The Hound of the Baskervilles - Chapter 14

Books at Bedtime by Calming Anxiety The Hounds of the Baskervils Chapter 14 The Hound of the Baskervils One of Sherlock Holmes' defects, if indeed, one may call it a defect, was that he was exceedingly low to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment. Partly, it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly also, from his professional caution, which urged him never to take any chances. The result, however, was very trying for those who were acting as his agents and assistants.

I had often suffered under it, but never more so than during that long drive in the darkness. The great ordeal was in front of us, at least we were about to make our final effort, and yet Holmes had said nothing, and I could only surmise what his course of action would be. My nerves thrilled with anticipation when at last the cold wind upon our faces and the dark void spaces on either side of the narrow road told me that we were back upon the more once more. Every stride of the horses and every turn of the wheels was taken as nearer to our supreme adventure.

Our conversation was hampered by the presence of the driver of the hired wagonette, so that we were forced to talk of trivial matters when our nerves were tense with emotion and anticipation. It was a relief to me, after that unnatural restraint, when we were at last past Franklin's house and knew that we were drawing near to the hall and to the scene of the action. We did not drive up to the door, but got down near the gate of the avenue. The wagonette was paid off, and ordered to return to Cune Tracey forthwith, while we started to walk to Meripit House.

Are you armed, the stride? The little detective smiled. As long as I have my trousers, I have a hip pocket, and as long as I have my hip pocket, I have something in it. Good, my friend and I are also ready for the emergencies.

You might be close about this affair Mr. Holmes. What's the game now? A waiting game. My word.

It does not seem a very cheerful place, said the detective with a shiver, glancing round him at the gloomy slopes of the hill and at the huge lake of fog which lay over the grim pin my ear. I see the lights of a house ahead of us. That is Meripit House and the end of our journey. I must request you to walk on tiptoe and to not talk above a whisper.

We moved cautiously along the track. As if we were bound for the house, but Holmes halted us when we were about 200 yards from it. This will do, said he. These rocks, up the right, make an admirable scream.

We are to wait here. Yes, we shall make our little ambush here. Get into this hollow, stride. You have been inside the house, have you not Watson?

Can you tell the position of the rooms? What are those lastest windows at the end? I think they are the kitchen windows and the one beyond which shines so brightly, that is certainly the dining room. The blinds are up.

You know the lie of the land best. Creep forward quietly and see what they are doing, but for heaven's sake don't let them know that they are watched. I tiptoed down the path and stood behind the low wall which surrounded the stunted orchard. Creeping in its shadows.

I reached a point where I could look straight through the uncurent window. There were only two men in the room, Sir Henry and Stapleton. They sat with their profiles towards me on either side of the round table. Both of them were smoking cigars and coughing and wine were in front of them.

Stapleton was talking with animation, but the baronette looked pale and distraight. Perhaps the thought of that lonely walk across the elemented wall was weighing heavily upon his mind. As I watched them, Stapleton rose and left the room. While Sir Henry filled his glass again and leaned back in his chair, puffing at his cigar.

I heard the creek of a door and the crisp sound of boots upon gravel. The steps passed along the path on the other side of the wall under which I crouched. Looking over, I saw the naturalist pause at the door of an outhouse and in the corner of the orchard. A key turned in the lock and as he passed in there was a curious scaffolding noise from within.

He was only in a minute or so inside and then I heard the key turn once more and he passed me and re-entered the house. I saw him rejoin his guest and I crept quietly back to where my companions were waiting to tell them what I had seen. You say what, Sim? But the lady is not there.

Holmes asked when I had finished my report. No. Where can she be then? Since there is no light in any other room except the kitchen.

I cannot think where she is. I have said that over the great grim pin-mire, their hungered dense white fog. It was drifting slowly in our direction and banked itself up like a wall on that side of us, low but thick and well defined. The moon shone on it and it looked like a great shimmering ice field with the heads of the distant tours as backbones upon its surface.

His face was turned towards it and he musted impatiently as he watched its sluggish drift. It is moving towards us Watson. Is that serious? Very serious indeed.

The one thing upon this earth which could have disarranged my plans. He can't be very long now. It is already ten o'clock. Our success and even his life may depend on his coming out before the fog is over the path.

