When Sophia at last lowered her eyes, and with a sigh of disappointment turned to her companions--when she awoke, as it were, and saw how fast the dusk had gathered round them, and what strides towards shutting them in night had made in those few minutes, she had much ado to maintain her composure. Lady Betty, little more than a child, and but one remove from a child's fear of the dark, clung to her; the girl, though a natural high spirit forbade her to expose her fears, was fairly daunted by the gloom and eeriness of the scene. Pettitt seated on a step of the carriage, weeping at a word and shrieking on the least alarm, was worse than useless; while the men, now reduced to four, had withdrawn to a distance, whence their voices, subdued in earnest colloquy, came at intervals to her ears.
What was to be done? Surely something? Surely they were not going to sit there, perhaps through the whole night, doing nothing to help themselves, wholly depending on the success of the postboys? That could not be; and impatiently Sophia summoned Watkyns. "Are we going to do nothing," she asked sharply, "until they come back? Cannot one of the grooms return the way we came? There was the man at the mill--who warned us? He may know what to do. Send one of the servants to him."
"I did ask the gentleman to go," Watkyns answered with a sniff of contempt, "or else to ride on with the postboys and guide them. He's got us into this scrape, begging your ladyship's pardon, and he ought to get us out! But he's all for not separating; says that it isn't safe, and he won't leave the ladies. He'll do nothing. He's turned kind of stupid like," the valet added with a snort of temper.
Sophia's lip curled. "Then let one of the grooms go," she said, "if he's afraid."
Watkyns hesitated. "Well, the truth is, my lady," he said, speaking low, and looking warily behind him, "they are fuddled with drink, and that's all about it. Where they got the stuff I don't know, but I've suspicions."
Sophia stared.
"I think I can guess what is in the gentleman's holsters," Watkyns continued, nodding mysteriously. "And I've a notion they had a share of it, when my back was turned. But why I cannot say. Only they are not to be trusted. I'd go back myself, for it is well to have two strings; and I could take one of their horses. But I don't like to leave you with him, my lady."
"With the gentleman?"
"Yes, my lady. Seeing he has given the men drink."
Sophia laughed in scorn. "You need not trouble yourself about him," she said. "We are not afraid of him. Besides it is not as if I were alone. There are three of us. As to the house opposite, however, that's another matter."
He was off his guard. "Oh, there's no fear of that!" he said.
"No? But I thought you said there was."
"This side of the water, my lady--I mean," he answered hurriedly. "There are stepping-stones you see a little above here; but they are covered now, and the people can't come over."
"You are sure of that?"
"Quite sure, my lady."
"Then you had better go," Sophia said with decision. "We've had nothing to eat since midday, and we are half famished. We cannot stay here all night."
Watkyns hesitated. "Your ladyship is right," he said, "it is not as if you were alone. And the moon will be up in an hour. Still, my lady, I don't know as Sir Hervey would like me to leave you?"
But in the end he gave way and went; and was scarcely out of hearing before she was sorry that she had sent him, and would fain, had it been possible, have recalled him.
Still the darkness was not yet Egyptian; night had not yet completely fallen. She could see the figures of Lane and the two servants, seated a score of paces away on a fallen thorn tree, to which they had tethered their horses. She could dimly make out Lady Betty's face, as the girl sat beside her in the carriage, getting what comfort she could from squeezing her hand; and Pettitt's, who sat with them, for it would have been cruel to exclude her in her state of terror. But the knowledge that by-and-by she would lose all this, the knowledge that by-and-by they must sit in that gloomy hollow, ignorant of what was passing near them, and at the mercy of the first comer, began to fill even Sophia with dread. She began to fear even Lane. She remembered that he had cause to dislike her; that he might harbour thoughts of revenge. If it were true that he had made the men drunk----
"It's absurd," Lady Betty whispered, pressing her hand. "He would not dare! He's just a clothes peg! You're not afraid of him?"
"No," Sophia answered bravely, "I don't know that I am afraid of any one. Only----"
"Only you wish you had not let Watkyns go?"
"Yes."
"So do I!" Lady Betty whispered eagerly. "But I did not like to say so. I was afraid you would think me afraid. What I can't make out is, why some of the men don't go over and get help where the light is, instead of riding miles and miles for it."
"They seem to think that the people are not to be trusted."
"But why? What do they think that they are?" Lady Betty asked nervously.
"I don't know! Watkyns said something of smugglers from Goudhurst."
"And how does he know?"
"From Lane, I suppose."
"Who brought us here, the little wretch! There!" Betty exclaimed, clutching her companion, "what is that? Oh, they have got a candle."
