A labourer came running up to Rush Heath House about eleven o'clock that night. He hammered at the yard-door, and bawled at the servants' windows.
"The beacon be burning, the beacon be burning."
The men of Jasper's volunteer company were quartered at Rush Heath, and red-coats came tumbling out of barns, stable, and kitchen. The maids could be heard screaming in their attics, till Jack Bumpstead went up to reassure them and to tell them to dress. The men had crowded to the high field above the orchard, and were looking toward the sea.
"Beachy Head—that's her."
"Where's Captain Jasper?"
"It be the French, sure."
Jasper had been roused. He came up to the high field, and saw the burning beacon like a huge star, low down upon the black horizon. The flames were flinging their message through the night. It meant that the French had landed, or were preparing to land.
The whole household, save Squire Kit, were in the high field above the orchard. The women were there, awed and frightened, and huddling close for comfort.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! They'll be cutting our throats."
"Ye'll fight, lads, won't 'e? Don't let 'em terrify ye."
"O, Bob, lad, I be sure you'll get a bullet in your heart."
Jasper told the women to be quiet, and called his sergeant to him. Captain Curtiss was still an absentee. Gossip said that he had a love affair in London.
"That's Beachy Head, Cochrane."
"It is, sir."
"Fairlight should be lighting up. The signal will go in to Flimwell and Crowborough. Have the men had a meal?"
"They have, sir."
Jasper reflected a moment, with confused figures and a confused murmur of voices about him in the darkness. Some one had brought a lantern, but it was lost in the crowd.
Squire Christopher had utterly refused to desert the house.
"What! run away from a lot of beggarly French! Damn 'em, I'm a gentleman; I don't put my King on a chopping-block. I stay here, Jasper. If they come into my bedroom, sir, they'll hear how an English gentleman can swear."
Jasper had decided that Jack Bumpstead should be left to look after his father. The maids, the cottagers, and their children were to be packed into wagons and driven away inland.
"Jack, saddle Devil Dick. Farmer Lavender promised to come up and see after the wagons. Let the bullocks take the red wagon. The blue wagon and the horses must not leave here before dawn. Remember that—not before dawn. If any one comes bringing my gold ring, they are to have places in the blue wagon."
"Sure, Master Jasper."
"Sergeant Cochrane!"
"Sir?"
"In an hour, you will march your men off on the Hastings road. I shall rejoin you here, or else pick you up on the road. That's clear?"
The sergeant saluted.
"Clear, sir."
Jasper rode out toward Stonehanger.
"Durrell be hanged," he said to himself, "some one ought to warn them."
It was a darkish night, and the woods made the night darker. The beacon at Beachy Head showed its ominous yellow eye whenever Jasper was on high ground, and looked back over his right shoulder. Fairlight Down was invisible, but he believed that he could detect a faint glow in the eastern sky. Fairlight beacon should be well ablaze. Far hills would catch the signal, and blaze it on into the darkness.
Stonehanger Hill appeared as a dim outline looming up against an overcast sky. Jasper could see no light, in the house. He had to follow the lane, since the path over the common was too uncertain by night. The familiar yew-tree saluted him with its shadow. He left Devil Dick fastened to the gate that Anthony Durrell had slammed so unceremoniously in his face.
Jasper made his way round to the front of the house. From the terrace he seemed to look right away to the distant headland where the yellow beacon blazed between sea and sky. A light breeze played through the straggling thorns, and a lattice that was open creaked and rattled against its hook.
There was not a light to be seen in the house. Jasper looked for Nance's window, and found that it was the one with the open lattice. He stood looking up at it a moment, and then groped in one of the flower beds for a few small stones. Stepping back across the grass he took aim at the window, lobbing the stones up softly so as not to break the glass.
Pebble after pebble rattled against the panes. Jasper stood and listened. Nothing happened. He picked up more stones, and tossed them up harder, more than one entering the window and rattling on the floor within.
Something white flickered behind the glass, and a face appeared at the window.
"Nance—Nance."
"Who is it?"
"Jasper Benham. The beacon has been fired on Beachy Head. You can see it from your window."