The night was clear and fine above us. The stars shone cold and bright, while a half moon bathed a whole scene in a soft and certain light. Before us lay the dark bulk of the house. Its serrated roof and bristling chimneys hard outlined against the silver-spangled sky.

Broad bars of golden light from the lower windows stretched across the orchid and the more. One of them was suddenly shut off. The servants had left the kitchen. They were only remained the lamp in the dining room, where the two men, the murderous host and the unconscious guests, still chatted over their cigars.

Every minute that white woolly plain which covered one half the more was drifting closer and closer to the house. Already the first in whispers of it were curling across the golden square of the lighted window. The father wall of the orchid was already invisible and the trees were standing out of a swirl of white vapor. As we watched it the fog reeds came crawling around both corners of the house and rolled slowly into the one dense bank of which the upper floor and the roof floated, like a strange ship on a shadowy sea.

Homes struck his hand passionately upon the rock in front of us and stamped his feet in his impatience. If he isn't out in a quarter of an hour the path will be covered. In half an hour we won't be able to see our own hands in front of us. Shall we move further back upon the higher ground?

Yes, I think that would be as well. So as the fog bank floed onward we fell back before it until we were half a mile from the house and still that dense white sea with the moon silvering its upper edges swept slowly and inexorably on. We are going too far said homes. We dare not take the chance of being overtaken before he can reach us.

At all costs we must hold our ground where we are. He dropped on his knees and clapped his ears to the ground. Thank God I think that I can hear him coming. A sound of quick steps broke the silence of the moor.

Crouching among the stones we stared intently at the silver tip bank in front of us. The steps grew louder and through the fog as though a curtain there stepped the man whom we were awaiting. He looked round at him in surprise as he emerged into the clear starlit night. Then he came swiftly along the path, past close to where we lay and went on up this long slope behind us.

As he walked he glanced continually over either shoulder like a man who is at L.A.s. Hist cried homes and I heard the sharp click of a cocking pistol. Look out it's coming. There was a thin crisp, continuous pattern from somewhere in the heart of that crawling bank.

The cloud was within 50 yards of where we lay and we glared at it all three uncertain what horror was about to break from the heart of it. I was at Holmes' elbow and I glanced for an instant at his face. It was pale and excellent. His eyes shining brightly in the moonlight.

But suddenly they started forward in a rigid fixed air and his lips partled in amazement. At the same instant Lestrade gave a yellow terror and threw himself face downward upon the ground. I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol, my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had sprung upon us from the shadows of the fog. A hound it was, an enormous coal black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes has ever seen.

Fire burst from its open mouth. Its eyes glowed with a smoldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and due lap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish, be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog. With long bounds, the huge black creature was leaping down the track, following hard upon the footsteps of our friend.

So paralyzed were we, by the apparition that we allowed him to pass before we had recovered our nerve. In homes and eye both fired together and the creature gave a hideous hell which showed that one at least had hit him. He did not pause however, but bounded onward. Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down.

That cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run his homes round that night. I am reckoned fleet on foot but he outpaced me as much as I outpaced the little professional.

In front of us as we flew up the track we heard scream after scream from Sir Henry and a deep roar of the hound. I was in time to see the beast spring upon its victim, hurl him to the ground and worry at his throat. But the next instant homes had emptied five barrels of his revolver into the creature's flank. With a last howl of agony and a vicious snap in the air, it rolled upon its back.

Four feet pouring furiously and then fell limp upon its side. I steeped, panting and pressed my pistol to the dreadful shimmering head but it was useless to press the trigger. The giant hound was dead. Sir Henry lay insensible where he had fallen.

We tore away his collar and Holmes breathed a prayer of gratitude when he saw that there was no sign of a wound and that the rescue had been in time. Already our friends eyelid shivered and he made a feeble effort to move. The stradth thrust his brandy flask between the Baronette's teeth and two frightened eyes were looking at us. My God he whispered.

What was it? What in heaven's name was it? "It's dead. Whatever it is," said Holmes.

We laid the family ghost once and forever. This mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was lying stretched before us. It was not a pure bloodhound and it was not a pure massive but it appeared to be a combination of the two, gaunt, savage and as large as a small lioness. Even now in the stillness of death the huge jaws seemed to be dripping with a bluish flame and the small deep-set cruel eyes were ringed with fire.