Lane had produced one from his holsters; the men had lighted it. By-and-by, he brought it to the carriage, shading it with his hat; with a sheepish air he prayed the ladies to make use of it. Sophia added distrust to her former contempt of him, and would have declined the gift; but Lady Betty's trembling hand prayed mutely for the indulgence, and she let him place it in the lanthorn in the carriage. It conferred a kind of protection; at least they could now see one another's faces.
She soon regretted her easiness, however, for instead of withdrawing when he had performed the office, Lane lingered beside the door. He asked Lady Betty the time, he went away a little, returned, a flitting shadow on the fringe of light; finally he stood irresolute watching them, at a distance of a couple of yards. Sophia bore this as long as she could; at last, out of patience, she asked him coldly if he had not another candle. It was now quite dark.
"No, my lady," he said humbly, "I've no other."
She wished that she had bitten her tongue off before she put the question, for now it appeared barbarous to send him into the darkness. He seemed, too, to see the advantage he had gained, and by-and-by he ventured to take his seat on a log beside the carriage. He cast a timid look at Lady Betty, and heaved an audible sigh.
If he hoped to move that hard little heart by sighing, however, he was much mistaken. Cheered by the light, Lady Betty was herself again. Sophia felt her begin to shake, and knew that in a moment the laugh, half hysterical, half mirthful, would break all bounds; and she sought to save the situation. "Where are the men?" she said hurriedly. "Will you be good enough to ask one of them to come to me?"
Lane rose, and went reluctantly; soon he came stumbling back into the circle of light.
"I cannot find them," he stammered, standing by the carriage.
"Not find them?" Sophia answered, staring at him. "Are they not there?"
"No, my lady," he returned, glancing nervously over his shoulder and back again. "At least I--I can't find them, ma'am. It is very dark. You don't think," he continued--and for the first time she discerned by the poor light of the candle that he was trembling, "that--that they can have fallen into the river?"
His tone alarmed her, even while she thought his fears preposterous. "Fallen into the river?" she exclaimed contemptuously. "Nonsense, sir! Are you trying to frighten us?" And without waiting for an answer, she raised her voice and called "George! George!"
No answer. She stepped quickly from the carriage. "Take me," she said imperiously, "to where you left them."
Lady Betty protested; Pettitt clutched at her habit, begged her to stay. But Sophia persisted, and groped her way after Lane until he came to a stand, his hand on the bark of the fallen blackthorn, beside which she had last seen the men. "They were here," he said, in the tone of one half dazed. "They were. They were just here."
"Yes, I remember," she answered. And undeterred by Pettitt's frantic appeals to her to return, she called the man again and again; still she got no answer.
At length, fear of she knew not what came on her, and shaken by the silence of the valley through which her voice rang mournfully, she hurried back to the carriage, and sprang into it in a panic; the man Lane following close at her elbow. It was only when she had taken her seat, and found him clutching the door of the carriage and pressing as near as he could come, that she saw he was ashake with fear; that his eyes were staring, his hair almost on end.
"They've fallen into the river," he cried wildly, his teeth chattering. "I never thought of that! They have fallen in, and are drowned!"
"Don't be a fool, man!" Sophia answered sharply. She was striving to keep fear at bay, while Lady Betty awestricken, clung to her arm. "We should have heard a cry or something."
"They were drunk," he whispered. "They were drunk! And now they are dead! They are dead! Dead!"
Pettitt shrieked at the word; and Sophia, between fear and rage, uncertain whether he was frightened or was trying to frighten them, bade him be silent. "If you can do nothing, at least be still," she cried wrathfully. "You are worse than a woman. And do you, Pettitt, behave yourself. You should be taking care of your mistress, instead of scaring her."
The man so far obeyed that he sank on the step of the carriage, and was silent. But she heard him moan; and despite her courage she shuddered. Fear is infectious; it was in vain she strove against the uneasy feelings communicated by his alarm. She caught herself looking over her shoulder, starting at a sound; trembling when the candle flickered in the lanthorn or the feeble ring of light in which they sat, in that hollow of blackness, wavered or varied. By-and-by the candle would go out; there was but an inch of it now. Then they would be in the dark; three women and this craven, with the hidden river running silent, bankful beside them, and she knew not what, prowling, hovering, groping at their backs.
On a sudden Lane sprang up. "What is that?" he cried, cowering against the door, and clutching it as if he would drag it open and force himself in among them. "See, what is it? What is it?"
