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The Inn at the Red Oak

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Tom murmured an apology for being late, and delayed the black woman, who
was on the point of leaving the room, by a question.

"Where is Mr. Dan?"

"Sure an, Mass' Tom, I ain't seen him dis mornin' yet. Ain't he done
over-slept hisself like you?"

"No; but I dare say he is about the place somewheres. All right, Deb;
bring my breakfast quickly, please."

"You will pardon me," said Monsieur de Boisdhyver, "for having begun
without you?"

"Oh, certainly," said Tom; "Don't know what was the matter, but I slept
unusually soundly last night; that is, after I got to sleep, for the
storm kept me awake for hours."

"_Et moi aussi_," said the Marquis. "What wind! I am but thankful it
has exhausted itself at last. And Monsieur Frost, he has also
over-slept, you say?"

"No. He got up early without disturbing me. I guess he will be in any
minute now."

The Marquis stirred his coffee and slowly sipped it.

Tom made a hasty breakfast, and then went outside to reconnoitre. He
discovered no trace of his friend. There was but one inference in his
uneasy mind: Dan had met with some misadventure at the House on the
Dunes. At last, after wandering about aimlessly for some time, he decided
to tell Jesse of his uneasiness.

"If Mr. Dan is not back by dinner time, I shall go over to the House on
the Dunes and try to find out what has become of him. Heaven knows what
has become of Miss Nancy. I don't like that schooner, Jess, and its ugly
crew, lying there in the Cove. It's all a darn queer business."

"They're certainly a rough-looking lot, Mr. Tom, as I saw when I was on
the beach yesterday. And she don't appear to have any particular business
anchoring there. I hope they've nothing to do with Miss Nancy's and Mr.
Dan's being away."

"I don't know, Jess, what to think. But listen here I want you to go into
the Port this morning and engage Ezra Manners to come out here and stay
with us for a week or so. Don't tell him too much, but I guess Ezra won't
balk at the notion of a scrap. Bring him out with you, and offer to pay
him enough to make sure of his coming. And I want you to go to Breeze's
on the Parade and get some guns and powder, enough to arm every blessed
soul of us in the Inn. Charge the stuff to me. And be careful how you
bring it back, for I don't want any one here to know about it,
particularly the old Frenchman. Understand? You ought to get back by
dinner-time, if you start at once. I'll stay here till you return."

"I'll start right off, sir. Guess I'll have to drive, for the
rain'll have washed the snow off the roads. I'll be back by halfpast
twelve, Mr. Tom."

"All right," said Pembroke. "Be sure not to let any one know what you
are doing."

"Sure I won't, sir. I've been pretty much worried myself about Miss
Nancy. Didn't seem a bit like Miss Nance to go off without sayin' a word
to anybody.

"Well, hurry along now, Jesse."

"Yes, sir."

Tom's next task was to try to explain to Mrs. Frost without alarming her.
She happily jumped to the idea that Dan had gotten trace of Nancy, had
gone to fetch her, and would return with her before nightfall. So Tom
left her quite cheerfully knitting in her room for the day.

From time to time during the morning Tom wandered into the bar always to
find Monsieur de Boisdhyver absorbed in his writing before the fire. The
morning passed--a long restless morning for Pembroke--and nothing had
happened. Dan had not returned. He tried to think out a plan of action.
He went into the north wing of the Inn and barricaded the door leading
from the bowling alley into the hallway. He made sure that all other
doors and windows were fastened, and he put the key of the door that
opened from the bar into the old wing into his pocket. Then he looked at
the doors and windows in the south wing.

About noon, as he was standing at an upper window anxiously scanning the
landscape for any sign of his friend, Tom saw the Marquis, wrapped in his
great black cloak, emerge from the gallery, go down the steps by the Red
Oak, and walk rapidly down the avenue of maples. He went along the Port
Road, to the point where a little road branched off and led to the beach
of the Cove; here he turned and walked in the direction of the beach.
With the field glass Tom could follow him quite easily as he picked his
way through the slush.

Beyond, on the waters of the Cove, the _Southern Cross_ rode at anchor. A
small boat had put off from the schooner, two seamen at the oars, and a
woman seated in the stern. The boat reached the shore, the lady was
lifted out upon the sands, the men jumped in again, pushed off and rowed
briskly back to the schooner. Tom could not distinguish the lady's
features, but from the style of her dress, cut in so different a fashion
than that the ladies of Caesarea were wont to display, and from the
character of her easy graceful walk, he judged that that was the Madame
de la Fontaine, of whom Dan had told him the day before. The lady,
whoever she might be, advanced along the beach and turned into the road
down which the Marquis de Boisdhyver was going to meet her. Tom could see
her extend her hand, and the old gentleman, bending ceremoniously, lift
it to his lips. Then leaning against a stone wall beside a meadow of
bedraggled snow, they engaged in animated conversation. The lady talked,
the Marquis talked. They shrugged their shoulders, they nodded their
heads, they pointed this way and then that. Poor Tom felt he must know
what was being said. At last, their conference ended, they parted as
ceremoniously as they had met, the lady starting across the Dunes and the
Marquis retracing his steps toward the Inn.

