Kitabı oku: «Golden Face: A Tale of the Wild West», sayfa 16
Chapter Thirty Seven
Between the Living and the Dead
With the first lightening of dawn, the fugitive realised that it behoved him to exercise tenfold wariness. Save one brief halt to rest his steed, he had ridden the night through, and now he intended to lie hidden in some snug retreat until darkness again should cover his flight beneath its friendly folds. A shallow stream flowed close at hand, now losing itself in the timber, now gurgling along a grassy bottom, to emerge a few hundred yards further down. Into the water Vipan now guided his steed, and riding down stream, emerged a mile or so further on. This manoeuvre, executed with the object of hiding his trail, he had performed already twice that night.
The morning dawned but slowly; dark and cold, for a thick mist had settled down on the land. And now it seemed to Vipan that the ground was becoming less precipitous. Could he be getting clear of the mountains already? Suddenly the murmur of guttural voices struck upon his ear, and strangely enough they sounded ahead of him.
Softly he checked his horse. Then to his unbounded amazement the subdued murmur arose again. This time it was behind him.
A puff of air drove a space through the mist, and now Vipan’s heart stood still. On either side of him, all around, gigantic in the filmy wrack which swept over them in thickening or decreasing folds, loomed shadowy horsemen. Their deep-toned conversation, their plumed heads and painted faces, were only too familiar to this man who was flying there for his life. He was riding in the very midst of a war-party.
Their strength he could not estimate. Ghostly forms appearing and disappearing as the mist thickened or partially dispersed, no clue could he obtain as to their numbers. One even called out to him a remark. He answered with a laconic grunt, and in his heart fervently blessed the foresight of his deliverer which had invested him with the eagle-crested head-dress. The savages evidently took him for one of their party. Fervently, too, did he bless the welcome fog and its kindly aid, for the fraud could not have lived a moment in broad daylight.
Gradually, imperceptibly, he checked his steed. Any moment the fog might lift. He must back out of this perilous escort as imperceptibly as he had entered it. But, just as he reckoned himself clear, a fresh group of figures would start up on his rear, and canter forward in the wake of those who had gone before. These ceased, and by the time the fog began fairly to roll back beneath the dispelling power of the rising sun, Vipan, to his inexpressible relief, found himself alone. Then spying a confused heap of rocks and bushes high up on the slope of a hill he made for it. As a hiding-place it was perfect. Entering its welcome shelter, he secured his tired steed in such wise that the animal could crop the green herbage growing in the cool shadow of the rocks. Then he lay down and fell fast asleep.
When at length he awoke it was with a shiver of cold. The sun was not an hour from the western horizon. He had slept the whole day.
Cautiously he peered forth. His hiding-place, being at a considerable elevation, afforded a wide view of the surrounding country. The blue line of the Black Hills cleft the sky to the south-eastward, and he could make out the granite cone of the towering Inyan Kara. His course had so far been an accurate one.
Suddenly a moving object caught his eye. Was the land absolutely bristling with enemies? Advancing along his trail far down in the bottom came a file of mounted figures. Though nearly three miles off, there was no mistaking them or their object. Then he chuckled sardonically. The trail of the war-party, under whose escort he had so unwillingly travelled for ever so brief a space, would obliterate his own a hundred times over.
Nearer and nearer they drew, riding at an easy canter. He made out forty-one Indians in war-costume. He watched them with a sneer and a chuckle.
Suddenly, when nearly abreast of his position, the leader halted, gazing intently at the ground. The band clustered round him, then scattered, as if searching for more trail. Then a smothered curse escaped the lips of the watcher. In obedience to a rapid signal, the whole band had diverged from the trail of the war-party, and was heading straight for his place of concealment. It was all up with him. They had lighted upon his trail. It was time to give them the slip.
He sent one more glance at the party. Strung out in single file, the warriors were riding along his trail, like a pack of hounds with their noses to the ground. In their leader he recognised his implacable and untiring foe, War Wolf.
“All right,” he muttered between his teeth, as he twisted the lariat rope into the horse’s mouth. “All right, my friend. You’re bound for the Happy Hunting-Grounds this time. We’ll get there together.”
His horse, fresh and rested, bore him bravely as he dashed forth, leaving the hill and the covert between himself and his pursuers. Well he knew what would happen. The Indians would not ride straight up to the bushes. They would halt and cast round the hill to see if his trail led away again. This would give him a start.
The face of the country on this side was a series of rolling slopes freely dotted with clumps of straggling timber. Some distance ahead he noted a long dark line of forest. Night was at hand; could he reach this in time he might yet hope to escape.
Then a long, pealing whoop went up. The Sioux had discovered him, and with exultant shouts each warrior lashed his pony into the utmost speed.