But it was only the first shaft of light, shot by the rising moon through a notch in the hills, that had scared him. It struck the thorn tree where the men had sat, and slowly the slender ray widened and grew until all the upper valley through which they had come lay bathed in solemn radiance. Gradually it flooded the bottom, and dimmed the yellow, ineffectual light of their taper; at length only the ridge beyond the water remained dark, pierced by the one brooding spark that seemed to keep grave vigil in the hill of shadow.
The women breathed more freely; even Pettitt ceased to bewail herself. "They will be back soon, with the horses," Sophia said, gazing with hopeful eyes into the darkness beyond the ford. "They must have left us an hour and more."
"An hour?" Lady Betty answered with a shiver. "Three, I vow! But what is the man doing?" she continued, directing Sophia's attention to Lane. "I declare he's a greater coward than any of us!"
He was, if the fact that the light which had relieved their fears had not removed his stood for anything. He seemed afraid to move a yard from them; yet he seldom looked at them, save when a gust of terror shook him, and he turned as if to grip their garments. His hand on the door of the carriage, he gazed now along the valley down which they had come, now towards the solitary light beyond the stream; and it was impossible to say which prospect alarmed him the more. Sophia, whom his restlessness filled with apprehension, noticed that he listened; and that more than once, when Lady Betty spoke or Pettitt complained, he raised his hand, as if he took the interruption ill. And the longer she watched him, the more she was infected with his uneasiness.
On a sudden he turned to her. "Do you hear anything?" he asked.
She listened. "No," she answered, "I hear nothing but the wind passing through the trees."
"Not horses?"
She listened again, inclining her head to catch any sound that might come from the other side of the stream. "No," she replied, "I don't."
He touched her shoulder. "Not that way!" he exclaimed. "Not that way! Behind us!"
Suddenly Lady Betty spoke. "I do!" she said. "But they are a long way off. It's Watkyns coming back. He must have found horses, for I hear more than one!"
"It's not Watkyns!" Lane answered and he took two steps from the carriage, then came back. "Get out!" he cried hoarsely. "Do you hear? Get out! Or don't say I didn't warn you. Do you hear?" he repeated, when no one stirred; for Sophia, her worst suspicions confirmed, was speechless with surprise, and the others cowered in their places, thinking him gone mad. "Get out, get out, and hide if you can. They are coming!" he continued wildly. "I tell you they are coming. And it is off my shoulders. In ten minutes they'll be here, and if you're not hidden, it'll be the worse for you. I've told you!"
"Who are coming!" Sophia said, her lips forming the words with difficulty.
"Hawkesworth!" he answered. "Hawkesworth! He and two more, as big devils as himself. If you don't want to be robbed and worse, hide, hide! Do you hear me?" he continued, pulling frantically at Sophia's habit. "I've told you! I've done all I can! It's not on my head!"
For an instant she sat, turned to stone; deaf to the cries, to the prayers, to the lamentations of the others. Hawkesworth? The mere name of him, with whom she had once fancied herself in love, whom now she feared and loathed, as she feared and loathed no other man, stopped the current of her blood. "Hawkesworth," she whispered, "Hawkesworth? Here? Following us? Do you mean it?"
"Haven't I told you?" Lane answered with angry energy. "He was at Grinstead, at the White Lion, last night. I saw him, and--and the woman. You'd made me mad, you know, and--and they tempted me! They tempted me!" he whined. "And they're coming. Can't you hear them now? They are coming!"
Yes, she could hear them now. In the far distance up the valley the steady fall of horses' hoofs broke the night silence. Steadily, steadily, the hoof-beats drew nearer and nearer. Now they were hushed; the riders were crossing a spongy bit, where a spring soaked the road--Sophia could remember the very place. Now the sound rose louder, nearer, more fateful. Trot-trot, trot-trot, trot-trot! Yes, they were coming. They were coming! In five minutes, in ten minutes at most they would be here!
It was a crisis to try the bravest. Round them the moonlight flooded the low wide mouth of the valley. As far as the eye reached, all was bare and shelterless. A few scattered thorn trees, standing singly and apart, mocked the eye with a promise of safety, which a second glance showed to be futile. The only salient object was the carriage stranded beside the ford, a huge dark blot, betraying their presence to eyes a furlong away. Yet if they left its shelter, whither were they to turn, where to hide themselves? Sophia, her heart beating as if it would suffocate her, tried to think, tried to remember; while Lady Betty clung to her convulsively, asking what they were to do, and Pettitt, utterly overcome, sobbed at the bottom of the carriage, as if she were safer there.
And all the time the tramp of the approaching horses, borne on the night breeze, came clearer and sharper, clearer and sharper to the ear; until she could distinguish the ring of bit and bridle as the men descended the valley. She looked at Lane. The craven was panic-stricken, caught hither and thither, by gusts of cowardice; there was no help there. Her eye passed to the river, and her heart leapt, for in the shadowed bank on the other side she read hope and a chance. There in the darkness they could hide; there--if only they could find the stepping-stones which Watkyns had said were upstream.