In the meantime, fortunately before the Marquis reached the Port Road,
Jesse had returned, accompanied by the able-bodied Ezra Manners, and
laden with the supply of arms and ammunition that Pembroke had ordered.

Within half-an-hour Tom and Monsieur de Boisdhyver were seated together
in the dining-room.

"Ah, and where is Monsieur Dan?" asked the Marquis, with an affectation
of cheerfulness. "Is he not returned?"

"Not yet, monsieur," Tom replied grimly.

"But you have heard from him?"

"Oh, yes," was Tom's answer; "I have heard from him of course."

"And from Mademoiselle Nancy, I trust, also?"

"Yes, from Nancy also."

"Ah, I am so relieved, Monsieur Pembroke. I was most anxious for their
safety. One knows not what may happen. We shall have a charming little
reunion at supper, _n'est-ce pas_?"

"Delightful," said Tom, but in a tone of voice that did not encourage the
Marquis to ask further questions or to continue his comments.

After dinner, Tom slipped the field glass beneath his jacket, and ran
upstairs to take another view of the countryside. To his great
satisfaction he saw a dark spot moving across the snowy dunes and
recognized the lady of the morning. Apparently she was on her way to the
Cove again.

He took a loaded pistol, ran down stairs, gave Jesse strict orders to
keep his eye on the Marquis, saddled his horse, and galloped off madly
for Mrs. Meath's house.

When he reached the gate of the farmhouse, Tom hitched his horse to the
fence, went rapidly up the little walk, and knocked boldly and loudly on
the front door. Repeated and prolonged knocking brought no response. He
tried the door and found it fastened. He walked about the house. Every
window on the ground floor was tightly closed and barred. There was no
sign of life. He knocked at the door of the kitchen, but with no result.
He tried it, and found it also locked. Determined not to be thwarted in
his effort to see Mrs. Meath, he kicked vigourously against the door with
his great hob-nailed boots. Unsuccessful in this, he detached a rail from
the top of the fence and used it against the door as a battering-ram. At
the first crash of timbers, the sash of a window in the second story,
directly above the kitchen, was thrown open, and a dark-eyed,
dark-haired, excessively angry-looking, young woman thrust her head out.

"_Qui va la_?" she exclaimed.

"Well," said Tom, smiling a little in spite of himself, for the young
woman was in a state of great indignation. "I want to see Mrs. Meath. I
may say, I am determined to see Mrs. Meath."

"_Peste! Je ne parle pas anglais_!" snapped the damsel.

"Very well then, mademoiselle, I'll try you in French," said Tom. And in
very bad French indeed, scarcely even the French of Dr. Watson's school
for the sons of gentlemen, Pembroke repeated his remarks.

"_Je ne comprend pas_," said the young woman.

Tom essayed his explanation again, but whether the youthful female in the
window could or would not understand, she kept repeating in the midst of
his every sentence "_Je ne parle pas anglais_," till Tom lost his temper.

"_Bien_, my fine girl," he exclaimed at last; "I am going to enter this
house. If you won't open the door, I will batter it down. Understand?
_Comprenez-vous_?"

"_Je ne parle pas anglais_."

"As you will." He raised the fence-rail again and made as if to ram the
door. "_Ouvrez la porte_! Do you understand that?"

"_Bete_!" cried the girl, withdrawing her head and slamming down
the window.

Tom waited a moment to see if his threats had been effective, and was
relieved by hearing the bar within removed and the key turned in the
lock. The door was opened, and the young woman stood on the sill and
volleyed forth a series of French execrations that made Tom wince,
though he did not understand a word she was saying. Despite her protests,
he brushed her aside and stalked into the house. He went rapidly from
room to room, upstairs and down, from garret to cellar, the girl
following him with her chorus of abusive reproach. She might have held
her peace, thought Tom, for within half-an-hour he was convinced that
there was not a person in the House on the Dunes save himself and his
excited companion. All he discovered for his pains was that old Mrs.
Meath was also among the missing.

"_Ou est Madame Meath_?"