For half an hour the furious chase continued. Vipan, glancing over his shoulder, became aware that his pursuers were slowly gaining on him. On – on. The forest belt would soon be reached, and meanwhile the dusking shadows were lengthening around.
He gained the first straggling patch of scrub. A few hundred yards and he would be within the welcome refuge, when his horse put a foot on the crusted surface of a mud-hole, turned a somersault, and his rider came whizzing to the earth.
Vipan arose. Throughout the horror of the shock his self-possession did not desert him, for he retained firm hold of the lariat rope. He was on his feet again, active as a cat, though stiff and bruised, but his steed stood shaking with alarm, using its right foreleg limpingly.
A yell of exultation went up from the pursuers. Half-a-dozen warriors, better mounted than the rest, were some distance ahead. So easy a capture would be that of the unarmed fugitive that they had not troubled to hold a weapon in readiness. Now they began to whirl their lassos ready for a throw.
Vipan, perfectly cool, crouched behind a bush, his revolver pointed. On they came, War Wolf leading, a grin of triumph wreathing his fierce features. A hundred yards – then fifty. A ringing report – a jet of flame in the glooming twilight. War Wolf threw up his arms and lurched heavily forward upon his horse’s neck. The terrified animal, snorting and rearing, dashed away at a tangent, dragging his rider, who had somehow become entangled in the caparisonings.
And what a howl of rage and consternation rent the air! They had not bargained for this, for they believed the fugitive to be unarmed. Panic-stricken for the moment, they halted, then some of them dashed off to the succour of their leader. But they need not have done so. The bullet had sped true. The young partisan had shouted his last war-whoop.
Profiting by this temporary check, the hunted man had again sprung on the back of his horse. Lame or not, the animal must carry him further yet. On – on. The forest belt was gained. He plunged beneath its shadows, only to find it was mere straggling timber – not thick enough for hiding purposes. The frosty air cut his face and the leaves crackled crisply under his horse’s hoofs. He drew his knife and pricked the poor brute furiously in the hinder quarters. The fierce yells of the savages drawing nearer and nearer told only too plainly that they had no intention of relinquishing the pursuit, and the horse was beginning to go dead lame.
“Cau – aak!”
He glanced involuntarily upward. A huge raven disturbed on its roost flapped away in alarm. But another sight met his eye. Extending horizontally from two sturdy limbs of a Cottonwood tree, cleaving the wintry sky, was a long dark object. Vipan recognised one of those platforms on which the Indians deposit their dead – like Mohammed’s coffin, midway between earth and heaven.
His mind was made up in a flash. Checking his horse he dismounted, and tearing a bunch of thorns from a bush, proceeded deliberately to insert them beneath the poor animal’s tail. Then, as the horse galloped off in a perfect frenzy of pain and terror, he slipped up the tree and gained the burial platform, literally flattening himself against its ghastly burden. It was a hideous alternative.
Scarcely had he gained this gruesome refuge than the pursuers passed beneath. They were barely fifteen feet below him as he lay flattened there, not even daring to breathe as the savages swept by, guided by the frenzied gallop which, seeming to have gained redoubled speed, they could hear still ahead of them. It was a desperate expedient, but it had answered so far.
“Cau – aak! Cau – aak!”
Like an evil spirit let loose beneath the frosty heavens came the black swoop of the raven he had disturbed, and the hunted man saw it with a cold shiver. He dared not even turn his head. The warriors might return at any moment from their fool’s errand, and then even a breath might seal his fate. A strong shudder of disgust ran through his frame. The hideous croak of the ill-omened bird brought back vividly that other scene – the two grinning blood-stained skulls lying there in the dark forest by Burntwood Creek, and the startling challenge of their would-be avenger. Involuntarily he turned his head, and a revulsion of horror caused him to shrink back in spite of himself, and nearly to fall from his precarious resting-place. For within six inches of his face his glance lighted upon a fearful sight. A human countenance scowled upon him – but such a face. From the blackened and mummified skin drawn tightly over the protruding bones, the glazed eyes seemed to glare anew with menace and hate towards the violator of their resting-place. Shadowy yet distinct in the light of the new moon this horrible countenance, peering as it were from the fantastic cerements of barbarous sepulture, was enough to unhinge the stoutest nerves. A grisly skeleton-claw raised in mid-air, as though about to grapple with the impious intruder, completed the horror, while overhead, like the fierce spirit of the departed warrior yet hovering around its decaying tenement, the grim raven flapped in circles, emitting its gruesome croak.
“Pooh!” said the fugitive to himself, making a strong effort to overcome his not unnatural horror. “Pooh! While the country’s swarming with live redskins hunting for my scalp, am I going to be scared by one dead one? Not much – not much!”
