XXVI
AT BAY
"Where is Mrs. Parish?" demanded Colonel Bristo, the moment his daughterreached the gate. In spite of a gallant effort to be calm before Alice,his voice quivered.
"The walk was too much for her." The girl's face was flushed, and hertones faint. "She said she couldn't walk back were it ever so. She spoketo Mrs. Commyns--who was called here, you know--and went to the Rectory.She wants us to send the pony-trap if----"
"Where is Mr. Miles?" Alice's father interrupted her.
"He is following."
She passed quickly by them into the house. Her face was full of trouble.Traces of tears were visible under her eyes. They heard her hurryingupstairs. Neither of them spoke a word. Dick had his back turned; he waswatching the road.
The figure of Miles appeared on the nearest knoll. He walked slowly downthe bank, his head bent, his eyes fixed upon the ground. Dick turned toColonel Bristo.
"You had better leave me to speak to him," he said. "I will settle withhim on the spot."
"It ought to come from me," said the Colonel doubtfully; "and yet----"
The old man paused. Dick looked at him with some anxiety.
"You had really better leave him to me, sir," he repeated. "I am sorryto say I am used to treating with him. There had better be no thirdparty to our last parley. And the fewer words the better, on Alice'saccount; she need know nothing. Besides, I know your intentions----"
"Yes, yes; that for my part I will take no steps, not even to get backmy money; that he may go to-day instead of to-morrow, and leave thecountry--we will not stop him. Of course, he will be only too glad toget off! Dick, I care nothing about the paltry pounds he has got out ofme; he is welcome to them; I do not grudge him them, because of theservice he did me--yet if I saw him now, I feel that I should forget tocount that service. And you are right about Alice. Speak quietly, andget rid of him quickly. I will not see him unless I am obliged; atleast, I will first hear from the dining-room what he has to say toyou."
A moment later the Colonel was at his post in the dining-room. Hisretreat from the steps, which was really characteristic of theman, is open to misconstruction. He feared nothing worse than anunpleasantness--a disagreeable scene; and he avoided unpleasantnessesand disagreeables systematically through life. That was the man'sweakness. Now if Dick had led him to suppose that Miles would doanything but take his conge philosophically and go, the Colonel wouldhave filled the breach bristling with war. But from Dick's account ofhis previous relations with the impostor, he expected that Miles wouldbe sent to the right-about with ease, and Colonel Bristo shrank fromdoing this personally.
The dining-room windows were wide open, but the brown holland blindswere drawn. Colonel Bristo did not raise them. He sat down to listenwithout looking. Almost immediately he heard a sharp click from thelatch of the wicket-gate; then a louder click accompanied by a thud oftimbers. Whoever had opened the gate had passed through and swung it to.The next sound that Colonel Bristo heard was the quiet, business-likevoice of young Edmonstone:
"Stop! I have a word for you from the Colonel. Stop where you are! Hedoes not want you to come in."
"What do you mean? What has happened?" The tones were apathetic--thoseof a man who has heard his doom already, to whom nothing else can mattermuch.
"He simply does not want you inside his house again. He is sending yourthings down to the inn, where he hopes you will stay until you leave theplace according to your plans. Ryan," added Edmonstone in an alteredmanner, "you understand me by this time? Then you may take my word forit that you are as safe as you were yesterday; though you don't deserveit. Only go at once."
There was a pause. The Colonel fidgeted in his chair.
"So, my kind, generous, merciful friend could not keep his word one daylonger!"
Miles's voice was so completely changed that the Colonel involuntarilygrasped the blind-cord; for now it was the voice of an insolent,polished villain.
"If I had known before," Dick answered him coolly, "what I have foundout this morning, you might have cried for quarter until you werehoarse."
"May I ask what you have learnt this morning?"
"Your frauds on the man who befriended you."
"My obligations to the man whose life I saved. Your way of putting it isprejudiced. Of course you gave him your version as to who I am?"
"My version!" exclaimed Edmonstone scornfully. "I told him that you andthe bushranger Sundown are one."
Again Miles swiftly changed his key; but it was his words that werestartling now.
"You are mad!" he said, pityingly--"you are mad; and I have known it forweeks. Your last words put your delusion in a nutshell. You have not aproof to bless yourself with. You are a madman on one point; and herecomes the man that knows it as well as I do!"
In a whirl of surprise and amazement, not knowing for the moment whom orwhat to believe, the Colonel pulled up the blind and leant through thewindow. The Australian stood facing his accuser with an impudent smileof triumph. For once he stood revealed as he was--for once he lookedevery inch the finished scoundrel. If the Colonel had wavered for aninstant before drawing up the blind, he wavered no more after the firstglimpse of the Australian's face. He settled in his mind at that instantwhich was the liar of those two men. Yet something fascinated him. Hewas compelled to listen.
Robson was coming in at the gate.
"You are the very man we want," laughed Miles, turning towards him. "Nowpull yourself together, Doctor. Do you call our friend, Mr. Edmonstonehere, sane or not?"
"You said that he was not," said Robson, looking from Edmonstone toMiles.
"And you agreed with me?"
"I said I thought----"
"You said you thought! Well, never mind; I call him sane--practically;only under a delusion. But we will test him. You charge me with being acertain Australian bushranger, Mr. Edmonstone. Of course you have someevidence?"
An awkward sensation came over Dick: a consciousness that he hadcommitted a mistake, and a mistake that was giving the enemy a momentaryadvantage. He choked with rage and indignation: but for the moment hecould find no words. Evidence? He had the evidence of his senses; but itwas true that he had no corroborative evidence at hand.
