CHAPTER XVIII. AT MIDNIGHT ON THE MOOR.
We were more than half-way home before Mr. Marx broke a silence which wasbecoming oppressive.
"Well, have you enjoyed your evening?" he asked.
"Of course I have, and I'm very much obliged to you for taking me to thetheatre," I added. After all, perhaps I was misjudging him. What possiblemotive could he have for being my enemy?
"Oh, that's all right," he declared, carefully lighting a cigar andthrowing the match out of the window. "I'm afraid you've had more thanone illusion dispelled this evening, though," he went on, smiling. "Youmust have had plenty of time and opportunity, too, for weaving them, outhere all your life. Have you never been away to visit your relations, oranything of that sort?"
I shook my head.
"I don't believe I have any relations," I said. "I never heard of any. Myfather used to say that he was the last of his family."
"But your mother? Surely you know some of her people?"
"I have never even heard her speak of them," I answered shortly.
"Strange! You don't happen to remember her maiden name, do you?"
"I don't know that I ever heard it," I told him.
I began to wish that Mr. Marx would choose some other topic ofconversation. Doubtless, it was exceedingly kind of him to take so muchinterest in my affairs and his questions proceeded from perfectly genuinemotives, but my inability to answer any of them was becoming a littleembarrassing.
"One more question I was going to ask you and it shall be the last," hesaid, as though divining my feeling. "Were you born here?"
"I suppose so. I never heard that I was born anywhere else."
There was another long silence and it seemed to me that Mr. Marx was verydeep in thought. I was beginning to feel sleepy and, closing my eyes, Ileaned right back among the soft, yielding cushions.
It was one of the wildest and roughest nights of the year. Both thecarriage-windows were streaming with raindrops, and we could hear thewind howling across the open country, and whistling mournfully among theleafless trees.
We had accomplished about three-quarters of our journey and had justentered upon the blackest part of it. On either side of the road andrunning close up to it, without even the division of hedges, was astretch of bare, open country, pleasant enough in summer time, but now amere plain, on which were dotted about a few straggling plantations ofsickly, stunted fir trees, among which the hurricane was making weirdmusic.
We were in the middle of this dreary region. Mr. Marx was still smokinghis cigar, but with closed eyes, and was either dozing or deep inthought. I, with my share of the fur rug wrapped closely around my knees,was trying in vain to sleep--in vain, for my head was still in a whirl,after what had been for me such an exciting day.
Exciting though it had been, however, its close was to be more so.Suddenly, without the least warning, we felt a sharp jerk, and heard thecoachman calling out to his horses, who were plunging furiously. Mr. Marxand I both leaned forward, and, just as we did so, there was a tremendouscrash of breaking glass, and, through the splintered carriage window, onthe side nearest to him, came a heavy piece of rock, followed by aconfused mass of stones and gravel and other debris.
Mr. Marx leapt to his feet, with his hand on the door handle and theblood streaming from his forehead. Before he could open the door,however, a strange thing happened. Outside, half visible through theremains of the glass and half without any intervening obstruction,flashed for one single second the white, ghastly face of a man peering inupon us. It came and went so swiftly that I could gain only the veryfaintest idea of the features; but with Mr. Marx it seemed to beotherwise. Like a flash of lightning, a look passed across his face whichhas never died out of my memory. Every feature seemed to be dilated andshaken with a spasmodic agony of horrified recognition. For a moment heseemed struck helpless, with every power of movement and every nervenumbed. Then a low cry, such as I have never before or since heard fromhuman throat, burst from his shaking lips and his right hand tore openhis coat and sought his breast-pocket.
The door of the carriage burst open as he sprang into the road like awild animal, and long streaks of fire flashed from the gleaming revolverwhich he grasped in his hand--a lurid illumination which gave me suddenglimpses of his white, bleeding face as he stood in the road, firingbarrel after barrel into the darkness.
I jumped out and hurried to his side, looking eagerly around into thedark night and together we stood and listened in a breathless silence.Across the wild, open moor the wind came rushing towards us with a deepbooming sound, and among the bare tree tops of a small plantation beforeus we heard it shrieking and yelling like the hellish laughter of an armyof witches. The ink-black clouds lowering close above our heads weredissolving in a mad torrent of rain, and the darkness was so intensethat, although we could hear the frantic plunging of the horses behindus, we could neither see them nor the carriage. The elements seemed tohave declared themselves on the side of our mysterious assailant. Theblackness of the night and the roaring of the wind and rain blotted outall our surroundings and deadened all sound save their own.
"Wait here!" cried Mr. Marx, in a harsh, unnatural tone. And before Icould open my mouth he had vanished out of sight and it seemed as thoughthe black, yawning darkness had swallowed him up.