"_Madame Meath! Que voulez vous? Je ne connais pas Madame Meath_...." And
infinitely more of which Tom could gather neither head nor tail.

Satisfied at last that there was nothing to be gained by further search
or parley with the woman, he thanked her civilly enough and went out. He
unhitched his horse, vaulted into the saddle, and dashed back, as fast as
his beast could be urged to carry him, to the Inn. He was certain now
that the schooner held the secret of his vanished friends, and it
occurred to him to play their own game and turn the tables on Monsieur
the Marquis de Boisdhyver.

Arrived at the Inn, Tom turned his horse, white with lather, over to
Jesse; made sure that the Marquis was in the bar; and then, with the help
of Manners, rapidly made a few preparations.

It was about five o'clock when, his arrangements completed, he returned
to the bar, where Monsieur de Boisdhyver was quietly taking his tea. Tom
bowed to the old gentleman, seated himself in a great chair about five
feet away, and somewhat ostentatiously took from his pocket a pistol,
laid it on the arm of his chair, and let his fingers lightly play upon
the handle. The old marquis watched Pembroke's movements out of the
corner of his eye, still somewhat deliberately sipping his tea. Manners,
meanwhile, had entered, and stood respectfully in the doorway, oddly
enough also with a pistol in his hand.

Suddenly Monsieur de Boisdhyver placed his teacup on the table, and
leaning back in his chair, surveyed Tom with an air of indignant
astonishment.

"Monsieur Pembroke," he said, "to what am I to attribute these so unusual
attentions? Is it that you are mad?"

"You may attribute these unusual attentions, marquis, to the fact that
from now on, you are not a guest of the Inn at the Red Oak, but a
prisoner."

"Ah!" exclaimed the Marquis with a start, as he made a spasmodic motion
toward the pocket of his coat. But if his intention had been to draw a
weapon, Tom was too quick for him. The Marquis found himself staring into
the barrel of a pistol and heard the unpleasant click of the trigger as
it was cocked.

The old gentleman paled, whether with fright or indignation, Tom was not
concerned to know. "You will please keep perfectly still, marquis."

"Monsieur Pembroke," exclaimed the old gentleman, "_C'est_ abominable,
outrageous, _Mon Dieu_, what insult!"

"Manners," said Tom, "kindly search that gentleman and put his firearms
out of his reach."

"Monsieur, _c'est extraordinaire_. I protest."

"Quick, Ezra," replied Tom, "or one of us is likely to know how it feels
to have a bullet in his skin. Up with your hands, marquis."

Monsieur de Boisdhyver obeyed perforce, while Manners quickly searched
him, removed a small pistol from his coat pocket and a stiletto from his
waistcoat, and handed them to Tom.

"I thought as much," said Pembroke, slipping them into his pocket. "Now,
sir, you will oblige me by dropping that attitude of surprised
indignation."

"Monsieur," said the Marquis, "What is it that you do? Why is it that you
so insult me?"

"Monsieur, I will explain. You are my prisoner. I intend to lock you up
safely and securely until my friend and his sister return, unharmed, to
the Inn. When they are safe at home, when Madame de la Fontaine has taken
her departure from the House on the Dunes, and when the _Southern Cross_
has sailed out of the Strathsey, we shall release you and see you also
safely out of this country. Is that clear?"

"_Mais, monsieur_--"

"I am quite convinced that you know where Nancy is and what has happened
to Dan. As my friends are probably in your power or in the power of your
friends, so, dear marquis, you are in mine. If you wish to regain your
own liberty, you will have to see that they have theirs. Now kindly
follow Manners; it will give him pleasure to show you to your apartment.
There you may burn either red or green lights, and I am sure the
snowbirds and rabbits of Lovel's Woods will enjoy them. After you,
monsieur."

"Sir, I refuse."

"My dear marquis, do not make me add force to discourtesy. After you."

The Marquis bowed ironically, shrugged his shoulders, and followed
Manners up the stairs. He was ushered into a chamber on the west side of
the Inn, whose windows, had they not been heavily barred, would have
given him a view but of the thick tangles of the Woods.

"I trust you will be able to make yourself comfortable here," said Tom.
"Your meals will be served at the accustomed hours. I shall return myself
in a short time, and perhaps by then you will have reconciled yourself to
the insult I have offered you and be prepared to talk with me."

With that Tom bowed as ironically as the Marquis had done, went out and
closed the door, and securely locked and barred it outside. Monsieur de
Boisdhyver was left to his reflections.



