CHAPTER XXVII. FLIGHT AND PURSUIT
When he came to himself he was lying on his back, and bending over himwas his father's familiar face, wearing an expression of great surpriseand wonder, and still greater annoyance.
"What is the matter?" General Dunsmore asked as soon as he saw that hisson's senses were returning to him. "Have you all gone mad together? Yousend me a mysterious note to meet you here at three, you turn up racingand running like an escaped lunatic, and with a disgusting growth ofhair all over your face, so that I didn't know you till you spoke, andthen there's Walter dodging about in the wood here like a poacher hidingfrom the keepers. Are you both quite mad, Rupert?"
"Walter," Rupert repeated, lifting himself on one hand, "Walter--haveyou seen him?"
"Over there," said the general, nodding towards the right. "He wasdodging and creeping about for all the world like some poaching rascal.I waved, but he didn't see me, and when I tried to overtake him I lostsight of him somehow in the trees, and found I had come right out of myway for Brook Bourne Spring."
"Thank God for that," said Rupert fervently as a picture presenteditself to him of his unsuspecting father trying in that lonely wood tofind and overtake the man whose murderous purpose was aimed at his life.
"What do you mean?" snapped the general. "And why have you made such aspectacle of yourself with all that beard? Why, I didn't know you tillyou spoke--there's Walter there. What makes him look like that?"
For Walter had just come out of the wood about fifty yards to theirright, and when he saw them talking together he understood at once thatin some way or another all his plans had failed.
He was looking at them through a gap in some undergrowth that hid mostof his body, but showed his head and shoulders plainly, and as he stoodthere watching them his face was like a fiend's.
"Walter," the general shouted, and to his son Rupert he said: "The boy'sill."
Walter moved forward from among the trees. He had a gun in his hand, andhe flung it forward as though preparing to fire, and at the same momentRupert Dunsmore drew from his pocket the pistol Deede Dawson had givenhim and fired himself.
But at the very moment that he pulled the trigger the general struck uphis arm so that the bullet flew high and harmless through the tops ofthe trees.
Walter stepped back again into the wood, and Rupert said:
"You don't know what you have done, father."
"You are mad, mad," the general gasped.
His face was very pale, and he trembled a little, for though he hadheard many bullets whistle by his ears, that had happened in actionagainst an enemy, and was altogether different from this. He put out hishand in an attempt to take the pistol that Rupert easily evaded.
"Give it to me," he said. "I saved his life; you might have killed him."
"Yes, you saved him, father," Rupert muttered, thinking to himself thatthe saving of Walter's life might well mean the loss of Ella's, sincevery likely the failure of their plots would be at once attributed bythe conspirators to her. "Father, I never wrote that letter you say youhad. Walter forged it to get you here, where he meant to kill us both.That's why he looked like that, that's why he had his gun."
General Dunsmore only stared blankly at him for a moment.
"Kill me? Kill you? What for?" he gasped.
"So that he might become Lord Chobham of Wreste Abbey instead of LordChobham's poor relation," answered Rupert. "The poison attempt on unclewhich Walter discovered was first of all his own doing; it was throughhim Charley Wright lost his life. He has committed at least one othermurder. Today he meant to kill both of us. Then he would have been heirto the title and estates, and when uncle died he would have been LordChobham."
"Nonsense, absurd, impossible. You're mad, quite mad," the generalstammered. "Why, he would have been hanged at once."
"Not if he could have fixed the blame elsewhere," Rupert answered. "Thatwas to have been my part; it was carefully arranged to make it seem Iwas responsible for it all. I haven't time to explain now. I don't thinkhe is coming back. I expect he is only loaded with small shot, and hedoesn't dare try a long range shot or come near now he knows I'm readyfor him."
"But it's--it's impossible--Walter," stammered the general."Impossible."
"The impossible so often happens," answered Rupert, and handed hispistol to him. "You must trust me, father, and do what I tell you. Takethis pistol in case you are attacked on the way home. You may be, butI don't think it's likely. Get the motor out and go straight to WresteAbbey. An attempt on uncle's life will be made tonight, if they stillcarry out their plans, about dinner-time tonight. See that everypossible precaution is taken. See to that first. Then send help as soonas you can to Bittermeads, a house on the outskirts of Ramsdon; any onethere will tell you where it is."
"But what are you going to do?" General Dunsmore asked.
"I'm going to find Walter, if he's still hiding in the wood here, as hemay be," Rupert answered. "I should like a little chat with him." Fora moment he nearly lost his self-control, and for a single moment thereshowed those fiery and tempestuous passions he was keeping now in suchstern repression. "Yes a little talk with him, just us two," he said."And if he's cleared out, or I can't find him I'm going straight on toBittermeads. There's some one there who may be in danger, so the soonerI am there the better."
