"I think that you and I are better apart."
"As you please. But I have not had my say—yet."
"Oh, you are unbearable!"
"One is not thanked for telling the truth. I came here to warn you that the whole business is discovered."
She swung round and faced him, holding up an impatient and restive head.
"Do all men talk behind each other's backs? What are you hinting at?"
Jasper looked at her stubbornly.
"How much do you know, Nance? By George, you look innocent enough!"
"What do you mean?"
"The Chevalier de Rothan is a French spy."
"Mr. Benham!"
"You have said that your father is his friend."
"Oh!"
"I will not use the word 'spy' when speaking of your father."
Nothing could have more clearly proved Nance Durrell's innocence than the indignation that leapt up in her like a white flame out of a fire. It was the anger of youth, swift, generous, and impulsive.
"You call Anthony Durrell a spy!"
"I called De Rothan a spy."
"How do you know? How do you know?"
He was more busy with her face and gestures than with her words. It was a wonderful love-play to him, with its quick kindlings, its red, passionate lips, its eyes that flashed out melodramatic scorn. The very way she breathed, and held her head, was sheer revelation.
The sincerity of her anger challenged him.
"How dared you come to me with this tale?"
"Because it is true."
"How do you know?"
"I have seen and heard things."
"Well, then, you, too, are something of a spy."
"I could not help seeing and hearing what I did. I am not the only man who has suspected your father of French sympathies. As for De Rothan, we ought to have known him for a rogue. We English are such easy-going fools."
She walked on, head in air, eyes looking into the distance.
"I will not believe it."
"I am sorry."
"Oh, don't talk of sorrow!"
"Nance, do you think I came here to taunt and bully you?"
"Perhaps——"
"What the devil do you think I came for?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"To be rough—and quarrelsome?"
She was falling a little from the serenity of her indignation. Her anger had been a thing of the moment, and now that it was passing she knew that she had suspected her father, and her own suspicions went out to clasp hands with Jasper's accusations.
She looked slantwise at him, and a glimpse of his clean-cut mouth and steady eyes made her think of a strength and courage that waited. Of a sudden she felt desperately helpless, and desperately lonely. Why were they at cross-purposes, and quarrelling like boy and girl? It would be better if she spoke out.
"Well, what are you going to do? You seem so sure about it all. I suppose you will denounce us?"
"You knew nothing about it, Nance."
"You think that?"
His eyes studied hers.
"You are not made to tell lies. Are you going to let me help you?"
"Am I to accept all this on your authority?"
He nodded with an air of grave and imperturbable magnanimity.
"I believe, Nance, that you knew nothing. But have you never been brought to wonder what your father's life was, and what the Frenchman De Rothan meant to him?"
She looked at the ground before her, intent and thoughtful.
"Things have happened that have troubled me."
"Your father is not a man to talk."
"No. There have been things that I could not understand. Oh, it is hard!"
"I know."
Jasper's eyes softened. He stroked Devil Dick's neck as the horse walked quietly beside him.
"Nance?"
"Well, what now?"
Her voice was forlorn, and a little impatient.
"I understand why your father did not want me at Stonehanger."
"Oh, but then——"
She caught herself up, and reddened.
"Go on."
"He gave me a reason."
"Tell it me."
"Won't you let me keep it to myself? I don't know that I believe it any longer."
Jasper had a flare of understanding.
"Oh—that! It was about my cousin, Rose Benham?"
"Yes and no."
"What, more than that?"
"Don't ask me any more."
She glanced at him half pleadingly, and his square jaw and strong, confident head showed up convincingly against a cloud of slander.
"I don't think I believe it. Don't ask me to say more."
He gave her a full, frank look.
"Have it so, Nance. I'm here in my own shoes, a free man, with nothing to hide under my coat. But I'll tell you one thing: I have a good, fierce grudge against De Rothan."
Her face expressed the searching of her thoughts.
"Because he is a spy? Or has he offended you?"
"Because I hate the man."
"Then you are not—not disinterested?"
He smiled grimly.
"Nance, I'm not."
She hid her eyes under black lashes, and her lips trembled perceptibly.
"But I must trust some one."
"Trust me."
"Yes, but——"
He bent toward her with intense earnestness.
"Nance—listen. I believe in my heart that your father is in very great danger. Spy he may not be; it is a low word and should not live near you. But he is a Revolutionist, a Jacobin, a sympathiser with the French. God knows what he hopes to get out of Napoleon! This fellow De Rothan is the danger. The country's mad and scared; they'd show no pity."
She was white and serious and a little frightened.
"Oh, I know—I know! But father——!"
"I know the kind of man he is, an enthusiast, ready to be martyred. There are people who suspect him, but I don't think a living soul knows as much of the affair as I do."
Nance's eyes were supplicating and eager.
"Yes—but can you help me?"
"We must rid Stonehanger of this fellow De Rothan."
"But how?"
"That will be my business."
"But it may be dangerous for you."
"Confound it, who cares! You've got to trust me, Nance, and by Heaven, I'll not fail you."
Her face and eyes warmed to him. His strength and confidence were giving her comfort.
"What strange creatures we are! A few minutes ago, I almost hated you, because you forced things on me; but now I feel that I must have your help."
"That is what I came to offer you. I have nothing to complain of."
They had been following the lane back to Stonehanger, when Nance, who seemed more restlessly alert than Jasper, saw a man on horseback appear between the furze-clad banks. He was a hundred yards away, but Nance knew him for De Rothan. She touched Jasper's arm.
"Look!"
"De Rothan?"
Her eyes met his with a new meaning. She was putting her trust in him, waiting to be guided by what he would say and do.
"Nance, pretend to be angry with me."
"Must I?"
"It was not so very difficult a little while ago."
She gave him a glimmering of the eyes.
"Must I be very proud?"
"Yes, freeze me for being too forward, or scorch me with scorn!"
A woman loves humour and some degree of subtlety in a man. Nance looked at De Rothan, and then turned to her dissembling.
"I wish you would not vex me with your attentions—I mean presence"—she blushed into a moment's laughter—"I very much resent it."
"If my company is displeasing to you——"
"It is—most displeasing."
"Well, then, why did you lead me on?"
"How dare you suggest such a thing."
"Do you mean to say that you have not encouraged me?"
"Your insolence is unbearable."