Quick as thought she had Lady Betty out, and seizing her woman by the shoulder, shook her impatiently. "Come," she cried, "come, we must run. We must run! Come, or we shall leave you."
But Pettitt only grovelled lower on the floor, deaf to prayers, orders, threats. At last, "We must leave her," Sophia cried, when she had wasted a precious minute in vain appeals. "Come! We must find the stepping-stones. It is the only chance."
"But is the danger--so great?" the child panted.
"It's--oh, come! Come!" Sophia groaned. "You don't understand." And seizing Lady Betty by the hand she ran with her to the water's edge, and in breathless haste turned up the stream. They had gone twenty yards along the bank, the elder's eyes searching the dark full current, when Sophia stopped as if she had been shot. "The jewels!" she gasped.
"The jewels?"
"Yes, I've left them."
"Oh, never mind them now!" Betty wailed, "never mind them now!" and she caught at her to stay her, but in vain. Already Sophia was half-way back to the carriage. She vanished inside it; in an incredibly short space--though it seemed long to Betty, trembling with impatience and searching the valley with eyes of dread--she was out again with the jewel-case in her hand, and flying back to her companion. "They are his!" she muttered, as she urged her on again. "I couldn't leave them. Now, the stones! The stepping-stones! Oh, child, use your eyes! Find them, or we are lost!"
The fear of Hawkesworth lay heavy on her; she felt that she should die if his hand touched her. It was unfortunate that all the bank on which they stood was light; it was in their favour that the moon had now risen high enough to shine on the stream. They ran fifty yards without seeing a sign of what they sought. Then--at the very moment when the pursuers' voices broke on their ears, and they realised that in a minute or two they must be espied--they came to a couple of thorn trees, standing not far apart, that afforded a momentary shelter. A yard farther, and Lady Betty stumbled over something that lay in the shadow of the trees. She recoiled with a cry. "It's a man!" she murmured.
"The grooms!" Sophia answered, her wits sharpened by necessity; and she felt for and shook one of the sleepers, tugged at his clothes, even buffeted him in a frenzy of impatience. "George! George!" she muttered; and again she shook him. But in vain; and as quickly as she had knelt she was on foot again, and had drawn the child on. "Drugged!" she muttered. "They are drugged! We must cross! We must cross! It's our one chance!"
She hurried her on, bending low; for beyond the two thorn trees all lay bare and open. Suddenly a cry rent the night; an oath, and a woman's scream followed and told them that their flight was known. Their hands clasped, their knees shaking under them, they pressed on, reckless now, expecting every moment to hear footsteps behind them. And joy! Sophia nearly swooned, as she saw not five yards ahead of them a ripple of broken water that ran slantwise across the silver; and in a line with it a foot above the surface, a rope stretched taut from bank to bank.
The stones were covered, all save one; but the rope promised a passage, more easy than she had dared to expect. "Will you go first, or shall I?" was on the tip of her tongue; but Lady Betty wasted no time on words. She was already in the water, and wading across, her hands sliding along the rope, her petticoats floating out on the surface of the current. The water was cold, and though it rose no higher than her knees, ran with a force that but for the rope must have swept her off her feet. She reached the middle in safety, however, and Sophia who dared not throw the weight of two on the rope, was tingling to follow, when the dreaded sound of feet on the bank warned her of danger. She turned her head sharply. A man stood within five paces of her.
A pace nearer, and Sophia would have flung herself into the stream! heedless of the rope, heedless of all but the necessity of escape. In the nick of time, however, she saw that it was not Hawkesworth who had found her, but Lane the poor rogue who had ruined them. In a low harsh voice, she bade him keep his distance.
"I don't know what to do!" he faltered, wringing his hands and looking back in terror. "They'll murder me! I know they will! But there's smallpox the other side! You're going into it! There are three dead in the house, and everybody's fled. I don't know what to do," he whined.
p228LADY BETTY WASTED NO TIME ON WORDS. SHE WAS ALREADY IN THE WATER AND WADING ACROSS
Sophia answered nothing, but slid into the stream and waded across. As she drew her wet skirts out of the water, and, helped by Lady Betty, climbed the bank, she heard the chase come down the side she had left; and thankful for the deep shadow in which they stood, she pressed the girl's hand to enjoin silence, as step by step they groped their way from the place. To go as far as possible from the crossing was her object; her fear that a stumble or a rolling stone--for the side of the ridge below the houses was steep and rough--would discover their position. Fortunately the darkness which lay there was deepened by contrast with the moonlit country on the farther side; and they crept some forty yards along the hill before they were brought up short by a wattled fence. They would have climbed this, but as they laid hands on it they heard men shouting, and saw two figures hurry along the opposite bank, and come to a stand, at the point where they had crossed. A moment Sophia hung in suspense; then Hawkesworth's voice thrilled her with terror. "Over!" he cried. "Over, fool, and watch the top!" And she heard the splashing of a horse as it crossed the ford, and the thud of its hoofs as it dashed up the road.
