CHAPTER XVIII
KING SMALLPOX
He drew himself out on their side and shook himself; then for a timeit seemed that the earth had swallowed him, so still was he. ButSophia knew that he was listening, standing in the dark a few pacesfrom them, in the hope of hearing the rustle of their skirts or theirfootsteps as they stole away. Disappointed in this he began to move toand fro, beating the bushes this way and that; now loudly threateningthem with horrid penalties if they did not show themselves, nowasserting that he saw them, and now calling to his fellow who keptguard on the farther bank to know if he heard them. It was clear thathe knew, probably from Pettitt, that they had not had time to go farfrom the carriage.
Fortunately the trend of his search was from them, and as he recededup stream they breathed more freely. But when the sound of hismovements was beginning to grow faint, and Sophia to think ofcontinuing their flight, he turned, and she heard him come back on histracks. This time, if the ear could be trusted, he was making directlyfor the place where they cowered beside the wattle fence.
Yes, he was drawing nearer--and nearer; now a stick snapped under hisfoot, now he stumbled and swore, as he recovered himself. Sophia feltthe younger girl shake under her hand, and instinctively drew thechild's face against her shoulder that she might not see. Presentlyshe could make out his head and shoulders dark against the sky; andstill she watched him, fascinated. Three more steps and he would be onthem! Two more--the impulse to shriek, to spring up and fly at allrisks was scarcely to be controlled. One more--there was a suddenrustle, a fathom below them, he sprang that way, something whiskedfrom 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. Idon't believe they crossed. Are you sure they're not in that thorntree 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 thestepping-stones.
"Which is it?" he cried.
"Neither," the fellow answered. "It's the whippersnapper you sent fora decoy."
"D----n it!" Hawkesworth exclaimed, and he came to a stand. "But ifyou've got him, they are not far off. We'll wring his neck if he doesnot say where they are! Prick him, man, prick him with your knife."
But the poor fop's squeals showed that little cruelty would be neededto draw from him all he knew. "Don't! Don't!" he screamed. "They're onthe other side! I swear they are!"
"None of your lies now, or I'll slit your throat!" the ruffiangrowled. 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 movedI 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 thewater. 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 roundhim. Even now he was not more than ten or twelve paces from them; butthe gorse-bush, from which the rabbit had darted, formed a black blurragainst the fence, and deepened the obscurity in which they lay.Unless he came on them they were safe; but at any moment he mightdiscover the fence, and guess it had brought them up, and beat alongit. And--and while she thought of this she heard him chuckle.
"Be still, man," he cried to the other, "and keep your ears open. Themoon 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 maycreep off."
Sophia swallowed a sob. It seemed so hard--so hard after all they haddone to escape--that nature itself should turn against them. Yet, itwas so; the man was right. Already the moonlight touched the crest ofa gorse-bush that grew a little higher than its neighbours; andoverhead the sky was growing bright where the ridge line cut it. Infive minutes the disc of the moon, sailing high, would rise above thatspot, and all the hill side, that now lay veiled in shadow, would beflooded with light. Then----
She shuddered, watching paralysed the oncoming of this new andinexorable foe. Slowly the light was creeping down the gorse-bush.Minute by minute, sure as the tide that surges to the lips of thestranded mariner, the pale rays silvered this spray and that spray,dark before; touched the fence, and now lay a narrow streak along thenearer margin of the stream. And the streak widened; not slowly nowbut quickly. Even while she watched it, from the shelter of the fence,feeling her heart beat sickening bumps against her side, the lightcrept nearer and nearer. In three or four minutes it would be uponthem.
Sophia was brave, but there was something in the sure and stealthyapproach of this danger that sapped her will, and robbed her limbs ofstrength. Unable to think, unable to act, she crouched panic-strickenwhere she was; as the hare surprised in her form awaits the hunter'shand. Until only a minute remained; then with a groan she shook offthe spell. To run, even to be caught running, was better than to betaken so. But whither could they run with the least chance of escape?She turned her head to see, and her eyes, despairing, climbed theslope behind her until they rested on the faint yellow spark that,solemn and unchanged, shone from the window of the dark house on thecrest.
That way lay some chance, a desperate chance. She warned Lady Betty bya touch. "We must run!" she breathed in the girl's ear. "Look at thefence, and when I tap your shoulder, climb over, and run to thehouse!"
Lady Betty disengaged herself softly and nodded. Then, as if she wasgranted some new insight into the character of the woman whose armswere round her, as if she saw more clearly than before the other'scourage, and understood the self-denial that gave her the first andbetter 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 waslooking the other way, and gave the signal. Betty, nimble and active,was over in a moment unseen, unheard. Sophia followed, but the fencecreaked under her, and Hawkesworth heard it and turned. He saw herpoised on the fence, in the full moonlight, so that not a line of herfigure escaped him; with a yell of triumph he darted towards her. Butdirectly in his path lay a low gorse-bush, still in shadow. He did notsee it, tripped over it, and fell all his length on the grass. By thetime he was up again, the two were dim flying shadows, all but lost inthe darkness that lay beyond the fence.
