Part 65 (1/2)

One more strong, loving embrace, and he is gone. He throws himself upon his horse, which Sam has with difficulty been holding, and its impatient hoof-strokes ring through the empty street as he turns for one last look at the graceful figure waving him a farewell from the gate, and for the moment he feels inclined to retrace his steps, go straight back and resign the post which, all unsought, has been thrust upon him, and allow the war to take care of itself as far as he is concerned.

And Lilian, returning to the deserted room, now so desolate and empty to her, as the dawn reduces the light of the candles to a pale garish flicker, feels the tears welling up afresh as she reproaches herself for not having kept him at any cost, for round her heart is a terrible foreboding of evil to come--how, when, and in what form the future will reveal. Yet the feeling is there.

We must follow the wayfarer. Throughout the whole day he rode mechanically forward, absorbed in his own thoughts. A heavy storm drove him for shelter to a wretched roadside inn; but ever impatient to be moving, he left before it was nearly over. The roads wet and slippery with the rain rendered progress slow, so that by the time it grew dark he was still some miles from Hicks' farm, where he intended to pa.s.s the night.

”I'm afraid we've lost the way,” he ruminated, as having gone some distance up a long, bush-covered valley, he began to feel rather out of his bearings. ”Sam! Where the devil are we?”

”Don't know, Inkos. I never was here before. Look. There's a house!”

”So there is. We'll make for it,” and, picking up their horses' heads, they approached the dwelling, which was a sorry-looking affair. Darker and darker it grew, and a drizzling shower began to fall. Suddenly a light gleamed from the ill-closed window, and at the same time a man's voice, raised high in expostulation, reached their ears--a voice not unfamiliar to Claverton, withal, and in its tones he caught his own name. Quickly he dismounted.

”Sam,” he whispered. ”Take the horses out of sight, there, in the bush--quietly, d'you hear? And if you hear a row, come and look after me without a moment's loss. You'll soon see which way to shoot.”

”Yeh bo 'Nkos,” replied the ready-witted native, whose eyes sparkled with excitement. Then silently, and with a rapid glide, Claverton made his way round to the back of the house. Through a c.h.i.n.k under the window-joist he could see the interior of a room--a mouldy, disused room, with damp, discoloured walls, and rotting beams festooned with cobwebs; but the place wore a look of familiarity to him, even as a sight or a sound which now and then will strike our imaginations as in no wise to be accounted for save in the previous experience of a dream.

For a moment he was puzzled; then it flashed upon him that he was looking into the room where he and Ethel Brathwaite had taken refuge on the night of the storm. Yes; there was the very place where she had slept and he had covered her with his cloak, and where she had sat when terrified by the wolf; and, straining his gaze further, he almost expected to see that quadruped's footsteps in the dust by the half-open door. A fire burnt in the middle of the room, and there by the side of it lay the very stone he had used for a seat. It all seemed so strange that he seriously began to think he must be dreaming.

But he was wide awake enough as the sound of voices was heard, and two men entered the room from outside, closing the door after them. And in one of them Claverton recognised his recruit of yesterday; the other he had never seen before. He was an Englishman--a tall, dark man, well made and erect of carriage, evidently a gentleman by birth, and yet with a certain sinister expression that would have led the watcher to regard him with distrust even had he not heard his own name brought into the conversation.

”It's all right, Sharkey,” this one was saying.

”Your ears must have played you tricks. There's no sign of any one moving.”

”No, there ain't. Well, now, Cap'n, about this devil Claverton?”

”Yes, I'll be as good as my word. One hundred pounds, this day six months.”

”Make it two, Cap'n; make it two. He's a devil to deal with--a very devil. You don't know him as well as I do.”

”No; one. Not another stiver. And now, are you downright sure that Arthur Lidwell and Arthur Claverton are one and the same man? Could you swear to him?”

The mulatto laughed--a hideous, hyaena-like grin--showing the long, sharp, canine teeth which had gained him his repellent sobriquet.

”Swear to him?” he cried. ”I'd swear to him in a million! I recognised him directly I set eyes on him in the crowd at 'King.' But the young lady spotted me sharp as a needle, and I had to hide. She does seem awful fond of him. Why, when I--”

”Drop that d.a.m.ned nonsense, Sharkey, and stick to the point?” exclaimed the Englishman, with a deep frown.

”Very sorry, Cap'n. Well, I was going to say, I knew him, and, what's more, he knew me.”

”The devil he did!”

”Yes. He recognised me first when I met him on the road on Sat.u.r.day, riding with the young lady; then afterwards I spoke to him, but he was that high and lofty! I told him my name, and watched him closely; then I called him by his name that he carried up there--just let it slip, like--and, would you believe it?--he never winced!”

”Didn't he?”

”No, he didn't. Says he: 'Never saw you before in my life!' as cool as you please. Ah, he's a plucky devil is Lidwell; he always was!” said the mulatto, with a sigh of admiration.

”Why do you owe him a grudge?” asked the other, curiously.

”He knocked me down once, Cap'n--hit me here, bang on the nose.” And the speaker's features a.s.sumed a look of deadly malice. ”He shot me, too, and left me for dead. I could forgive him that, but not the whack on the nose.”

”So help me Heaven, I'll repeat that operation with interest before you're many weeks older, friend Sharkey,” muttered the watcher, between his set teeth.