The two fugitives had turned instinctively down stream, in the direction of the road and the houses. The rider's movement up the road therefore tended to cut off their farther retreat; while the distance they had been able to put between themselves and the stepping-stones was so short that they dared not move again, much less make the attempt to repass their landing-place, and go up stream. For the moment, close as they were to their enemies, the darkness shielded them; but Sophia's heart beat thickly, and she crouched lower against the wattle as she heard Hawkesworth step into the stream and splash his way across, swearing at the coldness of the water.
He drew himself out on their side and shook himself; then for a time it seemed that the earth had swallowed him, so still was he. But Sophia knew that he was listening, standing in the dark a few paces from them, in the hope of hearing the rustle of their skirts or their footsteps as they stole away. Disappointed in this he began to move to and fro, beating the bushes this way and that; now loudly threatening them with horrid penalties if they did not show themselves, now asserting that he saw them, and now calling to his fellow who kept guard on the farther bank to know if he heard them. It was clear that he knew, probably from Pettitt, that they had not had time to go far from the carriage.
Fortunately the trend of his search was from them, and as he receded up stream they breathed more freely. But when the sound of his movements was beginning to grow faint, and Sophia to think of continuing their flight, he turned, and she heard him come back on his tracks. This time, if the ear could be trusted, he was making directly for the place where they cowered beside the wattle fence.
Yes, he was drawing nearer--and nearer; now a stick snapped under his foot, now he stumbled and swore, as he recovered himself. Sophia felt the younger girl shake under her hand, and instinctively drew the child's face against her shoulder that she might not see. Presently she could make out his head and shoulders dark against the sky; and still she watched him, fascinated. Three more steps and he would be on them! Two more--the impulse to shriek, to spring up and fly at all risks was scarcely to be controlled. One more--there was a sudden rustle, a fathom below them, he sprang that way, something whisked from a gorse-bush, and he stood.
"What was it?" cried the man on the other side.
"A rabbit!" he answered with an oath. "So they're not this way. I don't believe they crossed. Are you sure they're not in that thorn tree behind you? One of them might hide in it."
Apparently the man went to see, for half a minute later, a shriek, followed by a thud, as of a heavy body brought hurriedly to earth, proved the success of his search. Hawkesworth sprang towards the stepping-stones.
"Which is it?" he cried.
"Neither," the fellow answered. "It's the whippersnapper you sent for a decoy."
"D----n it!" Hawkesworth exclaimed, and he came to a stand. "But if you've got him, they are not far off. We'll wring his neck if he does not say where they are! Prick him, man, prick him with your knife."
But the poor fop's squeals showed that little cruelty would be needed to draw from him all he knew. "Don't! Don't!" he screamed. "They're on the other side! I swear they are!"
"None of your lies now, or I'll slit your throat!" the ruffian growled. He appeared to be kneeling on Lane's breast.
"It's the truth! I swear it is! They were just across when you came!" Lane cried. "They can't be fifty yards from the bank! If they'd moved I should have seen them. Let me up, and I'll help you to find them."
"Tie him up," Hawkesworth cried. "Tie him up. And if he's lied to us, we shall soon know. If we don't find them, we'll drop him in the water. Tell him that, and ask him again."
"They're by yon!" Lane cried. "I swear they are!"
Sophia felt, she could not see, that Hawkesworth was peering round him. Even now he was not more than ten or twelve paces from them; but the gorse-bush, from which the rabbit had darted, formed a black blurr against the fence, and deepened the obscurity in which they lay. Unless he came on them they were safe; but at any moment he might discover the fence, and guess it had brought them up, and beat along it. And--and while she thought of this she heard him chuckle.
"Be still, man," he cried to the other, "and keep your ears open. The moon will be over the hill in five minutes, and we'll have them safe, if they are here. Meantime, stand and listen, will you? or they may creep off."
