XXVIII
THE EFFORT
Galloping over the moor, fresh from his corn, the pony suddenly swerved,and with such violence that the trap was all but overturned.
"What was that?" asked Edmonstone, who was driving.
"A hat," Pinckney answered.
These two men were alone together, on an errand of life or death.
Edmonstone glanced back over his shoulder.
"I'll swear," said he, "that hat is Miles's!"
"Good heavens! has he stuck to the road?"
"Looks like it."
"Then we're on his track?"
"Very likely."
"And will get him, eh?"
At this question Edmonstone brought down the lash heavily on the pony'sflank.
"Who wants to get him? Who cares what becomes of him? The Melmerbridgedoctor's the man we want to get!"
Pinckney relapsed into silence. It became plain to him that hiscompanion was painfully excited. Otherwise there was no excuse for hisirritability.
At the foot of the last steep ascent on the farther side of the moor,Pinckney had jumped out to walk. He was walking a few yards ahead of thepony. Suddenly he stopped, uttered a shrill exclamation, and picked upsomething he found lying in the road. He was then but a few feet fromthe top, and the low stone parapet was already on his right hand.
"What is it?" cried Dick, from the pony-trap below.
Pinckney threw his hand high over his head. The revolver was stampedblack and sharp against the cold grey sky.
A cold shudder passed through Edmonstone's strong frame. The wings ofdeath beat in his ears and fanned his cheek with icy breath. The dreadangel was hovering hard by. Dick felt his presence, and turned cold andsick to the heart.
"Let me see it," cried Dick, urging on the pony.
Pinckney ran down to meet him with a pale, scared face.
"It was his," faltered Pinckney. "I ought to know it. He threatened mewith it when I tried to stop him bolting."
The slightest examination was enough to bespeak the worst.
"One cartridge has been fired," said Dick, in a hushed voice. "God knowswhat we shall find next!"
What they found next was a patch of clotting blood upon the stones ofthe parapet.
They exchanged no more words, but Dick got down and ran on ahead, andPinckney took the reins.
Dick's searching eyes descried nothing to check the speed of his runningtill he had threaded the narrow, winding lane that led to MelmerbridgeBank, and had come out at the top of that broad highway; and there, atthe roadside, stretched face downward on the damp ground, lay themotionless form of Sundown, the Australian outlaw.
The fine rain was falling all the time. The tweed clothes of theprostrate man were soaked and dark with it. Here and there they bore astill darker, soaking stain; and a thin, thin stripe of dusky red,already two feet in length, was flowing slowly down the bank, as thoughin time to summon the people of Melmerbridge to the spot. Under thesaturated clothes there was no movement that Dick could see; but neitherwas there, as yet, the rigidity of death in the long, muscular,outstretched limbs.
Dick stole forward and knelt down, and murmured the only name that roseto his lips:
"Miles! Miles! Miles!"
No answer--no stir. Dick lowered his lips to the ear that was uppermost,and spoke louder:
"Miles!"
This time a low, faint groan came in answer. He still lived!
Dick gently lifted the damp head between his two hands, and laid Ryan'scheek upon his knee.
Ryan opened his blue eyes wide.
"Where am I? Who are you? Ah!"
Consciousness returned to the wounded man, complete in a flash thistime. At once he remembered all--tearing madly down from the top, in andout this winding track--and all that had gone before. He was perfectlylucid. He looked up in Edmonstone's face, pain giving way before fierceanxiety in his own, and put a burning question in one short, faint,pregnant word:
"Well?"
Had health and strength uttered this vague interrogative, Dick wouldhave replied on the instant from the depths of his own anxiety bytelling the little that he knew of Alice Bristo's condition. But herewas a man struck down--dying, as it seemed. How could one think that onthe brink of the grave a man should ask for news from another's sickbed? Edmonstone was puzzled by the little word, and showed it.
"You know what I mean?" exclaimed Ryan, with weary impatience. "Isshe--is she--dead?"
"God forbid!" said Dick. "She is ill--she is insensible still. But man,man, what about you? What have you done?"
"What have I done?" cried Ryan, hoarsely. "I have come to bring help toher--and--I have failed her! I can get no further!"
His voice rose to a wail of impotent anguish. His face was livid andquivering. He fell back exhausted. Dick attempted to staunch the bloodthat still trickled from the wound in the chest. But what could he do?He was powerless. In his helplessness he gazed down the bank; not a soulwas to be seen. He could not leave Ryan. He could hear the sure-footedsteps of the pony slowly approaching from above. What was he to do? Wasthis man to die in his arms without an effort to save him? He gazedsorrowfully upon the handsome face, disfigured by blood, and pain, andmire. All his relations with this man recrossed his mind in a swiftsweeping wave, and, strange to say, left only pity behind them. Couldnothing be done to save him?
The pony-trap was coming nearer every instant. It was Dick's one hopeand comfort, for Pinckney could leave the trap and rush down into thevillage for help. He hallooed with all his might, and there was ananswering call from above.
"Make haste, make haste!" cried Dick at the top of his voice.
The shouting aroused Ryan. He opened his eyes, and suddenly started intoa sitting posture.
"Haste?" he cried, with articulation weaker yet more distinct. "Yes,make haste to the township! To the township, do you hear? There it is!"
He pointed through the rain to the red roofs of Melmerbridge, on theedge of the tableland below. It was then that Dick noticed the lock ofhair twisted about the fingers of Ryan's right hand.
"There it is, quite close--don't you see it? Go! go--I can't! Fly foryour life to the township, and fetch him--not to me--to her! For God'ssake, fetch him quick!"
For all the use of the word "township," his mind was not wandering inAustralia now.
"Why don't you go? You may be too late! Why do you watch me like that?Ah, you won't go! You don't care for her as I did; you want her to die!"
Wildly he flung himself forward, and dug his fingers into the moistground, and began feebly creeping down the bank on his hands and knees.Dick tried in vain to restrain him. The failing heart was set upon anobject from which death alone could tear it. During this the last hourof his life this criminal, this common thief, had struggled strenuouslytowards an end unpretending enough, but one that was for once notselfish--had struggled and fought, and received his death-wound, andstruggled on again. His life had been false and base. It cannot beexpected to count for much that in his last moments he was faithful, andnot ignoble. Yet so it was in the end. Edmonstone tried in vain torestrain him; but with a last extraordinary effort he flung himselfclear, and half crawled, half rolled several yards.
Suddenly Ned Ryan quivered throughout his whole frame. Dick caught himin his arms, and held him back by main force.
The dying man's glassy gaze was fixed on the red roofs below. For aninstant one long arm was pointed towards them, and a loud clear voicerang out upon the silent air:
"The township! The township----!"
The cry ended in a choking sob. The arm fell heavily. Edmonstonesupported a dead weight on his breast.
"Pinckney!"
"Yes, yes?"
"God forgive him--it's all over!"