It was after three in the morning when at length, leaving the heath,they rode up to Dunwich Middlegate, expecting to find it shut againstthem at such an hour. But it stood open, nor did any challenge them fromthe guardhouse.
"They keep an ill watch in Dunwich now-a-days," grumbled Dick. "Well,perchance there is one here to whom they can trust that business."
Hugh made no answer, only pressed on down the narrow street, that wasdeep and dumb with snow, till at length they drew reign before the doorof his father's house, in the market-place, the great house where hewas born. He looked at the windows and noted that, although they wereunshuttered, no friendly light shone in them. He called aloud, but echowas his only answer, echo and the moan of the bitter wind and the sullenroar of the sea.
"Doubtless all men are asleep," he said. "Why should it be otherwise atsuch an hour? Let us enter and waken them."
"Yes, yes," answered Dick as he dismounted and threw the reins of hishorse to David. "They are like the rest of Dunwich--asleep."
So they entered and began to search the house by the dim light of themoon. First they searched the lower chambers, then those where Hugh'sfather and his brothers had slept, and lastly the attics. Here theyfound the pallets of the serving-folk upon the floor, but none at restupon them.
"The house is deserted," said Hugh heavily.
"Yes, yes," answered Dick again, in a cheerful voice; "doubtless Masterde Cressi and your brothers have moved away to escape the pest."
"Pray God they have escaped it!" muttered Hugh. "This place stifles me,"he added. "Let us out."
"Whither shall we go, master?"
"To Blythburgh Manor," he answered, "for there I may win tidings. David,bide you here, and if you can learn aught follow us across the moor. Themanor cannot be missed."
So once more Hugh and Dick mounted their horses and rode away throughthe town, stopping now and again before some house they knew and callingto its inmates. But though they called loudly none answered. Soon theygrew sure that this was because there were none to answer, since ofthose houses many of the doors stood open. Only one living creature didthey see in Dunwich. As they turned the corner near to the BlythburghGate they met a grey-haired man wrapped up in tattered blankets whichwere tied about him with haybands. He carried in his hand a beautifulflagon of silver. Doubtless he had stolen it from some church.
Seeing them, he cast this flagon into the snow and began to whimper likea dog.
"Mad Tom," said Dick, recognizing the poor fellow. "Tell us, Thomas,where are the folk of Dunwich?"
"Dead, dead; all dead!" he wailed, and fled away.
"Stay! What of Master de Cressi?" called Hugh. But the tower of thechurch round which he had vanished only echoed back across the snow,"What of Master de Cressi?"
Then at last Hugh understood the awful truth.
It was that, save those who had fled, the people of Dunwich were slainwith the Sword of Pestilence, and all his kin among them.
They were on the Blythburgh Marshes, travelling thither by the shortestroad. The moon was down and the darkness dense, for the snow-clouds hidthe stars.
"Let us bide here a while," said Grey Dick as their horses blunderedthrough the thick reeds. "It will soon be sunrise, and if we go on inthis gloom we shall fall into some boghole or into the river, which Ihear running on our left."
So they halted their weary horses and sat still, for in his wretchednessHugh cared not what he did.
At length the east began to lighten, turning the sky to a smoky red.Then the rim of the sun rising out of the white-flecked ocean, threwathwart the desolate marsh a fierce ray that lay upon the snows like asword of blood. They were standing on the crest of a little mound, andDick, looking about him, knew the place.
"See," he said, pointing toward the river that ran near by, "it is justhere that you killed young Clavering this day two years ago. Yonder alsoI shot the French knights, and Red Eve and you leapt into the Blythe andswam it."
"Ay," said Hugh, looking up idly, "but did you say two years, Dick? Nay,surely 'tis a score. Why," he added in a changed voice, "who may that bein the hollow?" and he pointed to a tall figure which stood beneath themat a distance, half-hidden by the dank snow-mists.
"Let us go and see," said Dick, speaking almost in a whisper, forthere was that about this figure which sent the blood to his throat andcheeks.