For a while I stood without moving. Then a cry for help from the coachmanbehind and the renewed sound of struggling horses reminded me of theirplight, and I groped my way back to the road again.
I was only just in time. The horses, fine, powerful creatures, verynearly thoroughbred, were perfectly mad with fright, and the groom, whohad been holding and striving to subdue them, was quite exhausted.Between us we managed to pacify them after a brief struggle, and as soonas I could find sufficient breath I began to question Burdett--who hadstuck to his place on the box like an immovable statue--about the firstcause of their alarm.
"What was it they shied at first?" I asked. "Did you see anyone?"
"Just catched a glimpse of the blackguard, sir, and that was all,"Burdett answered. "We were a-spinning along beautiful, for they knew asthey were on their way home, them animals did, when, all of a suddenlike, Dandy shies, and up goes the mare on her hind legs and as near aspossible pitches me into the road. I slackened the reins and laid thewhip across them, while Tom jumped down. And just then I saw a figure inthe middle of the road and heard a crash through the carriage window.Tom, he'd catched hold of their heads by then, which was lucky; for whenthe firing began they was like mad creatures and I could never have heldthem. It's a mercy we aren't altogether smashed up, and no mistake. TheLord save me from ever being out wi' my 'osses again on such a night asthis!"
"You didn't see the face of the man who attacked us, then?" I askedeagerly.
"Not being possessed of the eyes of a heagle or a cat, sir, I did not,"Burdett replied. "Just you look round and see what sort of a night it is.Why, I can only just make out your outline, sir; although I've beenlooking at you this five minutes, I can't see nothing of your face."
"Neither did you, I suppose, Tom?" I asked the groom.
"No, sir; nothing except just a black figure. Good thing that you wasneither of you hurt, sir."
"I'm not sure that Mr. Marx isn't," I answered; "his face was bleeding agood deal. I wish he'd come back."
Never did time pass so slowly as then, when we waited in the storm andrain for Mr. Marx's return. It must have been nearly an hour before weheard him hailing us in the distance, and soon afterwards saw his figureloom out of the darkness close at hand. He was alone.
Splashed from head to foot with mud, hatless, and with great streaks ofblood clotted upon his forehead and cheeks, he presented at first afrightful figure. But his face had lost that dreadful expression ofnumbed horror which had made it for a moment so terrible to me, and, ashe sank back breathless and exhausted, among the cushions, he evenattempted a smile.
"All in vain, you see," he said. "Cou
ldn't find a single trace of anyoneanywhere."
"Are you much hurt, sir?" asked the groom, who was tying up the brokencarriage-door.
"Not at all. Only a scratch. Tell Burdett to drive home as fast as he cannow, Tom, there's a good fellow."
We were left together to talk over this strange affair. Mr. Marx seemedto have made up his mind about it already.
"Without doubt," he said deliberately, "it was some tramp, desperate withwant or drink, who made up his mind to play the highwayman. He startedwell, and then, seeing two of us instead of one, funked it and bolted. Idon't think I ever had such a start in my life."
"You came off the worst," I remarked, pointing to his forehead.
"It wasn't that that upset me," he answered. "It was a horrible ideawhich flashed upon me just for a moment. The face which peered in at thewindow--you saw it--was horribly like the face of a man who is dead--whomI know to be dead. It gave me, just while the idea lasted, a sensationwhich I hope I shall never experience again as long as I live. It wasghastly."
The face of the dead! It was not a cheerful thought. But I looked at thewrecked door and window of the carriage and felt immediately reassured.Our assailant, whoever he might have been, was no ghostly one. There wasundeniable evidence of his material presence and strength in theshattered glass, the wrenched woodwork, and the wound on Mr. Marx'sforehead.
The carriage pulled up with a jerk. We had reached my home.
"Hadn't you better come in and bathe your forehead, Mr. Marx?" Isuggested hesitatingly.
He shook his head and declined.
"No, thanks. I'll get back to the Castle as soon as I can and doctor itmyself. Good-bye, Morton. If I don't see you again before you go, I wishyou every success at Mr. Randall's."
I thanked him warmly, shook his offered hand, and, shutting thecarriage-door, called out to Burdett to drive on. For a moment or two Istood in the road watching the lights as they rapidly grew fainter andfainter in the distance. Then I turned slowly up the path towards thehouse.
Half-way there I stopped short and, holding my breath, listened intently.The wind had dropped and the rain had almost ceased, but the night wasstill as dark as pitch. I listened with strained ears and beating heartand soon I knew that I had not been mistaken. Coming down the hillbetween Rothland Wood gate and where I was, along the road by which wehad just come, I could hear the faint, but nevertheless unmistakable,sound of light, running footsteps. Turning back, I stole softly down thepath and stood in the middle of the road, waiting.