All but lost; not quite. In three seconds he was at the fence, he wasover 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 andthe horror of his hand upon their shoulders gave them wings, breathwas lacking. Then Betty fell, and lost a precious yard; and though shewas up again, and panting onwards gallantly, for a few seconds hethought that he would catch them with ease. Then the ascent began totell on him also. The fall had shaken him. He began to pant andlabour; he saw that he was not gaining on them, but rather losingground, and he slackened his pace, and shouted to the man on guard inthe road above, bidding him stop them.
The man with an answering shout reined back his horse to the narrowpass where the road ran between the house and the cottages. There,peering forward, he made ready to intercept them. Fortunately, themoon, above and a little behind him, showed his figure in silhouettein the gap; and Sophia clutching Betty's hand, dragged her back at themoment she was stepping into the moonlit road. An instant the twolistened, trembling, palpitating, staring, like game driven into themiddle of the field. But behind them Hawkesworth's scramblingfootsteps and heavy breathing still came on; they could not wait. Amoment's sickening doubt, and Sophia pressed Betty's hand, and the twodarted together across the road, and took cover in a space still dark,between the two cottages that flanked it o
n the farther side.
The man in the gap gave the alarm, shouting that they had crossed theroad; and Hawkesworth, coming up out of breath, asked with a volley ofcurses why he had not stopped them.
"Because they did not come my way!" the fellow answered bluntly. "Whydidn'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 hiscunning. Instead of following his prey into the dark space between thebuildings, he darted round the other side of the lower cottage, and ina twinkling was on the open slope beyond. Here the moonlight fellevenly, the hillside was clear of gorse, he could see a hundred yards.But he caught no glimpse of fleeing figures, he heard no sound ofretiring footsteps; and quick as thought he turned up the hill, andlearned the reason.
A high wall ran from cottage to cottage, rendering exit that wayimpossible. Sophia had trapped herself and her companion; they were ina _cul de sac!_ With a cry of triumph he turned to go back; as he ranhe heard the horseman he had left call to him. Opportunely, as hegained the road, he was joined by the third of the band, the rogue hehad 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 onthe 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 gableend.
"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 couldget him round----"
"She got off?" the Irishman shrieked.
"No! She's here, in the house! Burn her, when I get hold of her I'llmake her smart for it!"
"She? Then where's the other?"
"She's where she was, for all I know," the man answered. "I've seennothing of her."
But he lied in that. While he had been marking down the woman who hadfrightened his horse with her shawl--and who then had glided coollyinto the house, the door of which stood ajar--he had seen with thetail of his eye a flying skirt vanish down the road behind him. He hada notion that one had got clear, but he was not sure; and if he saidanything he would be blamed. So he stood while Hawkesworth and theother searched the dark space between the cottages.
A few seconds sufficed to show that there was no one there, andHawkesworth turned and swore at him.
"Well, there's one left!" the offender answered sulkily. "We've gother in the house, and there's no back door. Take your change out ofher."
"Aye, but who's going in to fetch her?" Hawkesworth snarled. "I've nothad the smallpox. Perhaps you have. In that case, in you go, man. Yourun 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 hishorse in a hurry. "Faugh! I can smell the vinegar from here!" hecried. 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 lainin the condemned hold for the offence of reducing His Majesty's goldcoin, declined in terms not doubtful; and for a few seconds the threeglared at one another, rage in the greater villain's eyes, a doggedresolution, not unmingled with shame, in his hirelings'. To bebaffled, and by a girl! To have her at bay, and fear the encounter! Tobe outwitted, outdared, and by a woman! The moonlight that lay on thelonely country side, the night wind that stirred the willows by thestream, the height of blue above them with its myriad watching eyes,these things had no awe for them, touched no chord in their dulledconsciences; but the smoky yellow gleam that shone from the window ofthe dark gable, and was visible where two of them stood--that and thedread 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 thetune of thousands! And you'll let them go when it's only to pick themup!"
"Aye, and the smallpox with them!" Clipper retorted grimly. "I've seena man that died of that," with a shudder, "and I don't want to seeanother. Go yourself, captain," he sneered, "it's your business."
The thrust went home. "So I will, by----!" the Irishman criedpassionately. "I'll have her out, and the stuff! But I'll think twicebefore I pay you, you lily-livers! You chicken hearts. Give me alight!"