Jasper had raised his voice, and she echoed him with fine spirit. They made quite a pretty quarrel of it, Nance playing the part of beauty affronted, Jasper very much the rude and aggressive male. They hushed the affair, and smothered an intense desire to laugh. De Rothan was within a few yards of them. His saluting of Nance was a royal function; his glance at Benham a kingly threat.
"Mees Durrell, may I have the felicity to think that I am at your service?"
"O, Chevalier——"
"You go to the deuce," said Jasper under his breath.
De Rothan looked him over with cool scorn.
"Meester Benham, I think your presence here is unnecessary. I will conduct Mees Durrell back to Stonehanger."
"Please, if you will, Chevalier. This gentleman——"
"Mees Nance, I am full of understanding."
He bowed in the saddle to Jasper, and blessed him with a serene sneer.
"Meester Benham, I must ask you to relieve us of your presence."
Even though he was fooling the man, Jasper felt savage.
"What business is it of yours, sir?"
"I stand for courtesy—and chivalry, Meester Benham."
"Puss in Boots! I shall want a word with you, sir."
"I shall be at your service, when I have escorted Mees Durrell home."
"Good. In the lane?"
"Wherever you please."
Jasper caught Nance's eyes. She gave him a quick and secret smile as De Rothan dismounted to put himself at her side. They went off together up the lane, leaving Jasper standing beside Devil Dick. He watched them with curious and contradictory emotions, and a hatred of De Rothan that was not to be appeased by the thought that he had the man in a tight corner.
His eyes fixed themselves finally upon Nance, and he discovered infinite delight in watching her slim figure moving between the green banks of the lane. Everything about her was adorable, her anger, her perplexity, her slow drifting toward trust in him. That glint of mischief in her eyes! And how she had taken up the game with De Rothan! What a change in the course of an hour! He had ridden out in a puritanical mood and here he was ready to go down and kiss those two small feet.
Jasper smiled to himself and moved on up the lane. The gateway of Stonehanger appeared under the dark shade of the hollies and laurels. Nance was just passing through it, De Rothan standing hat in hand and holding the gate open. There was something infinitely offensive to Jasper in the bending of the man's figure toward Nance. He remembered how he had felt when he had seen them together on the terrace. Things had changed in a sense since then, but his grudge remained against the Frenchman.
De Rothan waited for him, a supercilious and flaunting figure that looked very tall in the shadow of the shrubs. He resembled a victorious captain waiting with arrogance for a beaten enemy to deliver up his sword. Jasper felt a stinging lust to smite burning in his right arm.
They met with frank enmity.
"You wish to speak to me, Meester Benham. I, too, have words to say. Let us lead our horses down the lane."
They walked on side by side, leading their horses by the bridles. De Rothan's nostrils were dilated, his eyes full of an angry glare. Jasper looked dogged.
"I must advise you to mend your manners, Meester Benham. I am a gentleman of France."
"Thanks, sir, thanks."
"In the future you will not thrust yourself upon Mees Durrell."
"Why not?"
"Because she does not desire it."
"Did she tell you so?"
"And because I forbid it."
"That hardly convinces me."
A common instinct made both men leave their horses standing and face each other in the lane. The days of the wearing of the small sword had passed. But men who are angry can quarrel without swords.
"So you have my orders, Meester Benham."
"I return them. On second thoughts I feel inclined to throw you and them into the nearest ditch."
"Sir!"
"Frenchmen can fight only with their cooking-spits."
In a flash De Rothan struck at Jasper's face with his open hand. The blow was caught, and the wrist seized with the grip of a man who was savagely angry. Jasper twisted De Rothan's arm, a schoolboy's trick, and De Rothan, with a snarl of pain, was driven to twist about so that his back was toward Jasper. The sinews cracked about the shoulder-joint, while Jasper tilted the Frenchman's hat over his nose.
"How does it please you, monsieur?"
"Dog!"
Jasper flung De Rothan's arm aside. The Frenchman swung round, and they were at each other like a couple of dogs. De Rothan was the taller man, but Benham was thickly built and very powerful about the loins and shoulders. Moreover, he had been the rough-and-tumble champion at a country school. He had De Rothan round the middle, and crumpled him backward as though he were a sheaf of corn.
The Frenchman beat a fist in Jasper's face, and for the moment Jasper crushed him in his arms for the grim joy of feeling the cracking of De Rothan's ribs. Then he half lifted and half hustled him to the side of the lane.
The ditch was not a deep one and it was dry, but that was no saving of De Rothan's dignity. He emerged, dusty and speckled with spittle-blight, a man furious with physical shame.
"I do not fight like a ploughboy. You shall hear from me."
He felt his wrenched shoulder, and recovered some of his haughtiness.
"You have strained my shoulder-joint."
"Rest it for a few days, or months."
"Your insolence may cost you dear."
"I shall be at your service whenever you choose to fight."
He gave De Rothan a steady stare, and then climbed into the saddle.
"The fat's in the fire," he thought, as he rode off down the lane, "but—God! it was good crushing that fellow's ribs."
De Rothan's face was a study in malignant cynicism as he brushed his clothes and picked up his hat.
"Very well, very well, Mr. Benham; to-morrow, or the next day, I shall kill you. There shall be no mistake about that."
Grimly elated, Jasper rode back to Rush Heath. The day had given him far more than he had dared to desire. He had thrashed his man and made a second conquest of Nance Durrell's confidence. His jealousy had dispersed like a thunder-cloud, leaving a clear and adventurous sky.
At Rush Heath he found Jeremy Winter and Cousin Rose in the thick of a quarrel. Rose had driven over from Beech Hill, ostensibly to sit at Squire Kit's bedside, and treat him to some of her frank and pious opinions.
"Uncle Christopher, you shall listen to good words. It fills me with pity, to hear an old man curse and blaspheme."
Mr. Benham had leaned against his pillows and glared at her with a man's disgust. She had talked on and on, and though he had shut his eyes and pretended to snore, she had not been turned from thrusting her piety upon him. It had ended in Squire Kit hammering the floor with the stick he kept on the bed, and Jeremy had arrived to rescue him.
"Jeremy, I say,—Jeremy——"
Winter had understood things at a glance. He had hooked up her arm, and walked her off by main force, and that was why they were quarrelling in the oak parlour.
