So Tom walked on in high spirits, feeling well equipped for the coming struggle, and fearing little the peril which might lie before him. In the pride of his manhood's strength, he laughed at the thought of danger. He had faced too many perils of late to begin to turn coward now. So long as he felt that he was leading these followers away from the other pa.s.s to be taken by his comrade, he cared for nothing else--not even for the discovery he once made that they were three in number, though Lord Claud had calculated that they would only be two.

Sometimes Tom noted that his guide would look back, and more than once he fancied that he detected him signalling to those below.

This aroused in his mind a doubt of the fellow's fidelity; but there was nothing to be done now. They were in the midst of trackless snow plains, ice slopes, and precipices. He must perforce trust to the leading of the guide, albeit, if he had been tampered with by those in pursuit, things might look ugly when it came to the moment of attack.

As the hours wore away, Tom began to wish that the situation might declare itself. The drear wildness of the mountain height oppressed him with a sense of personal insignificance which was rather overwhelming. The great white mountains seemed to stare down upon him as though pitilessly indifferent to his fate. How could they care what became of one solitary son of earth? Did they not stand fast for ever more, from century to century? It was a thought that he found oppressive and rather terrible.

At one point the guide insisted upon leaving what looked like the better track, and led him round a sort of shoulder of piled up snow and rock, where walking was very laborious. Tom began to feel the need of food, and would have stopped and opened his wallet; but the man shook his head and gesticulated, and seemed to urge him onwards at some speed. Tom supposed he must obey, as the man pointed warningly to the rocks above, as though to hint that danger might be expected from them.

So on they trudged, Tom feeling a slight unaccustomed giddiness in the head, as many persons do who first try walking for some hours in the glare of sun and snow and at a high alt.i.tude. Then the path suddenly turned again under the frowning wall of rock, which rose black and stern through the covering of snow. The guide disappeared round the angle of the path; Tom followed with quick steps, and the next moment was almost felled to the earth by the terrific blow of a cudgel upon his head.

Almost, but not quite. He had been on his guard. He felt that the crisis was coming, and he was certain that the guide had betrayed him at this pre-arranged spot into the hands of his enemies. In one second Tom's rapier was out (he had carried that in spite of the hindrance it had sometimes been to him), and although he was half-blinded and half-stunned by the force of the blow received, he lunged fiercely forward, and heard a yell of pain which told him that his blade had found its billet.

But the blade could not at once be disentangled. For two seconds, perhaps, was Tom struggling with it; and in those two seconds one of his adversaries sprang behind him, and seized him round the waist with the hug of a bear.

In a second Tom had whipped out his pistols, and fired full at a dark figure in front of him; but his eyes were full of blood, and a taunting laugh told him that his shot had missed its mark. With a quick movement of his strong arm backwards he dealt the man who was holding him a terrific blow with the b.u.t.t of the pistol, and discharged the other full at another dark figure looming in front.

This time there was an answering yell; but the odds were still tremendous, and Tom felt himself growing faint and giddy, and though he hit out l.u.s.tily on all sides, he had no confidence that his blows told.

Every moment he expected to hear the sound of a report, and to know that his quietus had come; but at last he was aware that it was his captors' wish to take him prisoner, and not to kill him. They had closed in upon him now that he was disarmed, and were using every artifice to overpower him without further injury.

Tom felt his own struggles becoming weaker each moment, and at last he was conscious that somebody had crawled towards his feet and was pa.s.sing a cord about them. In vain he sought to kick out and release himself; the next minute the cord was pulled tight. His feet were jerked from beneath him, he fell backwards heavily, and for some time he knew no more.

When he opened his eyes once again, he found himself sitting propped up against the rocks, his arms tightly pinioned to his sides, and his feet still enc.u.mbered by cords; whilst at a little distance sat his a.s.sailants in a ring, eating and drinking, and making merry together.

One had a bandaged head, and another had his arm in a rude sling.

But the guide had come in for the worst of Tom's blows, and lay all his length along the ground, stiff and dead.

Tom smiled a grim sort of smile. He suspected that the same fate would shortly be his, but nevertheless he did not pity the unfaithful peasant. If he had acted loyally by the man he professed to serve, this ill would scarcely have befallen him. He had met his punishment somewhat more swiftly than is usual.

The men talked in French, and too fast for Tom to catch a word of their meaning; but when they saw that his eyes were open, and that he was watching them, they laughed and nodded at him, and by-and-by one brought him food and a cup of wine, and Tom felt mightily refreshed thereby.

Then they looked up at the sky, and at the sun which had some time since pa.s.sed its meridian, and began to make ready to depart. Tom was half afraid at first that they, having robbed him of his despatches, were going to leave him helplessly bound here amongst the snow, to perish of cold and starvation. But when they were all in readiness they unbound his feet, and bid him rise and come with them. Indeed, he had no option in this matter, for one of them held the end of the cord which bound his arms, and drove him on in front as men drive unruly cattle.

Tom felt giddy and stiff, but he scorned to show weakness; and it was less trying to descend the pa.s.s than to ascend it, although the rough walking with tightly-bound arms was more difficult than he had fancied, and several times he tripped and fell heavily, unable to save himself.

He was, therefore, very bruised and sore and weary when at last he found that they were approaching the little hut he had left early that same morning. But amid all his weariness and pain, and the peril of his position, he felt, with a thrill of proud satisfaction, that he had at least played the part which had been allotted to him, and had drawn off the forces of the enemy whilst Lord Claud made good his escape with the real despatches. Whatever vials of fury might quickly be poured upon his head, he would always know that he had done his duty--and who can do more than that?

A light was twinkling in the hut. Tom was pushed and hustled within. A voice, that he remembered as having heard once before, called out from above:

"Bring the prisoner up here to me."