The bushranger's eyes glittered with a reckless light. He knew that thesides were too uneven to play this game long. He felt that he was a freeman if he quietly accepted fate as he had accepted it before at thisman's hands. The odds were overwhelming; but he was seized with a wilddesire to turn and face them; to turn upon his contemptible foe andtreat him as he should have treated him in the beginning. It might costhim his liberty--his life--but it was worth it! The old devilry hadsprung back into being within him. He was desperate--more desperate,this half-hour, than ever in the whole course of his desperateexistence. His life had seemed worth having during the past weeks of hiscowardice; now it was valueless--more valueless than it had been before.He was at bay, and he realised it. His brain was ablaze. He had playedthe docile Miles too long. Wait a moment, and he would give them onetaste of the old Sundown!
"At least," he sneered in a low, suppressed voice, "you have someonebehind you with a warrant? No? Nothing but your bare word and the dimrecollection of years ago? That, my friend, seems hardly enough. Ah,Colonel, I'm glad you are there. Is there any truth in this message thathas been given me, that you have had enough of me?"
"I wish you to go," said Colonel Bristo, sternly. "I wash my hands ofyou. Why refuse a chance of escape?"
"What! Do you mean to say you believe this maniac's cock-and-bull yarnabout me?" He pointed jauntily at Dick with his forefinger. But the handlowered, until the forefinger covered the corner of white handkerchiefpeeping from Edmonstone's breast-pocket. For a moment Miles seemed to bemaking some mental calculation; then his hand dropped, and trifled withhis watch-chain.
"I believe every word that he has told me," declared the Colonelsolemnly. "As to warrants, they are n
ot wanted where there is to be noarrest. We are not going to lay hands on you. Then go!"
"Go!" echoed Edmonstone hoarsely. "And I wish to God I had done my dutythe night I found you out! You would have been in proper hands longbefore this."
"Suppose I refuse to go? Suppose I stay and insist on evidence beingbrought against me?" said Miles to the Colonel. Then turning to Dickwith fiery, blood-shot eyes, he cried: "Suppose, since there is noevidence at all, I shoot the inventor of all these lies?"
The hand was raised sharply from the watch-chain and dived into an innerpocket. That moment might have been Dick Edmonstone's last on earth, hadnot a white fluttering skirt appeared in the passage behind him.
The hand of Miles dropped nervelessly.
Colonel Bristo heard in the passage the light quick steps and rustlingdress, and ran to the door. At the same instant Pinckney jumped up fromhis writing to see what was the matter. They met in the passage, andfollowed Alice to the steps. Her father seized her hand, to draw herback, but she snatched it from his grasp. Her hand was icy cold. Herface was white as death--as immovable--as passionless. She stood on thesteps, and glanced from Edmonstone at her side to Miles on the pathbelow. On Miles her calm glance rested.
"You seem to forget!" she said in a hard voice that seemed to come fromfar away. "You are forgetting what you said to me a few minutes ago, onthe road. I understand your meaning better now than I did then. Yes, itis true; you know it is true: you are what he says you are!"
Miles watched her like one petrified.
She turned to Dick at her side. And now a sudden flush suffused herpallid cheeks, and her eyes dilated.
"It is you," she cried impetuously, "you that we have to thank forthis! You that have brought all this upon us, you that allowed us tobe preyed upon by a villain--screened him, helped him in his deceit,plotted with him! Being what he was, it was in his nature to cheat us.I forgive him, and pity him. But you I shall never forgive! Go, Mr.Miles. Whatever and whoever you are, go as you are asked. And go youtoo--true friend--brave gentleman! Go, both of you. Let us never seeyou again. Yet no! Stay--stay, all of you" (her face was changing, herwords were growing faint)--"and hear what it was--he said--to me--andmy answer, which is my answer still! Stay--one moment--and hear----"
Her words ceased altogether. Without a cry or a moan she sank senselessin her father's arms.
Philip Robson rushed forward. They stretched her on the cold stone. Theytore open the collar round her neck, breaking the pretty brooch. Theyput brandy to her lips, and salts to her nostrils, and water upon herbrow. Minutes passed, and there was no sign, no glimmer of returninglife.
When Alice fell, Miles took one step forward, but no more. He stoodthere, leaning forward, unable to remove his eyes from the whitelifeless face, scarcely daring to breathe.
There was no noise, no single word! The doctor (to his credit be itremembered) was trying all that he knew, quickly and quietly. TheColonel said not a word, but silently obeyed his nephew, and chafed thechill hands. Edmonstone fanned her face gently. Pinckney had disappearedfrom the group.
Robson suddenly looked up and broke the silence.
"Where is the nearest doctor?"
"Melmerbridge," murmured someone.
"He should be fetched at once. We want experience here. This is noordinary faint."
Before the doctor had finished speaking, Miles wheeled round and dartedto the gate. And there he found himself confronted by a short, slight,resolute opponent.
"You sha'n't escape," said Pinckney through his teeth, "just because theothers can't watch you! You villain!"
Pinckney had heard only the end of what had passed on the steps, butthat was enough to assure him that Miles had been unmasked as acriminal. Of course he would take the opportunity of all beingpreoccupied to escape, and did; and David faced Goliath in the gateway.
In lesser circumstances Miles would have laughed, and perhaps tossedhis little enemy into the ditch. But now he whipped out hisrevolver--quicker than thought--and presented it with such swift,practised precision that you would have thought there had been no hiatusin his career as bushranger. And he looked the part at that instant!
Pinckney quailed, and gave way.
The next moment, Miles was rushing headlong up the hill.
On the crest of the second hill, above the beck and the bridge, hestopped to look round. The people on the steps were moving. Their numberhad increased. He could distinguish a servant-maid holding her apron toher eyes. They were moving slowly; they were carrying something into thehouse--something in a white covering that hung heavily as a cerement inthe heavy air.