I placed my hand upon the glowing muzzle and as I held them up with my own fingers they smoldered and gleamed in the darkness. "Fossilous," I said. "A cunning preparation of it," said Holmes sniffing at the dead animal. There is no smell which might be inferred with its power or scent.

To know you are a deep apology, say Henry, for having exposed you to this fright. I was prepared for a hound but not for such creatures this and the fog gave us a little time to receive him. You have saved my life. Having first endangered it, are you strong enough to stand?

Give me another mouthful of that brandy and I shall be ready for anything. So now, if you will help me up, what do you propose to do? "To leave you here, you are not fit for another adventure tonight. If you all wait, one of us will be back and take you to the hall."

He tried to stagger to his feet but he was still ghastly pale and trembling in every limb. We helped him to a rock where he sat shivering with his face buried in his hands. We must leave you now," said Holmes. The rest of our work must be done and every moment is of importance.

We have our case and now we only want our man. It's a thousand to one against our finding him at the house he continued as we retraced our steps swiftly down the path. Those shots must have told him that the game was up. We were some distance off and this fog must have dreaded him.

He followed the hound to call him off or that you may be certain. No. He's gone by this time but will search the house to make sure. The front door was open so we rushed in and hurried from room to room to the amazement of a dodd-orring old man servant who met us in the passage.

There was no light saving in the dining room but Holmes caught up the lamp and left no corner of the house unexplored. No sign could we see of the man whom we were chasing. On the upper floor however one of the bedroom doors was locked. There's someone in there, cried the straight.

I can hear a movement open this door. A faint moaning and rustling came from within. Holmes struck the door just over the lock with the flat of his foot and it fell in open. Pistol in hand we all three rushed into the room.

But there was no sign within it of that desperate and defiant villain whom we expected to see. Instead we were faced by an object so strange and so unexpected that we stood for a moment staring at it in amazement. The room had been fashioned into a small museum and the walls were lined by a number of glass-stop cases full of that collection of butterflies and moths, the formation of which had been the relaxation of this complex and dangerous man. In the centre of the room there was an upright beam which had been placed at some period as to a support for the old worm-eaten book of the timber which span the roof.

To this post a figure was tied, so swathed and muffled in the sheets which had been used to secure it that one could not for the moment tell whether it was that of a man or woman. One towel passed round the throat and was secured at the back of the pillar. Covered the lower part of the face and over it two dark eyes, eyes full of grief and shame and a dreadful questioning they stared back at us. In a minute we had torn off the gag, unswathed the bonds and Mrs. Stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us.

As her beautiful head fell upon her chest I saw the clear red wheel of a wit lash across her neck. The brute cried 'Homes, here the stride, your brandy bottle.' Put her in the chair she has fainted from ill usage and exhaustion. She opened her eyes again.

Is he safe she excels? Has he escaped? He cannot escape us, madam. No, no, I did not mean my husband.

Sir Henry is he safe? Yes. And the hound? It is dead.

She gave a long sigh of satisfaction. Thank God. Thank God. Oh this villain.

See how he has treated me? She shot her arms out from her sleeves and we saw with horror that they were all mottled with bruises. But this is nothing. Nothing.

It is my mind and soul that he has tortured and defiled. I could endure it all. Illuse it, solitude, a life of deception, everything. As long as I could still cling to the hope that I had his love.

But now I know that is also not me, I have been in his dupe and his tomb. She broke into passionate sobbing as she spoke. You bear him no good will, madam, said Holmes. Tell us then where we shall find him.

If you have ever aided him in evil, help us now and so atone. There is but one place where he can have fled, she answered. There is an old tin mine on an old island in the heart of the Maya. It was there that he kept his hand and there also that he made preparations so that he might have a refuge.

This is where he would fly. The fog-bank lay like white wool against the window. Holmes held the lamp towards it. See said he.

No one could find his way into the grimp in Maya tonight. He laughed in claptor hands, her eyes and teeth gleamed with fierce merriment. He may find his way in, but never out she cried. How can he see the guiding winds tonight?