"There's light enough upstairs!" the Clipper answered mockingly. Butthe other man, more amenable, produced a flint and steel and a candleend, and lighting the one from the other handed it to Hawkesworth."Likely enough you'll find her behind the door, captain," he saidcivilly. "'Twon't be much risk after all."
"Then go yourself, you cur," Hawkesworth answered brutally. He wastorn this way and that; between fear and rage, cupidity and cowardice.The ardour of the chase grew cool in this atmosphere of disease; thecourage of the man failed before this house given up to the fellplague, that in those days took pitiless toll of rich and poor, of oldand young, of withered cheeks and bright eyes, of kings and joiners'daughters. His gorge rose at the sharp scent of vinegar, at the dullerodour of burnt rags with which the air was laden; they were the roughdisinfectants of the time, used before the panic-stricken survivorsfled the place. In face of the danger he had to confront, women haveever been bolder than men, though they have more to lose. He was noexception.
Yet he would go. To flinch was to be lessened for ever in the eyes ofthe meaner villains, his hirelings; to dare was to confirm the evilpre-eminence he claimed. Bitter black rage in his heart--rage inespecial against the woman who laid this necessity upon him--he thrustthe door wide open, and shielding the candle, of which the light butfeebly irradiated the black cavern before him, he crossed thethreshold.
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 opendoor of a narrow staircase that led to the upper rooms a faintreflection of the candles that burned above issued; by aid of which hesaw that he stood in the great kitchen of the farm. But the black potthat tenanted the vast gloomy recess of the fireplace, hung over dead,white ashes--cold relics of the cheer that had once reigned there. Thecradle in the corner was still and shrouded. In the middle of thestone floor a bench, a mere slab on four-straddling legs, layoverturned, upset by the panic-stricken survivors in their hurriedflight; and beside it, stiff and grinning, sprawled the body of ablack cat, killed in some frenzy of fear or superstition ere theliving left the house to the care of the dead. A brooding odour ofdisease filled the gaunt, wide-raftered room, infected the shadowyhanging flitches, and grew stronger and more sickly towards thestaircase at the farther end.
Yet it was there he saw her, as he paused uncertain, his heart likewater. She was standing on the lowest step of the stairs as if she hadretreated thither on his entrance. Her one hand held her skirt alittle 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 herattitude was something solemn and unearthly, that for a moment awedhim.
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 isfull 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 lightburn more dimly than was natural. He battled with it, and hated herfor it, and for his cowardice. "You she-devil!" he cried, "where arethe 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 steptowards her. "You lie!" he cried furiously. "You have them. And if youdo not give them up----"
"I have them not!" she answered firmly; and little did he suspect howwildly her heart was leaping behind the bold front she showed him.Little did he suspect, the deadly terror she had had to surmountbefore she penetrated so far into this loathsome house. "I have themnot," she repeated. "Nor have I any fear of you. There is that herethat is your master and mine. Come up, come up," she continued, atouch of wildness in her manner, and she mounted a step or two of thenarrow staircase, and beckoned him to follow her. "Come up and youwill see him."
"You drab!" he cried, "do you come down, or it will be the worse foryou! Do you hear me? Come down, you slut, or when I fetch you I willhave 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 notspoken, her figure first and then her feet, mounting without pause orhesitation, vanished from sight. He was left, scared and baffled,alone in the great desolate kitchen where his light shone a merespark, making visible the darkness that canopied him. A rat moving inthe dim fringe between light and shadow startled him. A rope of onionsswayed by the draught of air that blew through the open door, broughtthe sweat to his brow. He took two steps forward and one backward; theshroud 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 ofridicule still conquered fear of death; conquered even thesuperstition that lay dormant in his Irish blood; he forced himselfonward. His eyes fixed balefully, his hands withheld from contact withthe wall--as if he had been a woman with skirts--he crept upwards tillhis gaze rose above the level of the upper floor; then for a momentthe light of two thick candles, half-burned, gave him back hiscourage. 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 whitebedding protruded, two bodies lay sheeted. At their feet the candlesburned dull before the window that should have been open, but wasshut; as the thick noisome air of the room, that turned him sick andfaint, told him. Near the bed, on the farther side, stood that hesought; Sophia, her eyes burning, her face like paper. His prey thenwas there, there, within his reach; but she had not spoken withoutreason. 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, Iwill snatch this sheet from them, and I will wrap you in it! And youwill die! In eight days you will be dead! Will you see them? Will yousee what you will be?" And she lowered her hand to raise the sheet.
He stepped back a pace, livid and shaking. "You she-devil!" hemuttered. "You witch!"
"Go!" she answered, in the same low tone. "Go! Or I will bring yourdeath 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 onestep nearer!"
She took a step forward herself. The man turned and fled.