"But wait a moment," the general cried. "Are you armed?"
"Yes, with my hands, I shall want no more when Walter and I meet again,"Rupert answered, and, without another word, plunged into the wood at thespot where Walter had vanished.
At first the track of Walter's flying footsteps was plain enough for hehad fled full speed, panic having overtaken him when he saw Rupert andhis father together and understood that in some way his deep conspiracyhad failed and his treachery become known.
For a little distance, therefore, he had crashed through bracken andundergrowth, heedless of all but the one need that was upon him to fleeaway and escape while there was yet time. But, after a while, his firstpanic subsiding, he had gone more carefully, and, as the weather hadbeen very dry of late, when he came to open ground his footmarks werescarcely visible.
In such spots Rupert could make but slow progress, and he washandicapped, too, by the fact, that all the time he had to be on hisguard lest from some unsuspected quarter his enemy should come upon himunawares.
For, indeed, this enterprise he had undertaken in the flood tide ofhis passion and fierce anger was dangerous enough since he, quiteweaponless, was following up a very desperate armed man who would knowthat for him there could be henceforth no question of mercy.
But there was that burning in Rupert's heart that made him heedless ofall danger, and indeed, he who for mere love of sport and adventure, hadfollowed a wounded tiger into the jungle and tracked a buffalo throughthick reeds, was not likely to draw back now.
Once he thought he had succeeded, for he saw a bush move and he rushedat once upon it. But when he reached it there was nothing there, and theground about was hard and bare, showing no marks to prove any onehad lately been near. And once he saw a movement in the midst of somebracken and caught a glimpse of what seemed like Walter's coat, so thathe was sure he had him at last, and he shouted and ran forward.
But again no one was there, though the bracken was all trampled andbeaten down. The tracks Walter had made in going were plain, too, butRupert lost them almost at once and could not find them again, and whenhe came a little later to the further edge of the wood, he decided towaste no more time, but to make his way direct to Bittermeads so as atleast to make sure of Ella's safety.
He told himself that he had failed badly in woodcraft and, indeed, hehad been too fierce and hot in his pursuit to show his wonted skill.
The plan that had been in his mind from the moment when he left hisfather was to take advantage of the fact that on this edge of the woodwas situated a farm belonging to Lord Chobham, where horses were bredand where he was well known.
Some of these horses were sure t
o be out in the fields, and it wouldbe easy for him, wasting no time in explanation, to catch one ofthem, mount bare-backed and ride through the New Plantation--the NewPlantation was a hundred years old, but still kept that name--over thebrow of the hill beyond, swim the canal in the valley, and so straightacross-country to Ramsdon.
Riding thus direct he would save time and distance, and arrive morequickly than by going the necessary distance to secure a motor-car whichwould have also to take a much more circuitous route.
He jumped the hedge, therefore, that lay at the wood's edge and sliddown the steep bank into the sunken road beyond where he found himselfstanding in front of Walter, who held in his hands a gun levelledstraight at Rupert's heart.
"I could have shot you time after time in there you know," he saidquietly. "From behind that bush and from out of the bracken, too. Idon't know why I didn't. I suppose it wasn't worth while, now I shallnever be Lord Chobham."
He flung down his gun as he spoke and sprang on a bicycle that he hadheld leaning against his legs.
Quickly he sped away, leaving Rupert standing staring after him,realizing that his life had hung upon the bending of Walter's finger,and that Walter, with at least two cold-blooded murders to hisaccount, or little more to hope for in this world or the next, had nowinexplicably spared him for whose destruction, of life and honour alike,he had a little before been laying such elaborate, hellish plans.
With a gesture of his hands that proved he failed to understand, Rupertran on and crossed a field to where he saw some horses grazing.
One he knew immediately for one of his father's mares, and he knew heralso for an animal of speed and endurance.
The mare knew him, too, and suffered him to mount her withoutdifficulty, and without a soul on the farm being aware of what washappening and without having to waste any precious time on explanationsor declaring his identity, Rupert rode away, sitting the marebare-backed, through the New Plantation towards Bittermeads, where hehoped, arriving unexpectedly, to be able to save Ella before the dangerhe was sure threatened her came to a head.
Of one thing he was certain. Deede Dawson would never do what hiscompanion in villainy had just done, he would spare no one; fierce,malignant and evil to the last, his one thought if he knew they had andvengeance approached would be to do what harm he could before the end.