We planted them together, he and I, to mark the pathway through the Maya. Oh, if only I could have plucked them out today, then indeed you would have had him at your mercy. It was evident to us that what pursuit was in vain until the fog had lifted. Meanwhile we left Nostrad and possession of the house, while Holmes and I went back with the baronette to Baskerville Hall.

The story of the Stapletons could no longer be withheld from him, but he took the blow bravely when he learned the truth about the woman who he had loved. But the shock of the night's adventures had shattered his nerves and before morning he laid hilarious in high fever upon the care of Dr. Mortimer. The two of them were destined to travel together, round the world before Sir Henry had become once more the hail, hearty man that he had been before he became the master of that ill-amained estate. And now I come rapidly to the conclusion of this singular narrative, in which I have tried to make the readers share those dark fears and vague surmises, which coloured our life so long and ended in so tragic a manner.

On the morning after the death of the hound the fog had lifted and we were guided by Mrs. Stapleton to the point where they had found a pathway through the bog. It helped us to realise the horror of this woman's life when we saw the eagerness and joy, with which she laid us on her husband's track. We left her standing upon the thin peninsula a firm peaty soil which tapered out into the widespread bog.

From the end of it all is a small wand planted here and there, showed where the paths exact from tough to tough and rushes amongst those green scumpt pits and fowl quagmiers which barred the way to the stranger. The dark reeds and lush slimy water plants sent an odour of decay and a heavy measematic vapor into our faces. While a false step plunges more than once, by deep into the dark, quivering myon, which shook for yards in the soft undulations around our feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked and when we sank into it it was as if some allignant hand was tugging us down into those obscene depths.

So grim and purposeful was the clutch in which it held us. Only once we saw a trace that someone had passed that perilous way before us. From amid a tough to cotton grass which bore it up out of the slime some dark thing was projecting. Homes sank to his waist as he stepped from the path to seize it.

And had we not been there to drag him out we could never have set our foot upon firm land again. He held an old black boot in the air. Meas Toronto was printed on the leather side. It is worth him at bar said he.

It is our friend Sir Henry's missing boot. Throne here by Stapleton in his flight. Exactly. He retained it in his hand after using it to set the hound upon the track.

He fled when he knew the game was up still clutching it and he hurled it away at this point of his flight. We know at least that he came so far in safety. But more than that we were never destined to know. Though there was much which we had to surmise there was no chance of finding footsteps in the mire.

For the rising mud oozed swiftly in upon them. But at last we reached firmer ground. Beyond the morass we all looked eagerly for them. But no slightest sign of them ever met our eyes.

If the earth told a true story then Stapleton never reached the island of Refuge towards which he struggled through a fog upon the last night. Somewhere in the heart of the great Grimpin mire down in the final slime of the huge morass which had sucked him in this cold and cruel hearted man is forever buried. Many traces we found of him in the Boggirt Island where we had hid his savage allang. A huge driving wheel and a shaft half filled with rubbish showed the position of an abandoned mine.

Inside it were the crumbling remains of the cottage of the miners, driven away no doubt by the foul wreak of the surrounding swamp. In one of these a staple in chain with a quantity of gnarled bones showed where the animal had been confined. A skeleton with a tangle of brown hair adhering to it lay among the debris. A dog said Holmes by Jove a curly head spaniel.

Poor Mortimer will never see his pet again. Well, I do not know that this place contains any secret which we have not already fathomed. He could hide his hound but he could not hash its voice and hence came those cries which even in daylight were not pleasant to hear. On an emergency he could keep the hound in the outhouse at Marypit but it was always a risk and it was only on the supreme day which he regarded at the end of his efforts that he dared to do it.

This paced in the tin is no doubt the luminous mixture with which the creature was dourbled. It was suggested, of course, by the story of the family hellhound and by the desire to frighten all such a child's death. No wonder the poor devil of a convict ran and screamed even as our friend did. And as we ourselves might have done when we saw such a creature bounding through the darkness of the moor upon his track.

It was a cunning device. For apart from the chance of driving your victim to his death what peasant would venture to inquire too closely into such a creature should he get sight of it as many have done upon them all. I said it in London Watson and I say it again now that never yet have we helped to hunt down a more dangerous man than he who is lying on the. He swept his long arm towards the huge mottled expanse of the green splotch bog which stretched away until it merged into the russet slopes of the moor.