Dick regarded him in wonder; then he turned and looked all about him at the empty hall.
"What make ye?" he inquired.
"Why, naught," returned the priest, hastily smoothing his countenance. "I make naught; I do but suffer; I am sick. I--I-- prithee, Dick, I must begone. On the true cross of Holywood, I am clean innocent alike of violence or treachery. Content ye, good lad. Farewell!"
And he made his escape from the apartment with unusual alacrity.
Dick remained rooted to the spot, his eyes wandering about the room, his face a changing picture of various emotions, wonder, doubt, suspicion, and amusement. Gradually, as his mind grew clearer, suspicion took the upper hand, and was succeeded by certainty of the worst. He raised his head, and, as he did so, violently started. High upon the wall there was the figure of a savage hunter woven in the tapestry. With one hand he held a horn to his mouth; in the other he brandished a stout spear. His face was dark, for he was meant to represent an African.
Now, here was what had startled Richard Shelton. The sun had moved away from the hall windows, and at the same time the fire had blazed up high on the wide hearth, and shed a changeful glow upon the roof and hangings. In this light the figure of the black hunter had winked at him with a white eyelid.
He continued staring at the eye. The light shone upon it like a gem; it was liquid, it was alive. Again the white eyelid closed upon it for a fraction of a second, and the next moment it was gone.
There could be no mistake. The live eye that had been watching him through a hole in the tapestry was gone. The firelight no longer shone on a reflecting surface.
And instantly Dick awoke to the terrors of his position. Hatch's warning, the mute signals of the priest, this eye that had observed him from the wall, ran together in his mind. He saw he had been put upon his trial, that he had once more betrayed his suspicions, and that, short of some miracle, he was lost.
"If I cannot get me forth out of this house," he thought, "I am a dead man! And this poor Matcham, too--to what a cockatrice's nest have I not led him!"
He was still so thinking, when there came one in haste, to bid him help in changing his arms, his clothing, and his two or three books, to a new chamber.
"A new chamber?" he repeated. "Wherefore so? What chamber?"
"'Tis one above the chapel," answered the messenger.
"It hath stood long empty," said Dick, musing. "What manner of room is it?"
"Nay, a brave room," returned the man. "But yet"--lowering his voice--"they call it haunted."
"Haunted?" repeated Dick, with a chill. "I have not heard of it. Nay, then, and by whom?"
The messenger looked about him; and then, in a low whisper, "By the sacrist of St. John's," he said. "They had him there to sleep one night, and in the morning--whew!--he was gone. The devil had taken him, they said; the more betoken, he had drunk late the night before."
Dick followed the man with black forebodings.
CHAPTER III--THE ROOM OVER THE CHAPEL
From the battlements nothing further was observed. The sun journeyed westward, and at last went down; but, to the eyes of all these eager sentinels, no living thing appeared in the neighbourhood of Tunstall House.
When the night was at length fairly come, Throgmorton was led to a room overlooking an angle of the moat. Thence he was lowered with every precaution; the ripple of his swimming was audible for a brief period; then a black figure was observed to land by the branches of a willow and crawl away among the grass. For some half hour Sir Daniel and Hatch stood eagerly giving ear; but all remained quiet. The messenger had got away in safety.
Sir Daniel's brow grew clearer. He turned to Hatch.
"Bennet," he said, "this John Amend-All is no more than a man, ye see. He sleepeth. We will make a good end of him, go to!"
All the afternoon and evening, Dick had been ordered hither and thither, one command following another, till he was bewildered with the number and the hurry of commissions.