CHAPTER XIII

MADAME DE LA FONTAINE


For several hours after his return to the little cabin Dan had ample
leisure in which to think over his extraordinary interview. There could
be no doubt that the conspirators, for such he had come to call them to
himself, were determined and desperate enough to go to any lengths in
accomplishing their designs. Whether his suspicions and activity in
seeking Nancy had precipitated their plans, his unexpected capture seemed
to embarrass his captors as much as it did himself. At least, he gathered
this from Madame de la Fontaine's conversation. Whatever might be the
motive of the lady's proposed confidence, poor Frost could see nothing
for it but to await their disclosure and then seize whatever advantage
they might open to him. Notwithstanding the fact that Dan had cautioned
himself against trusting the flattery of his charming visitor,
notwithstanding that he told himself to be forewarned, even by his own
suspicions, was to be forearmed, he was in reality unconscious of the
degree to which he had proved susceptible to the lady's blandishments, if
indeed she had employed blandishments and had not merely given him the
evidence of a good heart upon which his youth and naiveté had made a
genuine impression.

Dan's experiences with girls up to this time had been limited. His
emotional nature had never, as yet, been deeply stirred. But no one could
be insensible to Madame de la Fontaine's beauty and charm, and her
delightfully natural familiarity; and, finally, her fleeting kiss had
seemed to Dan but evidence of a warm impulsive heart. To be sure, with
all the good will in the world, he could not acquit her of being
concerned in a mysterious plot--indeed, had she not admitted so
much?--though, also, he must in justice remember that he knew very little
of the nature of the plot in question.

As he paced restlessly back and forth the length of his prison, he tried
to think clearly of the accumulating mystery. Was there a hidden treasure
and how did the Marquis know about it? What part had the _Southern Cross_
to play with its diabolical looking captain, and what could have become
of Nancy? Then why had Madame de la Fontaine--but again his cheek would
burn and remembrance of the bewitching Frenchwoman blotted out all else.

At half-past twelve Captain Bonhomme appeared again. This time he invited
Dan to partake of luncheon with him on the condition once more of a
parole. And Dan accepted. He and the Captain made their luncheon
together, attended by the faithful Jean; and, though no mention was made
to their anomalous position, the meal was not altogether a comfortable
one. Captain Bonhomme asked a great many questions about the country, to
which Frost was inclined to give but the briefest replies; nor, on his
part, did he show more disposition to be communicative in response to
Dan's questions about France. Jean regarded the situation with obviously
surly disapproval. When the meal was finished, Frost was conducted back
to his little cabin.

About two o'clock he saw the small boat put off for shore, and glancing
in that direction, he was relieved to see Madame de la Fontaine already
waiting upon the beach. Within half-an-hour he was again in her
presence in the Captain's saloon, where their conversation had taken
place in the morning.

The lady received him graciously. "Ah! monsieur Dan, I fear you have had
a weary day of it; but it was impossible for me to return sooner."

"It is very kind of you to return at all," replied Dan, gallantly enough.

"Now, Monsieur, you are anxious, I know, that I keep my promise of
the morning."

"Most anxious," said Dan.

"Without doubt. Come here, my friend, sit near me and listen attentively
to a long story."

"You have consulted with the Marquis?"

"_Mais oui_. It was difficult, but I have brought him to my way of
thinking. I am certain that it was an error in the first place not
taking you into our confidence. _Eh bien_! Tell me, do you know how
your foster-sister came to be in the charge of your mother at the Inn
at the Red Oak?"

"Yes, I know what my mother has told me. The child was abandoned to her
rather than left in her charge."

"_Mais non_" said Madame de la Fontaine; "General Pointelle was impelled
to act as he did by the strongest motives,--nothing less than the
tremendous task, undertaken for his country, to liberate the Emperor
Napoleon from Elba. General Pointelle was a soldier,--more, he was a
maréchal of the Empire; the greatest responsibilities devolved upon him.
It was impossible for him to be burdened with a child."

"But why, madame, did he not take my mother into his confidence?"

"Secrecy was imperative, monsieur. Even to this day, you do not know who
General Pointelle actually was. His was a name well-known in France,
glorious in the annals of the Empire; a name, too, familiar to you in a
somewhat different connection. 'General Pointelle' was the
_nom-de-guerre_, as it were, of François, Marquis de Boisdhyver, maréchal
de France."

"François! you say, _François_!" exclaimed Dan.

"_Mais oui_, monsieur; but that should hardly astonish you so much as the
fact that he was a Boisdhyver. Why are you surprised?"

"Simply, madame," exclaimed Dan hastily, "by the fact that it is the same
name as that of our Marquis."

