"How dare you show yourself here?" began Basil Annesley.
"Who are you to prevent me?
I come to demand the restoration of that which belongs to me.
Take my message to those two ladies and say I will have my boy," replied my lord.
"Do not try to impose on me, Lord Blackadder.
It is the most impudent pretence; you know perfectly well he is not here."
"I will not bandy words with you.
Go in, you men, both of you, Tiler and Falfani, and seize the child.
Force your way in, push that blackguard aside!" he roared in a perfect paroxysm of passion.
I could not possibly hold aloof, but called for help from the hotel people, and, with them at my back, rushed out to add my protest against this intemperate conduct.
A free fight had already begun.
The three assailants, Ralph Blackadder behind egging them on, had thrown themselves upon Basil, who stood sturdily at bay with his back to the wall, daring them to come on, and prepared to strike out at the first man who touched him.
"At him!
Give it him!
Throw him out!" cried Ralph passionately.
But even as he spoke his voice weakened, he halted abruptly; his hands went up into the air, his body swayed to and fro, his strength left him completely, and he fell to the ground in sudden and complete collapse.
When they picked him up, there was froth mixed with blood upon his lips, he breathed once or twice heavily, stertorously, and then with one long-drawn gasp died in the arms of his two men.
It was an apoplectic seizure, the doctors told us later, brought on by excessive nervous irritation of the brain.
Here was a sudden and unexpected denouement, a terribly dramatic end to our troubles if we could but clear up the horrible uncertainty remaining.
What had become of my sister and little Ralph?
While the servants of the hotel attended to the stricken man, Basil Annesley plied the detectives with eager questions.
He urged them to tell all they knew; it should be made worth their while; they no longer owed allegiance to their late employer. He entreated them to withhold nothing.
Where and how had Lord Blackadder met Henriette?
What had he done with her?
Where was she now?
We could get nothing out of these men; they refused to answer our questions from sheer mulish obstinacy, as we thought at first, but we saw at length that they did not understand us. What were we driving at?
They assured us they had seen no lady, nor had the unfortunate peer accosted any one, or interfered with any one on his way between the two hotels.
He had come straight from the Villa Shereef to the Hotel Atlas, racing down at a run, pausing nowhere, addressing no one on the road.
If not Lord Blackadder, what then? What could have happened to Henriette?
Tangier was a wild place enough, but who would interfere with an English woman in broad daylight accompanied by her servant, by an escort, her attendant Moorish guide?
Full of anxiety, Basil called for a horse, and was about to ride off to institute a hue and cry, when my sister appeared in person upon the scene.
"Getting anxious about me?" she asked, with careless, almost childish gaiety. "I am awfully late, but I have had such an extraordinary adventure.
Why, how serious you look!
Not on my account, surely?"
I took her aside, and in a few words told her of the terrible catastrophe that had just occurred, and for a time she was silent and seemed quite overcome.
"It's too shocking, of course, to happen in this awful way. But really, I cannot be very sorry except for one thing—that now he will never know."
"Know what, Henriette?
Have you taken leave of your senses?"
"Know that I have discovered the whole plot of which I was the victim.
My dear, I have found Susan Bruel, and she has made a full confession.
They were bribed to go away, and they have been here hiding in Tangier."
"Go on, go on.
Tell me, please, all about it."
"You must know we went out, the three of us, on our donkeys, and the fancy seized me to explore some of the dark, narrow streets where the houses all but join overhead.
I got quite frightened at last. I was nearly suffocated for want of air.
I could not even see the sky, and at last desired Achmet to get me out into the open, anywhere.
After one or two sharp turns, we emerged upon a sort of plateau or terrace high above the sea, and in full view of it.
"There was a small hotel in front of it, and above the door was the name of the proprietor, would you believe it, Domenico Bruel!
"It was the name of Susan's husband, and no doubt Susan was there.
I could not quite make up my mind how I should act.