"I wonder you don't keep away from here, Mr. Winter. You never do any good to Uncle Christopher and Jasper."
Jeremy was the imperturbable fencer whose laughing eyes and sage, sardonic mouth always filled Rose with anger. Her attacks amused him, and Rose Benham insisted upon being taken very seriously.
"So you think I have debased the whole household; Jasper, too, eh?"
"You have always been an irreligious man. You would have led poor father into all sorts of foolishness if we had not prevented it."
"Poor man!"
"I hate your flippancy."
"What a world it is! I have seen my share of it, and upon my soul there is nothing to touch English piety. And there is no one who knows so much about everything as a good back-country English gentlewoman. I suppose she has it all straight from the Almighty."
Rose sat very straight and stiff in her chair.
"That's right, Mr. Jeremy Winter, be blasphemous. At your age——"
"At my age, Miss Benham, you will be a very old woman. As it is, the women still fall in love with me."
"Oh, you wretched old reprobate."
Jeremy went off into huge yet quiet laughter, and it was in the midst of it that Jasper entered with the steady, gleaming eyes of a man who had desires to satisfy and enemies to grapple.
"Hallo!"
He had one glimpse of Rose's stiff and implacable face.
"What have you been doing, Jerry?"
"I? Nothing, sir, nothing. But Miss Benham will have it that I am a disgusting old reprobate and not fit to be in this house."
His smile exasperated Rose. It was so good-tempered, so sly, so unanswerable.
"You ought to know Jeremy Winter by this time, Rose."
"Thank you. I know a little, and that has always been too much."
"Oh, come now!"
She felt that he was on Winter's side, the man's side, and it angered her.
"You men are all alike. You love old ruffians who tipple and tell bad stories."
"Now, how on earth do you come at that, Miss Benham? Keyholes, eh?"
"Mr. Winter, should I listen to your voice through a keyhole!"
Both men laughed, and Rose stood up. She looked thinner and sharper-featured when she was angry.
"Jasper, tell your man to bring my horses round."
And she whirled away from Rush Heath in a dust cloud of indignation. The cat in her knew and feared the dog in Jeremy.
Jasper rejoined Winter in the parlour. Jeremy was lighting his pipe, and looking humorously down his nose.
"Are you going to marry your cousin?"
"What, marry Rose!"
"You be careful, young man; she'll ask you the question and have your immortal soul in her reticule before you can say 'gammon'."
"I don't think she will, Jerry."
"That's good. You seem most deucedly pleased with yourself. What is it?"
Jasper went to the wine-cupboard and brought out a decanter and two long-stemmed glasses.
"Drink her health, Jerry."
"Miss Benham's?"
"Don't be a tease. Her health, and God bless her. By George, I have had my money out of De Rothan."
"How?"
"I landed him in a ditch. Do you know what it feels like to crush a man's ribs in, Jerry? It's a gorgeous feeling. I gather there will be a fight."
Winter looked serious.
"You may have thrown him all right, lad, but——"
"I have looked him in the eyes, Jeremy, and I can match him. Besides, I am going through with it—for the sake of Nance Durrell."
"O you youngsters! I've done it myself, too. Run your chest up against a sword-point because a girl glimmers her eyes. Tell me about it."
And Jasper told him.
Jeremy sat for a while in thought.
"Why don't you pounce on the man? Have him arrested. It would save a lot of trouble."
"I want to keep Durrell out of it. You see, Jerry, if I work this through quietly, it will save no end of a mess."
"Will it?"
"Yes."
"You seem cocksure."
"Haven't I got my devil back these few days with the foils? And look you, Jerry, do you remember fighting when you were in love?"
"I do."
"Were you beaten?"
"No."
"It makes you grim, quick as lightning, cool as cold steel. That's how it works with me."
Jeremy nodded his head sagely.
"Well," said he, "we'll spend the next two days fighting each other. And you bang away with your pistols. How do they carry?"
"I can hit a card five times out of six at twenty paces."
"I've got twice the nerve since I've seen her to-day."
"Confound you, I used to be just the same."
In the cool of the evening these two spent an hour in fencing together on the lawn by the cedars. The great black shadows of the trees lay in dark capes and promontories upon the green sea of the grass. The standard roses were in bloom, and the scent of the clover pinks in the borders filled the air. Swallows glided in and out, threading their way among the cedars, and circling round the tall chimneys of the house.
Parson Goffin hobbled up the drive, and sat down on a bench to watch Jeremy Winter and Jasper fencing. He had watched them at swordplay years ago, and there was nothing new in it to awaken curiosity.
Goffin was in one of his growling moods. He had a sore tongue from too much smoking, and England was going to the dogs.
"They say that we may have Villeneuve in the Channel any day during the next month. They don't know where he is; they expect him to swoop out of the blue. Boney will get across, and we shall be licking his shoes."
"A pretty angel of hope you are, Goffin!"
"Sir, we have been drinking too much these fifty years. The Almighty may be sending something to sober us."
"He gave us the Hanoverians to help us to drink! You are down at the heel, parson. If you could prove to me that Nelson is at the bottom of the sea, I might be ready to howl with you."
"So he may be, sir, so he may be, for all we know."
"Jasper, send for a good stiff glass of rum; Mr. Goffin is feeling a little faint and vapourish this evening. Yes, that was the best tussle we've had. It took me all I knew to keep your point out."
Parson Goffin's gloom was in sympathy with the gloom that overshadowed England during those months of May, June, and July. At Boulogne Napoleon waited for the chance that should give him control of the narrow sea—even for three days. Off Rochefort, Ferrol, and Brest the ships of Calder and Cornwallis kept up their grim blockade, while out yonder upon the Atlantic, Fate, Villeneuve, and Nelson faltered on the edge of the unknown. Nelson and his fleet had sailed away into the west, and men asked themselves what news the Atlantic would disgorge. Would it be the thunder of the French guns in the Channel, the breaking out of the ships blockaded in Brest and Rochefort, the sweeping of the Dover Straits, the red horror of invasion?
At Stonehanger Nance sat on the terrace wall and looked out toward the sea. The sunlight played upon her face and in her eyes, and gave them a brown radiance. There was a warmth and graciousness about her, a sadness that found its recompense in the richness of her thoughts and musings.
