"Nicholas, you will listen and warn us if anyone approaches," said Manners.

"I pray thee forget not that the time goes on apace," replied the confessor. "I will guard the door for thee."

The lovers were alone; they were free to enjoy each other's company for a little while, and in a short time the sound of eager conversation filled the room.

"Come, now, 'tis time," broke in the priest, after a long pause. "Sir George will be wondering at the long delay."

"A minute more, Nicholas, a minute more," was the excited reply.

"Now, Doll," Manners appealed, "I have told you all. What say you?"

"Not yet, John, not yet," she demurely replied.

"O, say not so, Doll," he pleaded, "they will never relent."

"I cannot do it, John; indeed, I cannot. I would refuse thee naught save this, but this I must refuse."

Her lover looked at her sadly. "Then we may not see each other again,"

he said, "till thou art Lady Stanley."

"Nay, nay," she replied quickly, "I shall never be that. My heart would break first. I shall never be that."

"Or I may be discovered, and--and then, Doll, what?"

"O don't, don't say that," she cried. "You tear my heart. I cannot do it, John; at least--at least not now."

"Mistress Dorothy, we must go now. I cannot, I dare not tarry any longer," said the priest as he came up and stood beside the lovers.

"We must go at once."

"A minute more, just a minute, Nicholas."

"Nay," he replied, "we must not linger any more."

"Go, then, I will follow thee," said Dorothy, and taking her at her word the father bowed himself low before the little altar and departed.

"Not yet," said Manners, "you cannot yet! Doll, it must come to this, and why not do it now?"

"Nay, nay, John, ask me not. I cannot, I cannot do it. Adieu, we shall meet again soon, trust me till then"; and giving him a farewell kiss, she left him alone and hastened into the Hall.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE ANGELS OF LIFE AND DEATH.

He said no more, For at that instant flashed the glare, And with a hoa.r.s.e, infernal roar, A blaze went up and filled the air!

Rafters, and stones, and bodies rose In one quick gush of blinding flame, And down, and down, amidst the dark, Hurling on every side they came.

AYTOUN.

Deep down in the rock upon which Nottingham Castle proudly stands, there winds a pa.s.sage which was used in the centuries long gone by as the readiest way of bringing the victuals in the castle, and which has long been commonly accepted as the veritable "Mortimer's Hole."

A man was busily engaged in arduous toil in one of the cavities hollowed out in the very heart of the rock. It was the chamber in which the dissolute Mortimer and the faithless Isabella had been captured by the youthful monarch, Edward III., two centuries and a half earlier, but no traces of its former grandeur--if it ever possessed any--now remained. It was changed into the abode of an alchemyst, and as Edmund Wynne ever and anon tapped an iron vessel his eyes sparkled with delight.

The room was full of fumes and smoke. Phials of many shapes and various sizes were ranged around on every side, filled with liquids of every imaginable odour and hue. A long rude bench, which ran along the farther side of the room, was crowded with boxes of crystals, crucibles, and bottles, and, to complete the scene, a log fire was smouldering away on the centre of the solid rock floor.

Edmund had long sought the elixir of life, but it had proved as delusive as a will-o'-the-wisp to him, and ever, just as he felt a.s.sured of success, the prize had slipped away from his grasp, leaving him further away from success than he had been before. But now it was not the elixir that he was seeking to find. From trying to discover something that should rob the grave of its prey, he had turned his attention towards the invention of an engine to hasten death. His heart was all aflame with the pa.s.sion of revenge. The lord of Haddon had incurred his intense and undying hatred. He had heaped indignities upon him; he had slain the object of his affections; and the disgrace into which he had fallen at London was also ascribed, rightly or wrongly, to the baron.

Baulked of his revenge hitherto, his pa.s.sionate desire for it had decreased rather than declined through his failures, and the very fact of his failing was itself another charge for which the baron would have to answer. Death, and death alone, would now be sufficient to wipe out the stain, and Edmund had long cudgelled his wits to secure the destruction of his foe.

"Aye, Edmund, Edmund," exclaimed Sir Ronald Bury, as he broke in upon Wynne's privacy, "at thy whimsical labours again, I see."

"Nay, not whimsical, Ronald," was the gentle reply. "My elixir is nearly right; only one ingredient more is wanted, and then!"

"And then, what?" laughed the knight.

"Why, then I shall have discovered what all the sages of the earth have sought in vain."

"A toadstone, I suppose?" replied Sir Ronald, lightly.

"Ha, you may laugh, Ronald," said the astrologer, severely. "Fools ever did mock the wise, like the rich despise the poor. You are but a soldier, and I am a man of science--the great alchemyst! My name shall live; yea, mark me, Ronald, it will be known and revered in time to come, aye, even when this castle has crumbled into dust, and when the name of Roger Bacon has been long forgotten."

"Well, Edmund," responded the knight, gaily, "let us hope so; only one more substance, eh?"

"Only one," the enthusiast replied, while the look of triumph flashed already from his eyes.

"And then we shall--shall what, Edmund, what shall we do?"

"Live for ages."

"For ever, in fact, I suppose?"

"My elixir will conquer disease, and man shall live until his feeble frame has worn away," he responded grandly.

"Lucky man," soliloquised Sir Ronald, facetiously. "But the dames, Edmund, you said naught of them. Cannot you discover aught for them?

Surely they may share the blessing also!"

"No more is wanted; my elixir will serve for both," majestically responded Edmund, as he placed a cauldron over the fire. He was too intensely in earnest himself to note that his companion was sceptically making fun of him.

"And will soldiers live for ages, too?" continued Sir Ronald.

"Those who are killed my elixir is impotent to bring back again to life. The dead are beyond all aid."

"And the wounded?" persisted the knight.

"I can but stave off disease, Ronald; but what a glorious achievement have I accomplished then! Methinks I see the glory now, and when I am in my grave, pilgrims shall come and worship at my shrine as they have done these centuries at the altar of St. Thomas the Martyr at Canterbury. What glory, what glory!" and in the exuberance of his delight, Edmund Wynne gleefully rubbed his hands together.