An hour wore on – then two. Wolves howled dismally over the midnight waste, and still that grisly countenance glared menacingly in the moonlight – and still they lay side by side, the dust of the half-forgotten dead, and the living, breathing, vigorous frame – welded together in that weird partnership – its object the saving of a life.
Thus they lay, side by side – the dead warrior preserving the life of the hereditary enemy of his race.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Another Bomb for the Rev. Dudley
Once more we must peep into the library at Lant Hall.
Mr Vallance sat in his accustomed chair, thinking. His gaze would wander from the window to the blazing fire and back again, and the frown of anxiety deepened on his features. Without, the wind howled shrilly through the bare boughs, and a few scattered flakes of snow whirled in the air.
“Why did we ever let him go?” he exclaimed aloud. “Why did we ever let him go?”
Even as when last we saw him, Mr Vallance was terribly anxious on behalf of his son. His former misgivings had been allayed by the subsequent receipt of a letter from Geoffry; which missive, however, had given him to understand that it was the last the writer would have an opportunity of sending for some time – in fact, until he should be on his way home again. Characteristically, too, this letter contained only vague and general information that the writer had fallen in with and joined Winthrop’s outfit; and of his meeting with Yseulte Santorex, not a word. It was of no use worrying about the matter, decided the Rev. Dudley. Any post might now bring intelligence that the boy was on his way home. It was poor comfort, and again he found himself repeating:
“Why did we ever allow him to go?”
Of the other affair which had so sorely troubled him – his cousin’s unexpected and preposterous claim – he had heard no more. His apprehensions first were lulled, then subsided altogether. The whole business was palpably a “try on.”
A sound of subdued voices outside, then a knock.
“A gentleman wishes to see you, sir.”
In his then frame of mind, Mr Vallance could not but feel startled by the interruption.
“Who is he, James?” he asked, quickly.
“He wouldn’t give his name, sir. He said as how you’d be sure to see him, sir.”
“Quite right, quite right,” said a deep voice, whose owner entered behind the astonished flunkey. “Er – How do, Dudley!”
If Mr Vallance had been startled before, the expression of his features now betokened a state of mind little short of scare. His face had turned as white as a sheet, and his jaw fell as he stood helplessly staring at his visitor.
“Why – bless my soul – Ralph,” he stammered. Then advancing with outstretched hand, “Why – Ralph – I’m – I’m glad to see you. I hope you have come to stay with us for a time.”
The visitor’s reception of this friendly – this hospitable overture, was singular. Standing bolt upright, he deliberately put his hand behind his back.
“Glad to see me!” he echoed, with a sneer. “No, you are not. Why tell a – tarra-diddle. Such a tarra-diddle, too – and you a preacher – er – I beg your pardon – a priest, it used to be, if I remember right. You would sooner see the devil himself at this moment than me.”
Under the sting of this reply, the parson recovered a certain amount of dignity.
“Really,” he said, stiffly, “your behaviour is strange, to put it mildly. May I ask, then, the object of your intru – your visit.”
“Certainly, if it affords you any satisfaction.” Then glancing around the room, and finishing up with a look out of the window, he went on. “Say, cousin Dudley, this is a pretty shebang enough. The object of my visit is this: You’ve bossed up this show about long enough. Suppose you abdicate now and let me have a turn?”
“Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Not much. Have you?”
There was a sternness about the speaker’s laconic reply which caused Mr Vallance to quail involuntarily. He made a step towards the bell-pull. The other laughed.
“No, no. Don’t exert yourself. I’m not going yet – and if you bring in all the pap-fed flunkeys and swipe-guzzling stable-hands on your establishment, the poor devils’ll only get badly hurt without furthering your object. I mean what I say – you’ve got to quit sooner or later. If you’re wise it’ll be sooner.”
“Indeed! And why?” was the answer, given with cutting politeness.
“Well, it’s this way. If you agree to clear at once, I’ll give you five hundred a year – no, I’ll make it six – out of the property for your life. That and the parsonic pickings will keep you in clover. If you mean fighting, I’m your man. But I warn you I’m prepared to plank down ever so many thousands of pounds to get you out – and when I’ve got you out I’ll come down on you for every shilling of arrears, by George, I will!”
“Oh, you will?”
“You may bet your life on it.”
For some moments the two men looked full in each other’s faces without speaking. The sneer of conscious power on that of the one was matched by the expression of defiance, hatred, mingled with fear, on that of the other.
“Well, well,” said Mr Vallance at length. “Take your own course. Only, let me remind you that you are in England now, and that in this country we don’t settle important matters in any such rough and ready fashion.”