Her spiritual attitude toward her father was one of astonishment and compassion. She could pity him, even though she could not understand his motives. De Rothan was the scapegoat upon whom she laid the guilt and the burden of her resentment, though how Anthony Durrell had been inveigled into such schemes she could not imagine. What quarrel had he with England? He was a morose man, a silent man, and perhaps in a vague way she felt that he had been disappointed. Nance's nature was the very opposite of her father's. She was direct, generous, less ready to feel aggrieved. The flaming discontent of the fanatic is incomprehensible to healthy, humour-loving, sanguine people. There are men who will backbite their own country out of sheer hereditary cussedness. They are against everything that is—and Anthony Durrell was such a man.
He came out upon the terrace while Nance was there, and walked up and down under the house with his hands behind his back. There was a restless uncouthness even in the way he moved, for Durrell was one of those men who had been a sop at school, and a greenhorn at college. He had thrown a ball like a girl, and his legs and arms were not made to work like the limbs of a virile male. Books, philosophy, and theorising had filled his circle of consciousness. His liver had grown sluggish with a sedentary life, and now he was nothing but a lean and embittered figure of denunciation and discontent, impatient, ineffectual, passionate, yet weak.
Nance felt a kind of pity for him as she watched him go to and fro. She could not help contrasting him with Jasper Benham. As for De Rothan, he was a sinister figure dogging the footsteps of this lean, white-haired, narrow-shouldered man.
She crossed over to her father.
"Would you like a walk on the common? It is cooler now."
He glanced at her as though he had only just discovered her presence.
"No, no; I'm busy, thinking."
"You can think while you walk, and I'll keep quiet."
"Thank you. I wish to be alone."
His strung forehead and irritable eyes repulsed her. Intuition warned Nance that it would be useless to attack him openly, even with the power of compassion. Some men are mad, even when they are sane. It is useless to argue with them. They have to be strait-jacketed by the common sense of the community and kept from doing themselves and other people harm.
Parson Goffin was still grumbling on the bench under one of the cedars when Jack Bumpstead appeared from the direction of the stables.
"Here be a man for to see you, Master Jasper."
"Who is it, Jack?"
"Thomas Stook o' Bramble End."
"Send him round. Wait, though, I'll come myself. Where did you leave him, Jack?"
"In the yard."
Jasper found Tom Stook sitting on the horse-block and tickling himself pensively with a straw. His brown face remained shy and stolid when he saw Jasper. He stood up, slouching his shoulders, the straw tucked away in one corner of his mouth.
"Well, Tom, what is it?"
Stook surveyed the yard, and scrutinised the kitchen windows with sneering suspiciousness.
"Them turmit-flies o' wenches; always poppin' about. Maybe, sir, you might like to see them signal lights at Stonehanger. I wouldn't be for promising, but I have my sense o' smell. They say that Mounseer Jerome be comin' ashore to-night."
"The smuggling rogue! How do you know, Tom?"
Stook grinned, and looked expressively at Jasper.
"Maybe a little bird dropped ut down t' chimney. Maybe there'll be kegs on t' beach. It be'unt no business o' mine, but you can see Stonehanger from my cottage."
"So these devils of smugglers play two games. They ought to sink Jerome and his boat. Tom, you've got some sense."
"Thank 'ee, sir."
"Get into the stable and saddle the new brown cob, not Devil Dick. And keep your mouth shut, see."
"I will—sure, Master Jasper."
Jasper went in by the back entry and made his way noiselessly upstairs. He took his pistols and a hanger, and rejoined Tom Stook in the stable. Jeremy and Parson Goffin were arguing together under the cedars, and Jasper left them at it, wishing to get away without being questioned. Coming out with Tom Stook and the cob he took the field path that turned aside under the orchard hedge.
The western horizon was a level band of yellow light, with blue-black hills below and a sky of lapis-lazuli above. The full moon was a great silver buckler on a field of blue. Big stars were beginning to glitter as Jasper and Tom Stook turned down by one of the high hedges with the long grass and weeds brushing their knees. The hedge hid them from Rush Heath, a hedge that smelt of honeysuckle, and trailed the pink sprays of the wild rose over the green of the hazel, thorn, and holly.
Twilight fell as they made their way toward Bramble End, and the world became a world of amethyst and of silver. The Stonehanger uplands were dim and vague in the distance. The colour had melted out of the western sky when they reached the rough track that led to Bramble End. Jasper had mounted the cob, and Tom Stook swung along ahead on his long and lumbering legs, a length of straw still dangling from one corner of his mouth.
Stook's cottage had the shape of a hay-rick. It was built of stone and thatched with heather. A tumble-down shed or lodge stood half hidden by three elder trees that grew close together in the hedge. All about the place lay a tangle of brambles, furze, blackthorn, and bracken.
"I'll put t' nag in t' lodge, Master Jasper."
"Right, Tom."
Jasper made his way to the back of the cottage. There was a piece of vegetable ground here shut in by a low hedge. A yew-tree grew close to the cottage, and a seat made of the rotting tail-board of a cart had been laid upon two logs. Away to the north rose Stonehanger Common, and in the twilight Jasper could distinguish the grey mass of Durrell's house.
He sat down under the yew-tree, and Tom Stook came round from the lodge.
"A good look-out, Master Jasper."
"No wonder you could see the lights, Tom. What time do they show them up yonder?"
"Must have been nigh on midnight when I've seen 'em afore."
"That means three hours' sentry work. Have you had your supper?"
"No, I ain't."
"You go in and get it. I'll keep a watch here. If it should come to a scuffle, Tom, are you ready to see it through?"
Stook scratched a meditative chin.
"Sure, Master Jasper, so long as it be'unt with Sussex folk."
"You don't mind beating a Frenchman?"
"They be nasty beasts with their knives and pistols."
"You can leave that part of it to me, Tom."
"Oh—I doan't say as I be afraid."
Jasper kept watch there in the dusk, with the light of the moon becoming more brilliant as night gave her the darkness that she needed. "Pee-weet, pee-weet" wailed a plover somewhere over the furze. From an oak wood in the valley came the "burring" of a night-jar. With steady patience Jasper kept his eyes on the place where Stonehanger house cut the sky-line. Once he saw the distant twinkle of a candle, coming from Nance's window, so far as he could judge. The furzelands were vague, black, and desolate under the moon, strange eerie wastes where anything might happen.