Sophia swallowed a sob. It seemed so hard--so hard after all they had done to escape--that nature itself should turn against them. Yet, it was so; the man was right. Already the moonlight touched the crest of a gorse-bush that grew a little higher than its neighbours; and overhead the sky was growing bright where the ridge line cut it. In five minutes the disc of the moon, sailing high, would rise above that spot, and all the hill side, that now lay veiled in shadow, would be flooded with light. Then----
She shuddered, watching paralysed the oncoming of this new and inexorable foe. Slowly the light was creeping down the gorse-bush. Minute by minute, sure as the tide that surges to the lips of the stranded mariner, the pale rays silvered this spray and that spray, dark before; touched the fence, and now lay a narrow streak along the nearer margin of the stream. And the streak widened; not slowly now but quickly. Even while she watched it, from the shelter of the fence, feeling her heart beat sickening bumps against her side, the light crept nearer and nearer. In three or four minutes it would be upon them.
Sophia was brave, but there was something in the sure and stealthy approach of this danger that sapped her will, and robbed her limbs of strength. Unable to think, unable to act, she crouched panic-stricken where she was; as the hare surprised in her form awaits the hunter's hand. Until only a minute remained; then with a groan she shook off the spell. To run, even to be caught running, was better than to be taken so. But whither could they run with the least chance of escape? She turned her head to see, and her eyes, despairing, climbed the slope behind her until they rested on the faint yellow spark that, solemn and unchanged, shone from the window of the dark house on the crest.
That way lay some chance, a desperate chance. She warned Lady Betty by a touch. "We must run!" she breathed in the girl's ear. "Look at the fence, and when I tap your shoulder, climb over, and run to the house!"
Lady Betty disengaged herself softly and nodded. Then, as if she was granted some new insight into the character of the woman whose arms were round her, as if she saw more clearly than before the other's courage, and understood the self-denial that gave her the first and better chance, she drew Sophia's face to her, and clinging to her, kissed it. Then she crouched, waiting, waiting, her eyes on the fence.
Very, very gently Sophia lifted her head, saw that Hawkesworth was looking the other way, and gave the signal. Betty, nimble and active, was over in a moment unseen, unheard. Sophia followed, but the fence creaked under her, and Hawkesworth heard it and turned. He saw her poised on the fence, in the full moonlight, so that not a line of her figure escaped him; with a yell of triumph he darted towards her. But directly in his path lay a low gorse-bush, still in shadow. He did not see it, tripped over it, and fell all his length on the grass. By the time he was up again, the two were dim flying shadows, all but lost in the darkness that lay beyond the fence.
All but lost; not quite. In three seconds he was at the fence, he was over it, he was beginning to gain on them. They strained every nerve, but they had to breast the steep side of the hill, and though fear and the horror of his hand upon their shoulders gave them wings, breath was lacking. Then Betty fell, and lost a precious yard; and though she was up again, and panting onwards gallantly, for a few seconds he thought that he would catch them with ease. Then the ascent began to tell on him also. The fall had shaken him. He began to pant and labour; he saw that he was not gaining on them, but rather losing ground, and he slackened his pace, and shouted to the man on guard in the road above, bidding him stop them.
The man with an answering shout reined back his horse to the narrow pass where the road ran between the house and the cottages. There, peering forward, he made ready to intercept them. Fortunately, the moon, above and a little behind him, showed his figure in silhouette in the gap; and Sophia clutching Betty's hand, dragged her back at the moment she was stepping into the moonlit road. An instant the two listened, trembling, palpitating, staring, like game driven into the middle of the field. But behind them Hawkesworth's scrambling footsteps and heavy breathing still came on; they could not wait. A moment's sickening doubt, and Sophia pressed Betty's hand, and the two darted together across the road, and took cover in a space still dark, between the two cottages that flanked it on the farther side.
The man in the gap gave the alarm, shouting that they had crossed the road; and Hawkesworth, coming up out of breath, asked with a volley of curses why he had not stopped them.
"Because they did not come my way!" the fellow answered bluntly. "Why didn't you catch 'em, captain?"
"Where are they?" Hawkesworth panted fiercely.
"Straight over they went. No! Between the hovels here!"
But Hawkesworth had a little recovered his breath, and with it his cunning. Instead of following his prey into the dark space between the buildings, he darted round the other side of the lower cottage, and in a twinkling was on the open slope beyond. Here the moonlight fell evenly, the hillside was clear of gorse, he could see a hundred yards. But he caught no glimpse of fleeing figures, he heard no sound of retiring footsteps; and quick as thought he turned up the hill, and learned the reason.
A high wall ran from cottage to cottage, rendering exit that way impossible. Sophia had trapped herself and her companion; they were in acul de sac!With a cry of triumph he turned to go back; as he ran he heard the horseman he had left call to him. Opportunely, as he gained the road, he was joined by the third of the band, the rogue he had left at the stepping stones.
