The Dancing Druids

Chapter Sixteen

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‘Night came fast upon them, and they found that they must, however unwillingly, sleep in the wood.’

Ibid. (The Nose)

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Laura, behind her stone, touched its roughly-scored surface. She felt it rasp beneath her fingers. It felt warm. Superstition came flooding back into her mind. The stones, she thought, after all, were alive. They lived some strange, remote life of their own, up there on the barren hill. They were kept alive by human blood… by the innocent blood of murdered men!

She was thinking these wild but archaeologically reasonable thoughts, when Mrs. Bradley leaned over from her own stone and murmured:

‘Prepare to repel boarders! In other words—by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes! Stand firm, child! We have visitors!’

There followed an unpleasantly eerie pause, whilst Laura held her breath and the whole hill seemed to listen. Suddenly, from the opposite side of the circle, someone spoke.

‘This’ll be the one he meant. Curse those idiots and their damned dancing about!’

‘Thank ’eaven they didn’t start digging!’ said another voice. ’That would have torn it proper! Now what about the leanin’ tower of Pisa? Is this the one?’

Opposite Laura, on the north-east side of the circle, was, by daylight, a particularly noticeable stone, for it leaned over away from the rest of the circle as though at some time it might have been uprooted and had been put back carelessly.

‘Yes. Here, where have you got to?’

‘Feelin’ it. Yes, this is it. Easiest to take out of the ground. That’s what he thought, and I daresay he was right. Easiest to describe, too, if it had to be us as didn’t bury it.’

‘Can two of us tackle it, do you think?’

‘Sure. Put the rope round it and carry the slack over the top of the next stone, the higher one.’

‘Right. Carry on, then. Can you find the one you want?’

‘I guess so. I’ll have to have a light for the job, though. I’m not a cat as can see in the dark, and we don’t want to mess the thing up.’

‘Not more light than we can help, then. Sing out when you’re ready, and Ben will bring up the horses to do the pulling. Your job, once you’ve rigged up your tackle, will be to stand by, and see that the rope doesn’t slip.’

‘Oh, that’s the notion, is it? And what about you? I suppose you’re the gentleman, as usual!’

‘Get on, man, for God’s sake! We haven’t all night to mess about. Get that rope round, and look slippy.’

‘O.K. Say when. Here she goes!’

There was a fairly long pause and some sounds indicative of effort.

‘Got it over the second stone yet?’

‘Nope.’ A torch was switched on, but Laura could see little of the men. She knew, from the voices, that one was the man from Slepe Rock. The rougher voice she did not know.

‘All set. Bring up the horses,’ said this unknown man at last. ‘I’ll be glad to be through with this job!’

There was another pause. After a while Laura could hear the trampling of the great beasts as they were brought up the hill from the farm. A man carrying a lantern was with them, and, from his muffled oaths and muted cajolery, he seemed to experience some difficulty in getting them up to the stones.

After great efforts on the part of all three men, the horses were backed and manoeuvred into position, the end of the rope was secured to a pole which dangled from their harness, and which Laura could see in the lantern-light, and the work began of heaving up the stone.

The great horses snorted and blew, the men cursed and grunted, and the work proceeded (grimly and spasmodically, it seemed, from the comments which Laura could hear) until at long last, with an enormous sound of tearing, up came the long, tilted stone.

‘Hold!’ cried the man from Slepe Rock. ‘Wait while we get in the crowbar!’

There was a pause of a second or two, and then the other voice observed, in a high, impatient tone:

‘All right? Get busy and don’t mess about! I’m not breakin’ my back to suit you, as you haven’t even humped yourself yet! All right now?… I can’t hold on much longer. Something’s got to go, and it might be me!’

‘All right so far, but you’ll have to hang on for a little bit longer,’ said the first voice. ‘Come here, Harry, and put your weight on this crowbar. We must relieve Bud. He can’t hang on much longer.’

‘Can’t be done! The horses won’t stand it,’ said the carter.

The man from Slepe Rock became angry.

‘Never mind the horses! You, Bud, hang on a bit longer. We’re doing all we can. Oh, for God’s sake, man! Use your guts!’

‘That’s all very well,’ said the other; and Laura could hear him panting. Suddenly there was a shout which was almost a scream.