The next minute Tom entered the very room where he and Lord Claud had slept the previous night; but it was now tenanted by a new occupant--a dark-skinned man of huge frame and malignant aspect--who regarded Tom from beneath the penthouse of his frowning brows, and plainly remembered him as well as he was himself remembered.

"So we meet again, my young buck of the forest! You seem to serve a master who takes pleasure in bringing you into peril and doubtful adventure! So you are the bearer of despatches to the Duke of Savoy? I fear, my good friend, Victor Amadeus will be disappointed of his news for once. And I say in good sooth, that if his grace of Marlborough chooses to intrust the matters of the secret service to unfledged lads, he deserves to find himself outwitted."

Tom compressed his lips to hide the smile that might have told too much. He preserved a stolid appearance, and remained mute.

Sir James gave a quick order in French, and at once some of the cords about Tom's person were cut, and the packet sewed up in his coat was duly brought forth. As it was handed to Sir James and he saw the signet of the Duke, a sardonic smile played over his features, and Tom's eyes gleamed in their sockets.

The dark-browed man eagerly undid the packet, and drew forth the parchment sheet. He scanned it over and over; he turned it this way and that. His face betrayed nothing, but Tom saw that his fingers trembled slightly as with ill-veiled excitement or anger.

He gave one fierce, searching look at Tom, who preserved an air of indifference, and then he took the paper across to the stove, and held it in the heat of the glow which stole thence.

Back he came with it to the table; but there was nothing revealed by the application of heat. He called sharply for something to one of his men, and a small phial was brought to him. He applied a drop of the liquid it contained to the parchment; and eagerly awaited the result; but no lettering was revealed upon it, and his face grew dark and stern.

How many tests he applied Tom scarcely knew; but he saw that this man was master of all the arts of secret penmanship, and that no matter would have been kept from him had it been intrusted to the paper.

At last Sir James became satisfied of this himself. The veins on his forehead swelled with anger. He saw that he had been tricked, and his fury was hotly aroused.

Smiting his great hand upon the table, he cried in a voice of thunder:

"This despatch is a trick and a fraud. There is nothing but a sheet of blank paper. Men do not risk their lives in carrying dummy packets.

"Where is the true despatch, knave? Out with it, or 'twill he the worse for you!"

"That is all I have," answered Tom quietly; "I know nothing of any other. Search me if you will. You will find naught else."

"Search him! search him well!" said Sir James to his servants, almost panting in his ire. "The knave was never sent to the Duke with nothing hut this in his keeping. Find it instantly! I love not these delays!"

Instantly Tom was laid on his back upon the floor, and such a search was made of his dress and person as was a matter of curiosity and amaze to himself. Even his nose and ears and mouth were explored by rough fingers, in a fashion none too gentle; whilst his clothing was well-nigh ripped to pieces, and he wondered how he should ever make it fit for wear again. Certainly if he had had any missive to carry it would not have escaped the scrutiny of his captors, and their oaths and kicks bespoke their baffled disappointment.

"Then he has messages intrusted to him," said Montacute, first in French, and then in English. "Set the fellow upon his feet, and bind fast his hands to yon rafter. If he will not speak the truth, it shall he flogged out of him!"

The swarthy man was growing very angry at his failure. He may have begun to suspect that he had been duped by a wit keener than his own, and the thought raised within him the demon of cruelty and l.u.s.t of blood. He hated Lord Claud with a deadly hatred, having been worsted by him in encounters of many kinds. If unable to wreak his vengeance upon the man himself, to do so upon his follower was the next best thing.

"Tell me with what messages to the Duke of Savoy you are charged!"

he cried, standing before Tom with flaming eyes. "You are not sent upon this quest with neither letter nor word. Speak, or you shall be made to find your tongue!"

"I will speak as much as you like," answered Tom, with haughty disdain in his tone, though his flesh crept at the sight of the men knotting the ends of rope in their hands; "but I am charged with no message. I know nothing of what you would wish to know. You can flog till you are weary, but you can't get out of me what I do not know. That at least is one satisfaction."

Montacute waved his hand. The next moment the ropes descended upon Tom's bare back. He set his teeth, and made no cry, though the blood came surging to his head, and the room seemed to swim in blood. Again and again they descended; but the keen pain awoke within Tom that ferocity of strength which comes to men in their extremity, so that, like Samson, they can turn the tables upon their foes.

The hut was but a rude affair, somewhat loosely put together. The beam to which Tom's arms had been bound was not too strongly jointed to its fellow.

A sudden madness seemed to come upon this man of thews and sinews.

He gave a sudden bound and wrench; he felt the beam give, and redoubled his efforts; the next moment the whole rafter came bodily down upon their heads. Tom ducked, and escaped its fall; but it pinned one of his foes to the ground, and his own hands were immediately free.

With a bound like that of a tiger, and a roar like that of a wounded lion, he sprang, or rather flew, at Montacute, flung him over backwards upon the floor, and pinned him by the throat, uttering all the while a savage sort of growling sound, like a wild beast in its fury.

The light was thrown over in this strange melee; the room was plunged in darkness. The two men upon the floor lay struggling together in a terrible silence, only broken by Tom's fierce snarlings, that seemed scarce human. So terrified were the remaining two men, that they could do nothing for the a.s.sistance of their master; indeed, they hardly knew what was happening to him.

They set up a shouting for aid, half afraid to stir lest the whole house should come falling about their ears.

There were steps in the room below. Footsteps mounted the stairs.

The door was thrown open, a shaft of light streamed in, and a calm, full voice demanded in the French tongue:

"What, in the name of all the saints, is this?"

"Holy father, he is murdering our master!" suddenly cried one of the men, recovering from his stupor of terror, and seeing now how Tom's great hands were gripping the throat of Sir James.