"Have you nabbed them?" the fellow panted.
"They're here!" Hawkesworth answered. "I think he's got them."
"And the sparklers?"
Hawkesworth nodded; but the next instant swore and stood. The man on the horse, who should have been guarding the mouth of the dark entry, where the girls lay trapped, was a dozen yards farther up the road, his back to the cottages, and his face to the house with the gable end.
"What the devil are you doing?" Hawkesworth roared. "They are here, man!"
"They have bolted!" the fellow answered sullenly. "Or one of them has. She shook a shawl in this brute's face, and he reared. Before I could get him round----"
"She got off?" the Irishman shrieked.
"No! She's here, in the house! Burn her, when I get hold of her I'll make her smart for it!"
"She? Then where's the other?"
"She's where she was, for all I know," the man answered. "I've seen nothing of her."
But he lied in that. While he had been marking down the woman who had frightened his horse with her shawl--and who then had glided coolly into the house, the door of which stood ajar--he had seen with the tail of his eye a flying skirt vanish down the road behind him. He had a notion that one had got clear, but he was not sure; and if he said anything he would be blamed. So he stood while Hawkesworth and the other searched the dark space between the cottages.
A few seconds sufficed to show that there was no one there, and Hawkesworth turned and swore at him.
"Well, there's one left!" the offender answered sulkily. "We've got her in the house, and there's no back door. Take your change out of her."
"Aye, but who's going in to fetch her?" Hawkesworth snarled. "I've not had the smallpox. Perhaps you have. In that case, in you go, man. You run no risk, or but little."
The rogue's face fell. "Oh Lord!" he said. "I'd not thought of that! What a vixen it is!"
"In you go, man, and have her out!"
"I'm hanged if I do!" was the answer; and the fellow reined back his horse in a hurry. "Faugh! I can smell the vinegar from here!" he cried. And he spat on the ground.
"Will you go, Clipper? Come, man, you're not afraid?"
But Clipper, the third of the band, so called because he had once lain in the condemned hold for the offence of reducing His Majesty's gold coin, declined in terms not doubtful; and for a few seconds the three glared at one another, rage in the greater villain's eyes, a dogged resolution, not unmingled with shame, in his hirelings'. To be baffled, and by a girl! To have her at bay, and fear the encounter! To be outwitted, outdared, and by a woman! The moonlight that lay on the lonely country side, the night wind that stirred the willows by the stream, the height of blue above them with its myriad watching eyes, these things had no awe for them, touched no chord in their dulled consciences; but the smoky yellow gleam that shone from the window of the dark gable, and was visible where two of them stood--that and the dread terror that lay behind it scared even these hardened men.
"Will you let all go?" Hawkesworth cried in rage. "We have the girl, and not a soul within four miles to interfere! We've jewels to the tune of thousands! And you'll let them go when it's only to pick them up!"
"Aye, and the smallpox with them!" Clipper retorted grimly. "I've seen a man that died of that," with a shudder, "and I don't want to see another. Go yourself, captain," he sneered, "it's your business."
The thrust went home. "So I will, by----!" the Irishman cried passionately. "I'll have her out, and the stuff! But I'll think twice before I pay you, you lily-livers! You chicken hearts. Give me a light!"
"There's light enough upstairs!" the Clipper answered mockingly. But the other man, more amenable, produced a flint and steel and a candle end, and lighting the one from the other handed it to Hawkesworth. "Likely enough you'll find her behind the door, captain," he said civilly. "'Twon't be much risk after all."
"Then go yourself, you cur," Hawkesworth answered brutally. He was torn this way and that; between fear and rage, cupidity and cowardice. The ardour of the chase grew cool in this atmosphere of disease; the courage of the man failed before this house given up to the fell plague, that in those days took pitiless toll of rich and poor, of old and young, of withered cheeks and bright eyes, of kings and joiners' daughters. His gorge rose at the sharp scent of vinegar, at the duller odour of burnt rags with which the air was laden; they were the rough disinfectants of the time, used before the panic-stricken survivors fled the place. In face of the danger he had to confront, women have ever been bolder than men, though they have more to lose. He was no exception.
Yet he would go. To flinch was to be lessened for ever in the eyes of the meaner villains, his hirelings; to dare was to confirm the evil pre-eminence he claimed. Bitter black rage in his heart--rage in especial against the woman who laid this necessity upon him--he thrust the door wide open, and shielding the candle, of which the light but feebly irradiated the black cavern before him, he crossed the threshold.