Jasper's thoughts dwelt upon Nance, though the reverie of a man in love is rather a visualising of the woman beloved than a meditation upon her mystery. The white face of the moon and the dusky elf-locks of the night were wholly feminine. Jasper imagined himself walking with Nance in the dark old shrubbery behind Stonehanger, looking into the dim dearness of her face, touching her hand, and uttering her name.
Tom Stook's clumsy figure drifted across these passionate imaginings. He was wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, and looking toward Stonehanger.
"What may you be after, sir?"
"I am out hunting, Tom, to catch a fox of a Frenchman. And look you here, I want you to keep your mouth shut about all this, the lights up yonder, and the comings and goings. It will be worth your while."
"Sure, Master Jasper, you be a gen'leman o' sense. It be'unt no business o' mine."
"There is some one who has to be protected. I want to lay a rogue by the heels without harming innocent people."
Stook brought out a short clay pipe, and a little leather bag in which he kept tobacco. He had to go indoors to get a light from the wood fire that he had lit to cook his supper. When he emerged, the bowl of his pipe glowing, he had one very characteristic remark to make.
"It be powerful cold f' June."
Jasper felt for his pocket flask. He knew that it was inward warmth that the man needed.
"One pull, Tom, and no more. We must keep our heads clear to-night."
Two hours passed, and the vague, moonlit slopes of the common began to suggest all manner of mysterious movements to Jasper's tired eyes. Stonehanger was a dim outline against the sky. He had begun to doubt whether anything was going to happen when a bright, yellow point flashed out suddenly in the north. It remained there for some ten seconds, and then disappeared as though a curtain had been jerked forward to cover it.
"You seed ut, sir!"
"Was that from Stonehanger, Tom?"
"Sure."
They waited awhile, and in due course the light flashed out a second time and died back into the night with equal suddenness.
"What do they mean by that?"
"Mounseer Jerome be about somewhere."
Jasper meditated.
"I tell you what, Tom, we will make our way up to Stonehanger."
"Better try t' owld quarry, sir."
"They meet there?"
"I reckon they do."
"Have you got a lantern?"
"Sure."
"Fetch it, and bring a thick stick with you."
They left the cottage, Jasper with his hanger and pistols, Tom Stook carrying a lantern, and a stout hollywood cudgel. Tom took the lead, pushing his way along a narrow, winding path half overgrown by straggling furze, their figures melting away into the blackness of the moor.
After twenty minutes of this rough going, Tom Stook stopped abruptly, and stood listening. Jasper paused close to him. There was no wind, and no stirring of the furze in the clear sheen of the moonlight.
"T' quarry be yonder, sir."
"Where?"
"Just down over t' bank."
They spoke in whispers, bending forward and looking across the moor.
"Can you hear anything, Tom?"
"Not me."
He put the lantern down, and scratched his chin.
"I reckon I'll go on, Master Jasper, and take a look into t' quarry."
He went down on all-fours, and Jasper saw his long, loosely knit body go crawling along the path like some big beast of prey. He disappeared with nothing more than a faint rustling of the furze, and Stonehanger Common seemed as still and as empty as a becalmed sea at midnight. Tom Stook was away twenty minutes. He came back, walking, his holly-stick over his shoulder.
"There be'unt no one—yet."
"Well, then, we had better take cover in the quarry."
They went on and clambered down through the furze into the mouth of the quarry. A rough trackway led into it, and Tom Stook seemed to know the place as well as he knew his own garden. There was some open ground in the centre, though dwarf-trees, brambles, and furze made a tangled mass along the walls. Stook chose a place near the entry, a kind of nest shut in by the wild undergrowth, and under the black shadow of the quarry wall. A gap between two furze bushes gave them a view of the open space, and of the trackway leading into the quarry.
"I'll have t' lantern ready, Master Jasper."
He took off his coat, produced a tinder-box, and, going down on his knees, proceeded to get a light.
"She's got a shade, sir, and I'll put her on under t' bush with m' coat to make it safe."
The lantern was lit and hidden away, and they were both growing stiff and rather tired of waiting when Tom Stook touched Jasper's shoulder.
"Did ye hear that?"
Through the stillness of the moonlit night a faint sound reached them, a sound as of some one brushing through the furze. It might, have been a strayed sheep, or even a rabbit scuttling among the dry stems of the furze, but for the distinctive scraping of feet over the rough ground. Jasper crept forward, and stood waiting in the gap between the two furze bushes. He had borrowed Stook's holly-cudgel, and was in the deep shadow, and not likely to be seen.
The footsteps came nearer and nearer, and paused outside the quarry. A deep and grumbling voice growled sulkily as though its owner were tired and out of temper. Then the man entered the quarry, passing close by the place where Jasper stood.
Benham saw him as a shortish, thick-set man with a great round head, and a slouching walk. It was just a glimpse, for Jasper made his leap, springing out from the black shadow into the moonlight. The man swung round with a quick snarl of surprise.
"Tonnerre!"
The holly-stick swung just before a pistol flashed, and the bullet thudded against the wall of the quarry. Jasper knocked the pistol out of the man's hand, gave him a tap on the skull, and then closed. So far as the tussle went, it was not a very serious affair. Youth was well served in handling this little round cask of a man. He was rolled over, and pinned flat on his back, while Jasper wrenched a second pistol and a knife out of his belt and threw them away into the undergrowth.
"Tom, bring your lantern. Quick, man, quick!"
Tom Stook came running out with the lantern.
"Have ye got him, Master Jasper?"
"It looks rather like it, Tom—eh!"
The light fell upon a fat, swarthy, and sullen face that blinked its eyes at the lantern.
"Mounseer Jerome—sure!"
The man heaved, and swore savagely.
"Sacre bleu,—give off my chest!"
"Lie still."
Jasper was in no mood for wasting time, since he desired the business over and done with before De Rothan or Durrell should appear.
"Tom, take him by the wrists and hold his hands above his head. Quiet, will you, or I'll give you a crack with the stick."
Jerome glared and lay still, his arms extended above his head like the arms of a man upon the rack. Jasper unbuttoned the Frenchman's coat, and went through all his pockets. He found nothing there save a pipe, and a tobacco-box. Something lying under the man's shirt betrayed itself as Jasper passed his hand over Jerome's broad chest. As Jasper tore the shirt open the Frenchman's body squirmed like the body of a man who stiffens his muscles to resist.