“Oh don’t make any mistake; I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re thinking about. You see, I’ve been knocking around a goodish few years, and now I’ve a fancy for settling down – settling down in my own place, you understand.”
There was a smug smile of triumph on the parson’s face now. His cousin was merely “bouncing” to extort terms. It would come to that in a few minutes. But the look aroused a very demon in the other. His eyes burned like live coals, though when he spoke his voice was under perfect control.
“Again, I say, you needn’t be afraid,” he said. “Everything shall be done in due course of law.”
“But – but, my good fellow, surely you are aware you haven’t a leg to stand on?”
“I reckon I’m the best judge of that. See here, most reverend Dudley. Do you remember our last interview, here, in this very room? Safe in the triumph of your successful fraud – fraud, I say, if you prefer it, forgery – you jeered at me, jeered at the man you had robbed. Remember?”
“‘Fraud!’ ‘Robbed!’” sputtered the parson, trying to lash himself into anger to drown the sinking sense that had come over him. “Do you know, sir, that you are using actionable words?”
“Ah, ah! History repeats itself. That is precisely as you spoke on the former occasion, friend Dudley. I will say it again, call in witnesses if you like. Having defrauded and robbed me of my patrimony by lies and intriguing, and worse – you, a preacher of the Gospel, a teacher of Christian morality – you threatened me with the law. You made your lawyers write to threaten me with an action for libel if I dared so much as venture an opinion on your behaviour. Do you remember my words to you as I left this room?”
Well, indeed, did he remember. And now at the sight of the deadly wrath on this man’s features, all the more terrible because so completely held in hand – of the towering form with its back just half a yard from the door, precluding alike entrance or exit – again Mr Vallance could not restrain a shiver of physical fear.
“I told you my time would surely come, didn’t I? How many years ago was it? Nearer twenty than ten – yes. You slandered my name and stole my possessions – you, a sacred dispenser of sacraments – and I went forth a beggar, followed by your jeers of triumph. If you go where I have been during those years, and take the trouble to enquire, you will learn that few persons have played me a scrofulous trick without bitterly rueing it. You have played me the most scrofulous trick of all, and you are going to rue it.”
“Well, I must trouble you to let me pass, please. I shall ask you to excuse me wasting my time any longer,” said Mr Vallance, making a move as if to leave the room. But the other only smiled.
“Not yet. Not quite yet,” he said. “By the way, Dudley. Heard anything of Geoffry lately?”
The tone was easy – smiling – but it struck a chill to the parson’s heart. He glanced up quickly at his interlocutor’s face, his own white with deadly fear. His lips parted, but he was powerless to articulate. The other stood immovable – smilingly enjoying his apprehension, but the smile was that of a fiend.
“Not heard anything of him?” he said, slowly, while like the hellish hiss of red-hot irons in quivering flesh there passed through his mind the recollection of his cousin’s defiant sneers over the successful intrigue that had robbed him of his patrimony, there in that same room, whose very walls seemed to echo their refrain even now. “Not heard anything of him? Well I’m not surprised, for – he’s dead.”
“Dead?” echoed Mr Vallance blankly, as though in a dream.
“As the proverbial door-nail.”
“Murderer!” gasped the wretched man, spasmodically clutching the air with his fingers, and gazing at his tormentor as through a far-off mist.
“Oh, no. You are under a delusion,” was the cool reply. “It’s odd that it should devolve on me – on me above all people – to give you the latest news of him. He died at an Indian stake.”
Even the pitiless, revengeful heart of the man who stood there smilingly unfolding his horrible news was hardly prepared for the awful metamorphosis that came over the smug, smooth-tongued, purring parson at those words. With a scream that rang through the house from top to bottom, and froze the blood of all who heard it, the miserable man leaped at his tormentor’s throat like a wild cat at bay. But he might as well have leaped at a rock. The powerful arm was raised, and the mere shock of the recoil sent the poor wretch sprawling. He lay – his livid features working in mania – the foam flying from his lips in flakes.
The other glanced at him a moment, then opened the door.
“You, James?” he said, coolly, to the trembling flunkey, who had not been many yards from the door during the interview. “You, James? Your boss is taken bad, I guess. Better see after him. Tell him, when he comes round, I’ll call again by-and-bye, and give him further particulars.”
With the same easy smile upon his lips he passed through the crowd of frightened women-folk who met him on the stairs, and who shrunk back before his glittering eyes and towering form, and gained the front door. Then he smiled in fearful glee.
“The last time I passed out this way,” he said to himself, half-aloud. “The last time I passed out this way, I was saying my time would surely come – and it has. Aha! my exemplary and most reverend cousin I think I’m nearly even with you now – very nearly!”