The place he entered seemed all dark to eyes fresh from the moonbeams; but some light there was beside that which he carried. From the open door of a narrow staircase that led to the upper rooms a faint reflection of the candles that burned above issued; by aid of which he saw that he stood in the great kitchen of the farm. But the black pot that tenanted the vast gloomy recess of the fireplace, hung over dead, white ashes--cold relics of the cheer that had once reigned there. The cradle in the corner was still and shrouded. In the middle of the stone floor a bench, a mere slab on four-straddling legs, lay overturned, upset by the panic-stricken survivors in their hurried flight; and beside it, stiff and grinning, sprawled the body of a black cat, killed in some frenzy of fear or superstition ere the living left the house to the care of the dead. A brooding odour of disease filled the gaunt, wide-raftered room, infected the shadowy hanging flitches, and grew stronger and more sickly towards the staircase at the farther end.
Yet it was there he saw her, as he paused uncertain, his heart like water. She was standing on the lowest step of the stairs as if she had retreated thither on his entrance. Her one hand held her skirt a little from the floor, and close to her; the other hung by her side. Her eyes shone large in her white face; and in her look and in her attitude was something solemn and unearthly, that for a moment awed him.
He stared spell-bound. She was the first to speak. "What do you want?" she whispered--as if the dead in the room above could hear her.
"The jewels!" he muttered, his voice subdued to the pitch of hers. "The jewels! Give me the jewels, and I will go!"
"They are not here," she said. "They are far away. Here is only death. Death is here, death is above," she continued solemnly. "The air is full of death. If you would not die, go! Go before it be too late."
He battled with the dark fear which her words fluttered before him; the fear that was in the air of the room, the fear that made his light burn more dimly than was natural. He battled with it, and hated her for it, and for his cowardice. "You she-devil!" he cried, "where are the jewels?"
"Gone," she answered solemnly.
"Where?"
"Where you will never find them."
"And you think to get off with that?" he hissed; and advanced a step towards her. "You lie!" he cried furiously. "You have them. And if you do not give them up----"
"I have them not!" she answered firmly; and little did he suspect how wildly her heart was leaping behind the bold front she showed him. Little did he suspect, the deadly terror she had had to surmount before she penetrated so far into this loathsome house. "I have them not," she repeated. "Nor have I any fear of you. There is that here that is your master and mine. Come up, come up," she continued, a touch of wildness in her manner, and she mounted a step or two of the narrow staircase, and beckoned him to follow her. "Come up and you will see him."
"You drab!" he cried, "do you come down, or it will be the worse for you! Do you hear me? Come down, you slut, or when I fetch you I will have no mercy. You don't know what I shall do to you; I do, and----"
He stood, he was silent, he choked with rage; for as if he had not spoken, her figure first and then her feet, mounting without pause or hesitation, vanished from sight. He was left, scared and baffled, alone in the great desolate kitchen where his light shone a mere spark, making visible the darkness that canopied him. A rat moving in the dim fringe between light and shadow startled him. A rope of onions swayed by the draught of air that blew through the open door, brought the sweat to his brow. He took two steps forward and one backward; the shroud on the cradle fluttered, and but for the men waiting outside, he would have fled at once and given up woman and booty. But fear of ridicule still conquered fear of death; conquered even the superstition that lay dormant in his Irish blood; he forced himself onward. His eyes fixed balefully, his hands withheld from contact with the wall--as if he had been a woman with skirts--he crept upwards till his gaze rose above the level of the upper floor; then for a moment the light of two thick candles, half-burned, gave him back his courage. His brow relaxed, he sprang with a cry up the upper stairs, set his foot in the room and stood!
On the huge low wooden bed from which the coarse blue and white bedding protruded, two bodies lay sheeted. At their feet the candles burned dull before the window that should have been open, but was shut; as the thick noisome air of the room, that turned him sick and faint, told him. Near the bed, on the farther side, stood that he sought; Sophia, her eyes burning, her face like paper. His prey then was there, there, within his reach; but she had not spoken without reason. Death, death in its most loathsome aspect lay between them; and the man's heart was as water, his feet like lead.
"If you come near me," she whispered, "if you come a step nearer, I will snatch this sheet from them, and I will wrap you in it! And you will die! In eight days you will be dead! Will you see them? Will you see what you will be?" And she lowered her hand to raise the sheet.
He stepped back a pace, livid and shaking. "You she-devil!" he muttered. "You witch!"
"Go!" she answered, in the same low tone. "Go! Or I will bring your death to you! And you will die! As you have lived, foul, noisome, corrupt, you will die! In eight days you will die--if you come one step nearer!"
She took a step forward herself. The man turned and fled.