"Hold on, Tom."
"Help, there,—help!"
"Lie quiet, or by George, I'll put a bullet through your head."
Jasper drew out a flat, leather pocket-book or case that was fastened by a string round Jerome's neck. Jasper snapped the string, and turned aside toward the lantern to examine the plunder. It contained several sheets of paper neatly folded and covered with what appeared to be a jumble of dots, lines, and letters. Jasper's brown face showed grim and intent by the light of the lantern.
"Cipher, to be sure! This is what I expected to find."
He put the sheets back into the leather case, and thrust it into the inner pocket of his coat. The sea-captain's eyes were watching him with evil interest, and he had the air of one who listened.
Jasper understood. Captain Jerome expected a rescue.
"Tom, I want to be rid of this gentleman, and I don't want the red-coats to get hold of him, either."
"Sir?"
"March him down to within a mile of the sea, and send him off with a blessing."
"I'll do't, Master Jasper."
"Monsieur Jerome, it is lucky for you that I am giving you this chance. Clear out, and let us hear no more of you. If ever I hear of you showing your face on this side of the Channel, I'll have you taken and shot as a spy. You understand?"
"I speak no English."
"Nonsense. You get off back to France, and pray to God to keep you from playing at carrying secret signals. Up with him, Tom. Here, put one of my pistols in your belt."
Tom Stook grinned, and swung the Frenchman to his feet. Jasper gave him a pistol and the hollywood cudgel.
"Bundle him off, Tom. I want him out of the way. I am staying on here to see what happens."
Stook took the sea-captain by the collar.
"Come along, you barrel o' sour beer. No shouting, mind ye, and no tricks. Come along."
Jasper heard them go blundering along down the path, Stook helping the Frenchman along with vigorous bumps of the bent knee. Jasper smiled to himself and picked up the lantern, and, returning to his lurking-place, he put out the light and sat down to wait.
It was De Rothan whom he expected, this insolent and sneeringémigré, who dabbled his hands in midnight treacheries. Jasper did not doubt that the packet of cipher he had taken from the smuggling sea-captain Jerome would compromise not only De Rothan but Anthony Durrell and his daughter. Jasper's attitude was one of shrewd and patient restraint. A scheme that was defeated might be considered to be non-existent, and there would be no need to swoop upon the lesser dupes when the dominant spirit had been dealt with.
Something crackled into a clump of briers close to where Jasper lay in ambush. It was a stone flung from above as a signal to Jerome, who should have been waiting in the quarry. Jasper kept very still. He heard some one pushing through the furze and brushwood round the rough lip of the quarry. Footsteps came down toward the entrance. Then there was silence.
Jasper leaned forward and peered round one of the furze bushes. A man was standing in the trackway leading into the quarry, his face turned toward the sea. By his height and build, and by the arrogant throw-back of the head, Jasper knew him for De Rothan. He stood there like a figure carved in black basalt, motionless, watchful, full of a fine yet sinister suggestiveness.
Jasper watched him. How easy it would be to bring the man down, wing him, put an end to all his weavings of treachery. He did not doubt but that De Rothan was armed. They might make a fight of it there, but Jasper was not given to shooting in the dark. He wanted to prove the whole case against De Rothan, to convince himself and Nance of the man's double dealing.
Minutes passed, and De Rothan showed a growing impatience. He began to walk to and fro along the trackway, stopping from time to time to listen or stare out over the stretch of moonlit furze. It was evident that he had not heard the report of Jerome's pistol, and that he suspected nothing in the way of intervention. The smuggler had failed to appear; that was what made De Rothan restless.
For an hour the Frenchman walked up and down while Jasper lay behind the furze bushes and kept watch. Once De Rothan paused within three yards of him and stood listening, muttering angrily over the absence of Jerome.
His patience gave out at last. Jasper saw him walk to the entrance of the quarry, stare into the distance, and then turn, and clamber up the bank. Jasper held back till the sound of De Rothan's footsteps had died down into the night. Then he pushed Tom Stook's lantern under a bush, climbed out of the quarry, and, striking the path that led toward Stonehanger, followed it with some of the caution of an Indian working a trail.
Jasper neither heard nor saw anything of De Rothan till he came in sight of the chimneys of Stonehanger rising above the ridge of ground that hid the lower part of the house from view. Jasper paused here instinctively, and it was well that he did so. A black figure rose into view on the rising ground above and stood with the grey oval of its face turned toward the sea.
Then De Rothan disappeared. Jasper pushed on, topped the rising ground, and over the furze saw Stonehanger grey and glaring in the light of the full moon. Chimneys, parapet, window frames, even the individual stones in the walls were clear and distinct. The thorns and yews were bunches of black foliage rising above the grey line of the terrace wall.
Jasper could not help asking himself why Jerome had chosen such a night for landing, and how he had been able to avoid the patrols.
"Money and rum work wonders. These smugglers squeeze in everywhere."
He saw De Rothan mount the steps to the terrace and stand there looking at the windows of the house. Jasper seized his chance to slip forward and gain the shelter of some furze bushes that straggled close to the terrace wall.
He heard voices on the terrace. Anthony Durrell had been waiting for De Rothan, and but for his short sight he would have seen Jasper make his dash across the open grounds for the shelter of the furze bushes under the wall.
"Jerome has failed us. I waited more than an hour."
De Rothan glanced at Nance's window.
"Is madam asleep?"
"Yes. Speak softly, she mustn't know that you are here. Perhaps we mistook Jerome's light."
"No, I'm sure of that. Hallo—!"
The voices broke off abruptly like the voices of two plotters who hear the sound of stealthy footsteps coming toward them. Jasper had made his way to the terrace wall. He flattened himself against it, expecting to see a head appear over the edge of the parapet.
Then he heard some one calling, "Who's there?"
It was Nance's voice, and the moonlight seemed to quiver with it. She had thrown her lattice open and was leaning out, and scanning the terrace. Durrell had drawn De Rothan under the dense shadow cast by one of the yews.
They remained there motionless, till Nance disappeared for a moment from the window.
"Quick, round to the back of the house."
"This game of hide-and-seek is all nonsense, Durrell. You had much better let the girl know the truth."
"No, no, she's not to be trusted."