‘Oh, heavens!’ said Laura, aloud. Her imagination supplied the rest of the picture, but, before she had finished constructing it, the rope had parted over the top of the stone which was used to take the strain of the lifting, and the tilted stone which the men were raising had bumped down on to the turf.

Mrs. Bradley moved far more quickly than the girl. She was out of her hiding-place and on her knees beside the ghastly wreck pinned by the stone before Laura had collected her wits. The horses, relieved too suddenly of their burden, were stampeding over the hill. They uttered sounds of excitement and fear as they thundered off. The man from Slepe Rock and the carter both went after them, apparently regarding the rounding-up of the animals as of greater importance than the fate of their unlucky companion.

Mrs. Bradley switched on her torch and surveyed the scene of the accident. She knelt beside the fallen stone which had pinned the man underneath it, told Laura to keep off, and soon rose.

‘Quite dead, thank goodness,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing here that I can do.’ She switched off her torch, put her hand into the capacious pocket of her skirt and drew out a flask. ‘Here,’ she said, going over to Laura. ‘Where are you? Unscrew this carefully. It’s brandy. I expect you can do with it.’

‘I’m quite all right,’ said Laura, in the husky tone of shock. But she took the dram and was glad of it. ‘I suppose we get out of here quick?’ She screwed on the cap of the flask.

‘Not until we’ve looked into the hole,’ said Mrs. Bradley, taking the flask and testing its screw cap before she returned it to her pocket. ‘I was pretty sure this morning which stone it was, but they’ve proved it beyond a doubt, as I knew they would if our archaeological bluff came off, and it has! Come along, before those men get back, if you will, and help me look. I think that two witnesses will be more satisfactory than one.’

Laura, with shaking legs, at once followed her over the turf. Mrs. Bradley kept the light from her torch on the ground, although there were no sounds to indicate that the men were returning.

‘Don’t look at him unless you want to,’ she said decidedly, as they approached the fallen stone and the dead man.

‘I’d better look,’ said Laura. ‘I saw air-raid casualties. This won’t be anything more dreadful. I shall only imagine it’s all the worse if I don’t see it.’

It was not, in fact, a particularly dreadful sight. The great stone had fallen across the man’s body and he had crashed face-downward on the turf.

‘Broken back, among other things,’ said Mrs. Bradley, dismissing the incident and concentrating the beam from her torch on to the hole torn in the turf by the lifting out of the stone. It was the thought of what was buried in the hole, far more than the sight of the dead man, which Laura dreaded.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ Mrs. Bradley added. ‘Just let’s look. Take your time, and look carefully and closely, for we may need to be able to swear to what we have seen.’

There was nothing fearful in the hole. All that Laura could see was the loosened soil, and, a long distance down, something dark and metallic protruding.

‘What is it?’ she whispered, surprised, for the contents of the hole seemed strangely innocent.

‘A funerary urn, perhaps,’ said Mrs. Bradley, ‘or, possibly, buried treasure.’ She knelt beside the hole and shone her torch more directly on to the object which it contained.

‘I don’t think the two of us could get it up without assistance,’ she said, ‘yet I confess that I should like to have a closer look at it.’

Laura, thrusting from her mind the story of the Treasure of Abbot Thomas which had chosen this obvious but inconvenient time to obstrude itself upon her memory, rolled up her sleeve and thrust a strong arm into the cavity.

There was a handle on the end of the container, and upon this she took a good grip and began to heave and struggle.

‘Don’t trouble,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘I doubt whether it would be wise, after all to move it.’

‘Thank goodness,’ said Laura subsiding.

‘And now,’ said Mrs. Bradley, snapping off her torch, ‘let us listen intently. It would never do for those villains to find us here, yet I do not intend to move until I know what they are going to do next.’

Laura became the prey to wishful thinking.

‘I wish Gerry and Mike were here,’ she observed. ‘We could hold our own, then, whoever turned up. They’d soon settle anybody’s hash. I wouldn’t even mind a policeman, or Denis, or George. Or even the Chief Constable,’ she added.

‘I could whistle for George,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘An excellent idea, child.’

She produced a small whistle and blew it twice. Then she and Laura listened.

‘I’m awfully glad we’re wanted!’ said Denis’ voice from the hedge. He came quickly towards them. ‘Where are you?’ Mrs. Bradley switched on her torch to guide him. George was with him.

‘How do you come to be here, Denis?’ enquired his aunt.