She stood at gaze, holding her hair back with one hand.
"I thought you might be asleep and I rode over to warn you. It means that the French are coming."
Nance remained silent. Roused out of sleep to stare at that great yellow eye out yonder, her consciousness was confused for the moment, nor did the man's presence below her window help her toward tranquillity. The things that her father had told her concerning him were as vivid as the burning beacon. She felt numb and inarticulate, constrained to speak yet knowing not what to say.
"It was good of you to think of us."
Her voice seemed to come from a distance.
"I could not help coming."
"Oh."
"I have to join my men. There is room in one of our wagons for you and your father. I have an hour to spare. I can take you to Rush Heath."
A strange and obstinate contrariness seized her. She had a sense of a dull and undeserved pain at the heart.
"Father will not trouble——"
"He must."
"He is not afraid."
"Is he asleep?"
"I don't know."
"For God's sake, go and wake him. You must not be left here."
"It is quite useless, Mr. Benham. I know that father will not leave the house."
Her voice fell coldly on Jasper out of the darkness. It was not the voice he knew.
"Nance——"
"Please don't call me Nance."
It was as though she emptied her displeasure upon him. The rebuff was too real to be ignored.
"I shall have ridden ten miles when I ought to be with my men."
"I did not ask you to come."
Jasper was human, nor was he one of those soft fools who grovel.
"Nance, I did not come for this. What has turned you against me?"
"What do you mean?"
"Confound it, didn't your father slam the gate in my face! I'm a man—not a dog to be hallooed off down the road!"
The passion in his voice moved her more than he imagined.
"Please don't talk like this. Father——"
"Well, what has your father against me?"
"Why will you make it so difficult?"
"Difficult! It is a new thing for a Benham to have a door slammed in his face. Confound it. This is sheer nonsense. You must come to Rush Heath. Every one is being sent inland. These devils of French——"
He saw her arm come out. The hook of the lattice grated. She was closing the window.
"Nance——"
The lattice clattered to, and he was left to his own emotions.
Jasper's astonishment struck tragic attitudes. These people had been kind to him that night when he had been shot in the arm. What had made them change toward him? What had old Durrell told the girl that she should treat him so unreasonably?
Parson Goffin's accusation recurred to him.
"Impossible. The parson's a gossiping toper!"
Jasper stared up at the closed window, frowning and trying to put these detestable thoughts away.
"Either some one has been telling lies, or——"
He stood stiffly alert, like a sentinel who has heard a suspicious sound in the darkness. Some one was moving below the terrace. Footsteps shuffled on the rough stone steps. Jasper turned very slowly, but could see nothing.
"Libertas—libertas!"
Jasper's muscles quivered and hardened like the muscles of a horse that is struck with a whip. It was Anthony Durrell's voice, but Jasper could not see him.
Away yonder shone the beacon on Beachy Head. For the moment it was a clear and brilliantly yellow mass, the stone wall of the terrace showing under it as a black line. Suddenly it was obscured. A black figure interposed itself, a figure that stretched out its arms as a great bird expands its wings.
"Libertas—libertas! The destroyer comes. He shall winnow out the chaff to the four winds. Hail, Napoleon, man of destiny!"
Jasper stood stiff as a stone post. Durrell's black figure loomed across his consciousness. And suddenly Jasper understood. The man was a traitor, a spy!
He had a sense of smothering at the heart. Anger, shame, bewilderment had hold of him. He was thinking of Nance, and all that the closing of that window signified.
An impulse of anger drove him toward the figure outlined against the beacon. Some other influence drove him back. He turned and began to move away, sliding his feet cautiously over the grass.
He threw one glance at Nance's window.
"A spy, and the child of a spy!"
Then he remembered the little wicket gate that led into the passage opening into the stable-yard. Jasper turned to look at Durrell, and once more stood tied to the spot.
A second figure had joined the first. It was pointing with outstretched arm toward the sea.
A rush of anger and bitterness carried Jasper away. He fled from Stonehanger, cursing it and himself.
In two minutes he was galloping Devil Dick down the lane.
"In the pay of the French! But Nance——? I'll not believe it!"