"My dear sir, I'll make her trustworthy. You do not know how to manage women."
They had crossed the terrace and passed down the passage that led to the offices and stables. Durrell was agitated and impatient, De Rothan a little scornful. He was tiring of Durrell's moods and eccentricities. If everything went well, the fanatic would have served his purpose in the course of the next few weeks. He would be thrown aside like a broken tool.
"Jerome won't come to-night. I'll be off; I left my nag round under the wall."
Durrell was full of vague fears.
"I hope nothing has happened."
"Bah! Jerome found the moon too bright. Besides, the news we expect is too important to be risked with a shrug of the shoulders. If Villeneuve can only get into the Channel and hold it for three days! Fate will spin the coin for us before long."
Meanwhile Jasper had crept cautiously along the front of the wall and reached the steps. He climbed them slowly, pausing when his head came on a level with the terrace. It was deserted. Grass, flower-beds, and stone-paved walk lay white in the light of the moon.
Jasper climbed the last steps, and stood looking up at Nance's window. A passionate exultation possessed him, and for the moment he was ready to take the maddest of risks. He wanted to see Nance, to speak with her, to feel that they were conspiring together against De Rothan and the French.
The chance was nearer to him than he imagined. There was the click of a key turning in a lock, and the garden door opened, showing an oblong shadow in the moonlit wall. Some one was standing there in the shadow, and Jasper, caught in the full moonlight, laid a hand upon the pistol in his belt.
The figure in the doorway moved out into the moonlight. It was Nance. She had slipped on an old gown, and a pair of shoes, and come down, shivering, to brave the truth.
"Nance!"
She hung back a moment, and then came gliding out across the grass, the moonlight making a silver mist of her loosened hair. Mouth and eyes were round shadows.
"You! Is it you?"
She was so close now that Jasper could see the moonlight in her eyes. The pupils were large and black, and swimming with a kind of fear.
"Was it you I heard?"
"No. De Rothan and your father."
"Where are they?"
"They have gone round to the back. I have something that I must tell you. And we may be seen here."
They stood looking into each other's eyes. The clatter of a horse's hoofs came from the lane, followed by the slamming of a door.
Nance started, and a shiver of excitement went through her.
"It is so light here, and we shall be heard—"
Jasper reached out, and caught her hand. She did not flinch or resist him.
"Quick! Down the steps."
They fled away, hand in hand, like a couple of children.
They were on Stonehanger Common among the furze bushes with the moonlight shining down on them, and the silence of night over the land. The horizon was an horizon of silvery distances, woodland, sea, and hill. There was no wind moving, and the air was fresh and fragrant with dew.
Jasper still held Nance's hand. They had taken one of the grass paths that wound down over the common to the fields and woods. The moonlight was on their faces, and they said but little for the moment. They had passed suddenly into a new world, and were somewhat awed by its strangeness and its beauty.
There was an audacity, too, about the thing that thrilled them both. Youth called to youth. They looked at each other as though there were wonderful things to be discovered in each other's eyes.
"What have you to tell me?"
Jasper had taken off his hat, and was walking bareheaded beside her. At such a season every gesture has an exquisite significance. There is homage, passionate utterance, in every movement of the head and body.
"I have many things to tell you."
She caught the man's meaning and turned it back with a shy smile.
"I mean—about this man De Rothan."
"I am afraid that I have been playing the spy."
"You?"
"It was for good ends, and to help you and yours."
She looked at him anxiously.
"Have you found out anything more?"
"A little. Look at this."
He dropped her hand gently, and pulled out the leather case that he had taken from the sea-captain, Jerome.
"I robbed some one of this to-night—yes, fairly and squarely—down in the quarry. It was their go-between, their secret letter-carrier from France—a smuggling captain. These dispatches should be in De Rothan's hands. He came down to the quarry, but we had packed his man off with the fear of God in him."
Nance's head was very close to Jasper's shoulder as she bent to look at the papers.
"What are they?"
"Messages in cipher. One has to find out the code. But you see what all this means."
She did see it, and her face was white and serious in the moonlight.
"It means danger for us."
"Unless we smother it."
"But what will you do?"
He replaced the case in his pocket.
"It seems to me that I have two causes to serve, to put an end to this system of spying, and to save your father from ruining himself. There is only one thing to be done; deal with De Rothan."
"But how? If you have him arrested——"
"No, nothing so clumsy as that. I began the attack by quarrelling with him yesterday."
"After you left me?"
"Yes. I pitched him into the ditch."
Her eyes looked frightened, and there was a tremor about her mouth.
"What have you done! It means an affair of honour."
"Just so, Nance. That was why I did it. I expect to hear from him in a few hours."
She was distressed and perplexed.
"But how can I let you do this—risking your life for us!"
"I am doing it because I like it."
"No, it is for us. I can't let you. I'll go to father and make him give it up."
The sincerity of her distress touched him very deeply. He reached out and caught her hands.
"Nance, I'm no boy. I'm as good a man as De Rothan. I can't go back; my honour's in it. I've got to fight this man and beat him. Don't you see how it will mend everything?"
She would not meet his eyes.
"But you are sacrificing yourself——"
"No—no—no. Look at it in this way. I fight De Rothan; perhaps I kill him—perhaps I only wound him. If he comes out of it alive, I take him by the collar, tell him what I know, and give him twelve hours in which to leave the country. Go he shall. Then will come the time to appeal to your father's common sense."
His blunt confidence almost persuaded her.
"Oh, you are brave enough. But as to my father's common sense——"
Jasper laughed at her quaint despair.
"Well, I shall come to him and say, 'Mr. Durrell, I happen to have discovered about this French affair. I have some of your secret papers in my possession. Our friend the Chevalier de Rothan is dead, or has fled the country. The game is up. Swear to try no more plotting, and I will not breathe a word of what I know. Otherwise I shall have to hand you over to the authorities.'"
Her eyes flashed with approval.
"Ah, yes—that would be great. It might settle everything."
He drew her a little nearer to him.
"Not everything, Nance. But I am not here to ask for what I have not earned."
She did not look at him, but hung her head a little.
"You are being too good to us."
"That's no credit to me. I can't help it."
His frankness brought her eyes glimmering up amusedly to meet his, and it was then that she noticed that they had come within a hundred yards of the big oak wood that bounded the common on the south-east. The domes of the trees gleamed in the moonlight.
