser swore aloud and cursed fortune at every step. A live thing in the path reminded her that she had not eaten food for six-and-thirty hours; stooping, therefore, she picked up a luckless frog, tore it asunder, and stayed her stomach with its quivering hind legs. Never had Lovey fallen into a temper more ferocious and brutal. Months of patient fraud were thrown away, and she found herself actually out of pocket upon the venture. This reflection maddened her. In a delirium of disappointment she strode forward, and once, when an owl screeched out of the coppice at Tor Royal, she screeched back at it like a fury, and swung her long arms, and cursed the stars because they looked like good money scattered and wasted upon the sky. She sank into a calenture of crazy wrath; frantically she longed for some object upon which to vent her mania of disappointed hope; and every moment she hastened unconsciously nearer a victim.
Grace Malherb grew weary of the long hours that separated her from John Lee\'s next visit. An eternity of time crawled by, and the very hands of her watch appeared to drag as she sat with it before her. Only once a sound fell on her ears through that protracted day. Then she heard a bell, the fall of many feet and the bleat of flocks. Soon the grazing sheep wandered away and silence fell again. The tinkle of the dropping water and the throb of her own heart were all her company. The gloom and the chill of her hiding-place crept to her bosom and froze the hope there. She fell to weaving fearful fancies; she pictured failure in a thousand shapes. The rusty and glimmering gold of the moss upon the walls grew hateful to her eyes. Yet it attracted them and held them, so that hour after hour she scanned the luminous cavern, and saw faces in it and read words scrawled in dull fire there, like the Handwriting on the Wall. She ate and drank a little, but her appetite failed her. All her emotions merged into intense longing for John Lee. Her watch told her that it was noon at last. Then she fought with herself to escape forebodings and set about occupying time with a search for the amphora. That treasure possessed none of the old fascination now; yet, thinking upon her father, she much desired for his sake to discover it, and made a diligent search both high and low. Her explorations revealed two other boxes tied with cords; and these she opened, only to find Sheffield plate in them.
An eternity of twelve more hours crawled by; then, when midnight had passed, Grace began to strain her ears for footsteps. It was a close, black night, with thunder in the air; but as yet no elemental murmur broke the stillness.
At three o\'clock, worn out and full of foreboding, the girl crept to her fern bed and prayed long prayers. Finally she slept, soothed by a determination to fly from this hated hole in the morning and hide elsewhere, if John Lee did not come. Her last waking thought turned to her father. "I will continue as firm as he is firm," she whispered to herself. "Would I had been different—for his sake; but not for my own."
Within an hour she slumbered, and when Lovey Lee sank silently down into her den, the girl heard nothing. Grace was hidden within a deep alcove of the wall, and she slept without a light. The miser, once in safety, stood silent and listened. It was for a growl of thunder that she waited; nor did she expect another sound. Heavy drops of rain began to fall, but as yet no storm awoke, though so inky was the east that dawn seemed delayed.
First Lovey ate a loaf of bread from her mouldering stores; then she sat down by the stone table in the midst of the grotto, rested her head on her hand and considered the position. The future bristled with dangers and difficulties; turning from it, therefore, she rose, lighted a candle and drew forth her treasures. The money she had not fingered for three weeks, and now she counted it, and the steady stream, sliding through her fingers, served to soothe her. Miser-like, she kept her supreme possession to the last, and before she brought it to the light, her mouth began to water and her eyes to glow. Though now crushed by an uncontrollable weight of weariness and sleep, she prayed to her glass god and performed his familiar rite before she slumbered. From the ground at the foot of her granite altar, the old woman scratched the soil, then drew forth a metal box. It clashed as she picked it up, and Grace waking at the sound, was just about to hasten forward when she heard the old woman\'s voice lifted to address her deity.
"Come to me, my purty blessing! To think as I haven\'t had a sight of \'e for nigh a month! An\' the devil\'s luck fallen to me since I seed \'e!"
The girl shrank back and watched, breathless, while Lovey drew a mass of cotton wool from her box, and then, revealing the Malherb amphora, placed it reverently on her granite table and lighted other candles around it. Now she squatted down before the vase and remained motionless, like a toad watching a fly. Here was her support and power, the spring of her existence, her sustenance, and the foundation-stone of her life. She gazed and gazed with greedy eyes; she licked her lips and nodded slowly, like a china image. The amphora, against its gloomy background, flashed in the candle-glow. Its azure splendours shone in the cavern\'s darkness; the acanthus leaves were touched with flickering gold, and the Cupids seemed to move and peep about behind the foliage.
"Dance! dance, my naked boys!" said Lovey. "Though there\'s nought to dance about to-night. All lost—an\' me a runaway! Where shall us go to next? Us can\'t live underground like a badger for ever. But I sold my cows a fortnight agone—that\'s something. Dance, you little devils; dance—dance!"
She gloated upon her treasure and trembled with joy of possession. Presently she put out her hand gently, like a cat touching a dazed mouse. Then the fit grew upon her. With each hand in turn she stroked the amphora and twisted it round and round. Anon she lifted it and brought it close to her face; she kissed it and cuddled it against her breast, and rubbed her cheeks upon it and slavered it, as might a fond mother lust over her child. Grace Malherb heard a harsh vibration, like a tiger purring.
"I\'ve got you, my heart an\' liver an\' reins! I\'ve got you, come what may, my lovely joanie! And the day I die, you\'ll die too; for I\'ll grind you to powder an\' eat you—fat babbies an\' all!"
She laughed and nuzzled the glass, crooned to it and licked it. Then her frenzy waned; she set the treasure gently down and fell back exhausted. Her passion cooled; her eyes went out, like extinguished lamps; she shrank as she sat there; and soon she began to whine again before the thought of her losses.
"Christ! what a cursed day! What——"
A sudden sound struck her silent. Grace had moved and loosened a fragment of stone. The noise, though slight enough, reached Lovey\'s ear. She snatched up a candle and, hastening into the recesses of the cavern, came face to face with her visitor.
Amazement so absolute overwhelmed the miser at this discovery, that for a space it smothered every other emotion. She glared speechless, then fell back and at last spoke.
"God\'s word! Be I drunk or dreaming? Are you alive, or dead an\' prying here a ghost from the grave? If you\'m dead I don\'t care a button for \'e! An\' if you\'m alive——"
"I\'m quite alive, Lovey Lee," said Grace without flinching before the ancient\'s terrific face.
"Alive, be you? Then \'tis the last minute you shall live to say you\'m alive! How did you get here? Tell me, or I\'ll kill you by inches—a finger to a time!"
"I\'ve done you no harm, Lovey. And I\'ll thank you to speak more quietly. There are men hunting for me on the Moor, and I\'ve no wish for them to find me," said Grace firmly. As yet no fear had touched her heart.
"Find you! They\'ll not find you! God A\'mighty won\'t find you. Yo............