"Not quite," corrected the lady; "our Marquis--as you say--is
Marie-Anne-Timélon-Armand de Boisdhyver, the General's younger brother."

"Ah! and therefore Nancy's uncle?"

"Yes, the uncle of Nancy Frost, or of Eloise de Boisdhyver."

"I see," said Dan. "I begin to see."

"_Eh bien_, monsieur. General Pointelle--the maréchal de
Boisdhyver,--left the Inn at the Red Oak upon a mission for the Emperor,
then at Elba. _Hélas_! that mission ended with disaster after the Hundred
Days; for, as you know, the Emperor was sent in exile to St. Helena; and,
as you may not know, the Maréchal de Boisdhyver was killed on the plains
of Waterloo. _Allons_; when he left Deal, he concealed in a hidden
chamber, which one enters, I believe, from a room you call the Oak
Parlour, a large treasure, of jewels and gold. This treasure, saved from
the _debacle_ in France, he had brought with him to America, and he hid
it in the Inn, for the future of his little daughter Eloise. You remember
that your mother was to hear something of advantage to her and the child,
did not the General return. It was the secret of the treasure and the
directions to find it. Well, Monsieur, at Waterloo, you must know, the
Maréchal and his brother, the present Marquis, fought side by side.
François de Boisdhyver fell, nobly fighting for the glory of France;
Marie-Anne had the good fortune to preserve his life, but was taken
prisoner by the English. Before the Maréchal received his death wound,
the two brothers spoke with each other for the last time. In that
moment, monsieur, the Marquis François revealed to the Marquis Marie-Anne
that he had abandoned his daughter in America and that he had concealed
in your old inn a treasure sufficient to provide for her future. He
charged his brother to go to America, if he survived the battle; claim
the little Eloise; rescue the treasure, and return with her to France and
restore the fallen fortunes of the House of Boisdhyver.

"It took the Marquis Marie-Anne a long time to carry out his brother's
dying injunctions," said Dan.

"Ah! but yes. You do not realize that the Marquis Marie-Anne, after the
fall of Napoleon, spent many years in a military prison in England, for I
have already told you that he fell into the hands of the enemy on the
field of Waterloo. When at last he was released, he was aged, broken, and
in poverty. His brother, in those dreadful moments on the battlefield,
had been able to give him but the briefest description of the Inn at the
Red Oak and the hidden treasure. He did not tell him where the treasure
was, but only how he might obtain the paper of instructions which the
Maréchal had concealed in a curiously-carved old cabinet in the Oak
Parlour. The Maréchal, monsieur, loved the mysterious, and chose the
device of tearing into two parts this paper of directions and concealing
them in different hiding-places of the cabinet. Those directions, after
many years, grew vague in the younger brother's memory.

"_Eh bien_, the Marquis was at last able to make the journey to this
country. You must remember he had nothing wherewith to prove his story,
if he gave you his confidence at once; and so, he decided, to investigate
quietly alone. But he won the confidence of Mademoiselle Nancy,--that is,
of his niece, Eloise de Boisdhyver,--and revealed to her the secret of
her identity and the mysterious story of the treasure. You follow me in
all this, Monsieur Dan?"

"Perfectly, madame," Frost replied. "But as yet you have told me nothing
of your own connection with this strange history."

"Pardon, dear boy," rejoined Madame de la Fontaine; "I was about to do
so, but there is so much to tell. My own connection with the affair is
quite simple. I am an old friend, one of the oldest, of Monsieur le
Marquis de Boisdhyver, and, when I was a very young girl, I knew the
Maréchal himself. It has been my happiness to be able to prove my
friendship for a noble and a fallen family. One day last summer, Monsieur
de Boisdhyver told me his brother's dying words, and it was I, Monsieur
Dan, who was able to give the money for this strange expedition. The poor
Marquis had lost quite all his fortune."

"I understand," said Frost. "But, yet, madame, I do not see the necessity
for the secrecy, the mystery, for these strange signals at night, for
these midnight investigations, for this schooner and its rough crew, for
Nancy's disappearance, for my own imprisonment here."

"Please, please," murmured Madame de la Fontaine, as she held up her
hands in smiling protest. "You go too fast for me. _Un moment, mon ami,
un moment_. It was sixteen years ago that the Maréchal de Boisdhyver was
a guest at the Inn at the Red Oak. You forget that the Marquis de
Boisdhyver had no proof of his right to the treasure, save his own story,
save his account of his brother's instructions on the field of Waterloo.
By telling all he might have awakened deeper suspicions than by secrecy."

"That, I must say," Dan interrupted, "would hardly be possible."

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