"Look! Do you see where we are?"
"By George, yes. I suppose we had better turn back."
"Please."
"But supposing they have locked us out?"
"I shall have to throw stones at father's window."
"Yes, but then——"
Her mouth wavered into mischievous curves.
"He will be told that I have been out in the moonlight looking for voices."
"That's it—that's it."
He looked at her with fine approval.
"Yes, show spirit, that's the thing. But supposing, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Anthony is asleep and won't be wakened?"
"There is the stable. I should not mind a bed of hay."
"And scold—before you are scolded in the morning. It is like getting in the first blow."
Nance fell into a more serious mood as they saw Stonehanger standing bleak and grey in the moonlight. She knew that she was to be left alone with her own thoughts and fears, nor could she escape from some dread of the crisis that Jasper was provoking for her sake. She was afraid of De Rothan, and knew him for a dangerous and a masterful man.
They came to the place where the furze thinned out toward the rough grassland below the terrace. Nance faltered and paused. Her face looked shadowy and troubled.
"We must say good-bye here."
He looked at her very dearly.
"Good night, Nance."
Her hands seemed to wait to be taken in his, and her face was turned to his with sudden wistfulness.
"I don't like to think of what may happen."
"Don't think of it, then."
"How can I help it?"
They looked straight into each other's eyes.
"Nance, I'm not afraid of anything—for your sake. Take heart, dear, take heart."
Her lips quivered. Her white face and dark hair seemed to swim nearer to him in the moonlight.
"Nance——"
Their lips met. Her upturned face dreamed for a moment with shadowy mouth and closed eyes. Then she drew her hands away, and fled in a shy panic across the grass.
Jasper watched her with exultant tenderness. She paused, and turned at the steps, waved to him and disappeared. He was hidden from the house by the furze bushes, and he kept cover there lest Anthony Durrell should be watching from one of the windows.
Jasper made his way back toward Bramble End and Tom Stook's cottage. The night seemed very wonderful. The black summer woods reminded him of Nance's hair.
Three miles away De Rothan was riding slowly along lanes and field paths, moody-eyed and savage, a man possessed by ugly emotions. Jerome's failure to appear at the quarry had not troubled him very greatly. It was a dull anger against the man who had toppled him into a ditch that filled De Rothan's consciousness. He hated Jasper Benham with all the hatred of which a strong and passionate man is capable. He meant to be revenged, to salve his own smarting self-conceit. But even the easing of this blood lust was an inopportune necessity thrust upon him in the thick of many dangers. The affair had come to a head at the moment when De Rothan least desired it, for there were the larger issues to be remembered. In ten days—twenty days—a month, Napoleon might be in England. De Rothan wanted those days free and untrammelled. If he could only fight this man in some secret corner, and leave him lying hidden in a ditch! Yes, but would Jasper Benham consent to such conditions? Would it be possible for them to fight without a living soul knowing of the quarrel? De Rothan felt sore and savage over the problem. It threatened confusion to his plans, promised to interfere with the delicate balancing of possible events.
He reached the Brick House about three in the morning, stabled his horse, and was let in by the man Gaston. Supper had been laid in the long parlour, and De Rothan sat down and ate with the morose deliberation of a man who is vexed by his own thoughts. He was tired, too, and thirsty, and wine was a welcome sustainer. The long night spent in the open made itself felt. De Rothan fell asleep in his chair, while the two candles on the table burned steadily toward the sockets.
The light of the dawn was just touching the windows when a man came up the brick path to the porch and hammered at the oak door. The sound woke De Rothan, who sat up in his chair and stared at the candles. The knocking at the door was loud and persistent. De Rothan took a hanger down from over the fireplace, picked up one of the candles, and went out into the hall. There was a grill in the door, closed by a little wooden shutter. De Rothan set the candlestick on the floor, pushed back the shutter, and, looking through, saw a piece of greyish sky, and a man's right shoulder.
"Hallo—who's there?"
"Jerome."
"The devil! You are late, and at the wrong place."
"You'll thank me for being here at all."
De Rothan unbolted the door and let Monsieur Jerome in. He looked tired and sulky, with a shock-haired head that resembled the head of a wild beast. His forehead showed a big, purpling bruise.
He was a bearer of bad news, and he looked it. De Rothan guessed that at the first glance.
"What has gone wrong?"
"I'm thirsty. I'll drink first."
"Good, my child. Is it Dutch courage you want?"
"Look you here, Monsieur de Rothan, if I have come here to save your neck, keep your accursed tongue out of your cheek. I'll have none of it."
He looked savage and dangerous. They passed into the parlour. There were glasses on the table, and De Rothan took a spirit bottle from an oak cupboard, and mixed Jerome a stiff glass of grog.
"Sit down, man. What has happened? Why didn't you come to the quarry?"
"I came there right enough."
"So——!"
"Yes, to be knocked on the head and have the cipher stolen."
De Rothan's figure stiffened like a sword that has been bent against the floor, and is allowed to spring back into shape.
"You have lost the dispatches!"
"I say they were taken from me."
"By whom?"
"That fellow whom Mees Nance was kind to at Stonehanger, that Jasper Benham."
De Rothan's face grew dusky.
"God—you great fool—how did it happen?"
"Keep your big words to yourself. He and a man of his were in hiding. They knocked me on the head and had me on my back before I could take aim with a pistol. Then I was marched down to the sea by a lanky devil of a peasant, and left there to find the boat. They promised to have me hanged if I said a word, and didn't jump the Channel. I put out, and managed to sneak in and land again in the marshes—to save your neck—see! A lot of gratitude you seem to show me."
De Rothan stood resting his hands on the back of a chair. He did not speak for some seconds.
"Jerome, you have done me a service. I shall not forget it."
The sea-captain finished his grog, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He glanced at the windows that were going grey with the dawn.
"Time to make a run for it. The game is up."
De Rothan's forehead was one fierce frown.
"No, by heaven, it is not! I have these dispatches to recover—and to cut out Mr. Jasper Benham's tongue."
Jerome had gone, and De Rothan walked up and down the brick-paved path between the porch and the gate, with the two yew-trees cut in the shape of peacocks spreading their tails on either side. There were climbing roses flowering over the rust-red front of the house. The stone pillar of the sun-dial had an edging of rank, green grass.