CHAPTER XXVIII. OLD NANCY'S HUT.

M RS. KENYON'S depression and apparent submission to her fate had relaxed the vigilance of her keepers. Still, it is doubtful if she would have escaped but for the help of her insane room-mate.

Late one evening Cleopatra, with a cunning expression, showed her a key.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked.

"It is a key."

"It is the key of this door."

"How did you get it?"

Upon this point the queen would give no information. But she lowered her voice and whispered:

"Mark Antony is waiting for me outside. He is going to carry me away."

It was useless to question her delusion, and Mrs. Kenyon contented herself with asking:

"Do you mean to leave this house?"

"Yes," said Cleopatra. "Antony expects me. Will you go with me? I will make you one of my maids of honor."

"Do you think we can get out?" asked Mrs. Kenyon dubiously. "The outer door is locked."

"I know where to find the key. Time presses. Will you go?"

Believing in the death of her son, Mrs. Kenyon had supposed herself indifferent to liberty, but now that the hope of escape was presented a wild desire to throw off the shackles of confinement came to her. What her future life might be she did not care to ask; but once to breathe the free air, a free woman, excited and exhilarated her.

"Yes; I will go," she said quickly. "Come!"

The two women dressed themselves hurriedly, softly they opened the door of their room, went downstairs, and from under the mat in the unlighted hall Cleopatra stooped down and drew out the key of the outer door.

"See!" she said exultantly.

"Quick! Open the door!" exclaimed Mrs. Kenyon nervously.

The key turned in the lock with a grating sound which she feared might lead to discovery, but fortunately it did not. A moment and they stood on the outside of their prison-house.

Now Mrs. Kenyon assumed the lead.

"Come," she said.

"Do you know where to find Mark Antony?" asked Cleopatra.

"Yes; follow me."

They did not venture to take the highway. The chances of discovery were too great. Neither knew much about the country, but Mrs. Kenyon remembered that a colored woman, sometimes employed at the asylum, lived in a lonely hut a mile back from the road. This woman—old Nancy—she had specially employed by permission of Dr. Fox, and to her hut she resolved to go.

Cleopatra, no longer self-reliant, followed her confidingly. Just on the verge of a wood, with no other dwelling near at hand, dwelt the old black woman. It was a rude cabin, dark and unpainted. Cleopatra looked doubtfully at it.

"Where are you going?" she asked, standing still. "Antony is not here."

It was not a time to reason, nor was the assumed queen a person to reason with. There was no choice but to be positive and peremptory.

"No," she answered, "Antony is not here, but here he will meet you. It is a poor place, but his enemies lie in wait for him, and he wishes to see you in secret."

This explanation suited Cleopatra's humor.

She nodded her head in a satisfied way and said:

"I know it. Augustus would murder my Antony if he could."

"Then you must not expose him to danger. Come with me."

Mrs. Kenyon advanced, not without some misgivings, since Nancy was unaware of her visit. She could hear the old woman snoring, and was compelled to knock loudly. At last old Nancy heard, and awoke in a great fright.

"Who's there?" she called out, in a quavering voice.

"It's I, Nancy. It's Mrs. Kenyon."

This only seemed to alarm the old woman the more. She was superstitious, like most of her race, and straightway fancied that it was some evil spirit who had assumed Mrs. Kenyon's voice.

"Go away, you debbil!" she answered, in tremulous accents. "I know you. You's an evil sperrit. Go away, and leave old Nancy alone."

Had her situation been less critical, Mrs. Kenyon would have been amused at the old woman's alarm, but in the dead of night, a fugitive from the confinement of a mad-house, she was in no mood for amusement.

"Don't be frightened, Nancy," she said, "I have escaped from the asylum with Cleopatra, and we want you to hide us for to-night. I will give you ten dollars if you will open your door and help us."

Now, avarice was a besetting weakness in old Nancy's character, and though Mrs. Kenyon did not know it, she had unwittingly made the right appeal to the old woman. Ten dollars was an immense sum to Nancy, who counted her savings by the smallest sums. She drew back the bolt, and opened her door, not wholly without fear that her first suspicions might be correct, and her nocturnal visitors turn out to be emissaries of Satan.

"Are you sure you aint bad sperrits?" she asked, through a narrow crevice.

"Don't be foolish, Nancy. You know me well enough, and Cleopatra, too. Open the door wider, and let us in."

Reassured in a degree by the testimony of her eyes, Nancy complied and the two entered.

"Laws, missus, it's you shure nuff," she said, "and Clopatry, too." (This was as near as she ever got to the name of the royal Egyptian.) "Who'd a thought to see you this time o' night?"

"We've run away, Nancy. You won't let Dr. Fox know?"

"I reckon not, missus. He's a drefful mean man, the old doctor is. I won't give you up to him nohow."

Luckily for Mrs. Kenyon old Nancy had some months before had a quarrel with Dr. Fox about some money matter in which she felt he had cheated her. So she was glad of this opportunity to do him an ill turn.

"Is Antony here, Nancy?" asked Cleopatra, looking about her with an air of expectation.

Nancy was about to reply in the negative, when she caught a significant look from Mrs. Kenyon, and altered her intended answer.

"He aint here yet, missus, but I expect him in the morning sure."

"Likely he's her man," thought Nancy, who was entirely unacquainted with that episode in Roman history in which Cleopatra figured. "Likely he's her man, though she do look old to have one."

The cabin consisted of one room on the ground floor, but overhead was a loft covered with straw, and used partly as a lumber-room by the old woman. A pallet filled with straw lay in one corner of the lower room, this being old Nancy's bed, from which she had hastily risen when she heard the knocking at the outer door.

"Lie down there, honeys," she said with generous hospitality, proposing to resign her own bed to her unexpected guests.

But the position was too exposed for Mrs. Kenyon.

Looking up she espied the loft and said:

"No, Nancy, we would rather go up there. Then if Dr. Fox comes for us he won't discover us."

To this arrangement both Nancy and Cleopatra assented, and a rude ladder was brought into requisition. When they had reached the loft Cleopatra looked around her with discontent.

"Am I to lie here?" she asked.

"Yes; we will lie down together."

"But this is no fit couch for a great queen," she complained. "What will Mark Antony—what will my courtiers say?"

"They will praise you for sacrificing your royal state for your lover," answered Mrs. Kenyon, who was quick-witted, and readily understood the warped mind she had to deal with.

"Then I will be content," said Cleopatra, evidently pleased with the suggestion, "if you think Antony will approve."

"There is no doubt of it. He will love you better than ever."

Cleopatra reclined upon the straw, and was soon in a profound slumber. Mrs. Kenyon was longer awake. She was anxious and troubled, but at length she, too, yielded to sleep.

She awoke to find old Nancy bending over her.

"Don't be frightened, honey," she said; "but the old doctor is ridin' straight to the door. Don't you move or say a word, and I'll send him off as wise as he came."

Nancy had scarcely got downstairs and drawn the ladder after her, when the smart tap of a riding-whip was heard on the outer door.

Mrs. Kenyon trembled in anxious suspense.