But as the Countess continued to stare at 'carvings' that studded the walls to the left, a kind of subtraction came into play. It was as though embarrassment spread itself across the stone surfaces. One by one the heads withdrew until there was nothing to the left of the Countess but the emptiness of the streaming walls.
And then she turned her head the other way, where, in reverse, the scores of heads protruded and shone with the torch-lit rain - until, like their counterparts, they also one by one, withdrew themselves.
The Countess turned her eyes again to the scene immediately below her and the numberless wet faces were drawn forth at once, as though by suction, from the castle walls, or in the way that the heads of turtles issue from their shells.
The small craft which had been carried over the back of the boat-cordon was now within a foot of the window. A man sat within and wielded a powerful paddle. A black leather hat, with a broad brim shielded his eyes from the rain. Between his teeth he gripped a long dirk.
It was no easy task for him, this approach through the window, between the flanking barges. The small skiff rolled dangerously, shipping the gold water over her side. The wind was now, something that could be heard whining across the bay.
All at once Titus called out to the man to return.
'Let me go first.' he cried. 'Come back you man. Let me have your dagger.'
The face of his sister swam across the window. The Thing danced on the bright water like a sprite and he bared his teeth.
'Let 'me' kill him! Let 'me' kill him!' he cried again, losing in that moment his last four years of growth, for he had become like a child, hysterical with the intensity of his imagination - and for a moment the boatman wavered, his head over his shoulder, but a voice from the wall above roared out.
'No! by the blood of love! Hold the boy down!'
Two men held Titus firmly, for he had made as though to plunge into the water.
'Quiet, my lord,' said the voice of one of the men who held him. 'He may not be there.'
'Why not?' shouted Titus, struggling. 'I saw him, didn't I? Let go of me! Do you know who I am? Let go of me!'
II
Steerpike was as motionless as the lintel on which he crouched. Only his eyes moved to and fro, to and fro, from the saw that cut its circular path through the boards above him to the radiant water below him, where at any moment the nose of the skiff might appear. He had heard the roar of the Countess'
'No!' sounding from above, and knew that when the ceiling had been cut through she would be one of the first to peer down for him - and there was no doubt that they would have a perfect view of him where he crouched in the reflected light.
To split each forehead open as it appeared at the gap of the ceiling - to leave his pebbles half protruding like the most eloquent of tombstones in the foreheads of his foes - this might very well be what he would do, but he knew that his enemies had yet no proof positive that he was there. Directly the work of his lethal catapult became evident it would only be a matter of time before his capture.
It was obvious that he could do nothing to stop the regular progress of the man with the saw. Three quarters of a circle had been completed in the rotten planks. Pieces of wood had fallen already into the swirling water.
All depended upon the appearance of the skiff. Within a minute there would be a great round eye in the woodwork above him. Even as he itched for the boat, its bows appeared, bucking like a horse, and then, suddenly, as it leapt forward again, there below him, close enough to touch, was the broad-rimmed hat of the oarsman with the dirk in his mouth.
III
The Countess, satisfied that there was no longer any danger of Titus leaping into the water, returned to where the man with the saw was resting his arm before the last dozen plunges and withdrawals of the hot and grinding blade.
'The first to put his face through the hole is likely to receive a pebble in his head. You have no doubt of this, gentlemen.' She spoke slowly. Her hands were on her hips. Her head was held high. Her bosom heaved with a slow sea-like rhythm. She was consumed with the passion of the chase, but her face showed nothing. She was intent upon the death of a traitor.
But what of Titus? The upheaval of his emotions, the bitterness of his tone; his lack of love for her - all this was, whether she wished it or not, mixed up with the cornering of Steerpike. It was no pure and naked contest between the House of Groan and a treacherous rebel, for the seventy-seventh Earl was, by his own confession, something perilously near a traitor himself.
She returned to the window and as she did so, Steerpike in the room below, changing his plan completely with the dawn of a fresh idea, thrust his catapult back in his pocket and grasping his knife got gradually and noiselessly to his feet, where he poised himself, his head, and shoulders bent forward by the proximity of the roof.
The figure in the boat, who had volunteered for this hazardous mission, far from being able to keep his eyes skinned for the enemy, was unable to concentrate upon anything else but the control of the skiff, which with the waves that were now breaking upon the outer wall and sending their surges through the window, had made the flood-room into a wall of tossing water.
Nevertheless, the time came when, with a deceptive lull in the riot of trapped waves, the boatman swung his head over his shoulder, and was able for the first time to focus his eyes upon the window end of the room. At once he saw Steerpike, his face lit from below.
Directly the man saw him he let forth a gasp of excited terror. He was no chicken-heart, having volunteered to enter the cave alone, and he was now prepared to fight as he had never fought before, but there was something so terrible in the poised over-hanging aspect of the young man that it turned his bowels to water. For the moment, the volunteer was out of range of anything but the thrown knife - and it was his intention to put his lips to the whistle which hung by a cord around his neck, and warn them of the discovery of Steerpike by the single blast which had been agreed upon, when he found himself being swung forward on the crest of a wave that had entered a moment before and was following the walls as though to swill the 'cave' out. He strained at the paddle but there was no holding back the skiff, and within a matter of moments, he found himself slithering along the western side and into the shadowy corner of the 'seaward' wall.
As the boat, running forward and striking its nose upon the stones at Steerpike's side, was about to make for the window below him, Steerpike sprang outwards, and to the left, and fell with a stunning force, for all his lightness, upon the volunteer. There was no time for any struggle, the knife running between the ribs and through the man's heart three times within as many seconds.
As Steerpike delivered the third of the lightning stabs, the sweat pouring off his face like wet blood in the reflected torch light, he turned his small hot eyes to the ceiling and found that the saw was within an inch of completing the circle. In another moment he would be exposed to the view of the Countess and the searchers.