‘George heard noises, ran the car back to the hotel and routed me out,’ explained Denis, ‘and here we are. What do you want us to do?’

‘I trust I did not take a liberty, madam,’ said the second figure, coming forward. ‘Desiring to witness the course of events, I must confess that I climbed the stile and followed you part of the way, and then hid in the hedge. I remained there until it was certain that one of the malefactors had been injured. I heard the horses stampede, and, having a long switch in my hand, I did what I could to drive them further. The men pursued them as heartily as one could have wished. I then went for Master Denis… I should say Mr. Denis, madam… thinking we might both be of service.’

‘Good for you, George,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘You’ve given us extra time. But we are in no danger at present. We have had an interesting evening. We have provided ourselves with buried treasure, and a man has been killed.’

‘Killed?’ said Denis. ‘You don’t mean…?’

‘Murdered? No. The Druids danced, I think, and trampled him underfoot. Come over here, and you shall know as much as we do.’

All three went with her, for Laura disliked the idea of being alone. Mrs. Bradley shone her torch on the body, and then showed her followers the metal receptacle which the fall of the stone had disclosed.

‘I think we might raise that up, Madam,’ George observed, ‘if those men have left any rope. What do you think, sir?’ he added, turning to Denis.

‘With a rope I could help,’ said Laura.

A portion of the rope which the stone had chafed through was found, and, whilst Mrs. Bradley kept guard, the others, by mighty exertions, drew a long, wide metal container from the hole, and, quite exhausted, lay on the grass beside it.

‘Now what,’ said the wiry Denis, recovering first.

‘Laura and George could take it away in the car, if we could possibly get it to the car,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘I myself would prefer to stay. I want to know what will happen here when those men return.’

‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t get it into the car, if I give George a hand,’ suggested Denis, ‘and then he and Laura can go back to Welsea with it.’

‘I could bring the car a lot closer, I think, sir,’ said George, ‘but I would respectfully suggest that we carry the receptacle to the shelter of the hedge at once, in case those fellows return and find us with it.’

‘A good idea, George,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘Up with it at once, if you can.’

Although the metal container was bulky and very heavy, the two men, with Laura to take one of the handles occasionally, contrived to get it over to the hedge.

‘And now you can take your time about getting the car a little nearer, and getting the box in,’ Mrs. Bradley observed. ‘And then Denis may rejoin me if he thinks fit to do so.’

‘Look, I know you employ me and so forth, but couldn’t I stay? It was me you brought, not Denis,’ objected Laura. ‘And he and George will be far more use to lug that thing about than George and I will,’ she cunningly added.

‘True, child,’ said Mrs. Bradley. ‘Off you go, Denis, with George and our treasured although ill-gotten gains, and you will not need to return. I have my revolver.’

‘Oh, but…’ Denis began. His aunt gave him a slight, authoritative push.

‘Laura will be quite safe with me,’ she promised. ‘Otherwise I should not keep her. Besides, there is man’s work to do at Slepe Rock to-night. Go there as soon as you have left this cylinder in some place of safety. You might find out whether Gerald and Michael need help. It is likely they do.’

‘Oh!’ said Laura. ‘Well, I’m…’

‘Not yet, child,’ said Mrs. Bradley, thinking of Robert de Baudricourt and Saint Joan. So George went off, and very soon the almost unmistakable sounds of a car being started up came faintly upon the air.

‘Now, sir,’ said George, returning, ‘I’ve brought her as near as I can. We must tote it the rest.’

Laura assisted them again, and returned, rather breathless, to report the trove safely on board.

‘Thank goodness!’ she added. ‘I should think it weighs even more than Mike O’Hara’s fat man.’

‘The weight of the iron box more,’ said Mrs. Bradley; but Laura, who was massaging weary muscles, apparently did not hear her. ’

Mrs. Bradley waited, and then she looked at her watch. She and Laura prepared for a long and tiresome vigil, and this mood proved to be of service, for a long and tiresome watch indeed it was, once they had returned to the Stones.

It became rather chilly towards morning, and Mrs. Bradley and her secretary, both by this time cold and stiff, took turns in coming out from cover, and walked about flapping their arms. At about half-past four, Mrs. Bradley saw, against the grey-black light of the sky, a horseman ride over the hill. She watched him for more than a minute as he headed towards the Stones, and then, with a word to Laura, she scuttled into cover like a rabbit making for its burrow.