He drove the spurs into his tired horse's sides, causing it to leapforward.
Half a minute later they had ridden down the slope of the hollow. Apuff of wind that came with the sun drove away the mist. Dick uttereda choking cry and leapt from his saddle. For there, calm, terrible,mighty, clothed in his red and yellow cap and robe of ebon furs, stoodhe who was named Murgh the Fire, Murgh the Sword, Murgh the Helper,Murgh, Gateway of the Gods!
They knelt before him in the snow, while, screaming in their fright, thehorses fled away.
"Knight and Archer," said Murgh, in his icy voice, counting with thethumb of his white-gloved right hand upon the hidden fingers of hisleft. "Friends, you keep your tryst, but there are more to come. Havepatience, there are more to come."
Then he became quiet, nor dared they ask him any questions. Only at amotion of his arm they rose from their knees and stood before him.
A long while they stood thus in silence, till under Murgh's dreadfulgaze Hugh's brain began to swim. He looked about him, seeking somenatural thing to feed his eyes. Lo! yonder was that which he mightwatch, a hare crouching in its form not ten paces distant. See, out ofthe reeds crept a great red fox. The hare smelt or saw, and leapedaway. The fox sprang at it, too late, for the white fangs closed emptilybehind its scut. Then with a little snarl of hungry rage it turned andvanished into the brake.
The hare and the fox, the dead reeds, the rising sun, the snow--oh, whohad told him of these things?
Ah! he remembered now, and that memory set the blood pulsing in hisveins. For where these creatures were should be more besides Grey Dickand himself and the Man of many names.
He looked toward Murgh to see that he had bent himself and with hisgloved hand was drawing lines upon the snow. Those lines when they weredone enclosed the shape of a grave!
"Archer," said Murgh, "unsheath your axe and dig."
As though he understood, Dick obeyed, and began to hollow out a grave inthe soft and boggy soil.
Hugh watched him like one who dreams, wondering who was destined to fillthat grave. Presently a sound behind caused him to turn his head.
Oh! certainly he was mad, for there over the rise not a dozen yards awaycame the beautiful ghost of Eve Clavering, clad in her red cloak. Withher was another ghost, that of old Sir Andrew Arnold, blood running downthe armour beneath his robe and in his hand the hilt of a broken sword.
Hugh tried to speak, but his lips were dumb, nor did these ghosts takeany heed of him, for their eyes were fixed elsewhere. To Murgh they wentand stood before him silent. For a while he looked at them, then askedin his cold voice:
"Who am I, Eve Clavering?"
"The Man who came to visit me in my dream at Avignon and told me that Ishould live," she answered slowly.
"And who say you that I am, Andrew Arnold, priest of Christ the God?"
"He whom I visited in my youth in far Cathay," answered the oldknight in an awed whisper. "He who sat beside the pool behind thedragon-guarded doors and was named Gateway of the Gods. He who showed tome that we should meet again in such a place and hour as this."
"Whence come you now, priest and woman, and why?"
"We come from Avignon. We fled thence from one who would have done thismaiden grievous wrong. He followed us. Not an hour gone he overtookus with his knaves. He set them on to seize this woman, hanging backhimself. Old as I am I slew them both and got my death in it," and hetouched the great wound in his side with the hilt of the broken sword."Our horses were the better; we fled across the swamp for Blythburgh, hehunting us and seeking my life and her honour. Thus we found you as itwas appointed."
Murgh turn
ed his eyes. Following their glance, for the first time theysaw Hugh de Cressi and near him Grey Dick labouring at the grave. Evestretched out her arms and so stood with head thrown back, the light ofthe daybreak shining in her lovely eyes and on her outspread hair. Hughopened his lips to speak but Murgh lifted his hand and pointed behindthem.
They turned and there, not twenty paces from them, clad in armourand seated on a horse was Edmund Acour, Count de Noyon, Seigneur ofCattrina.
He saw, then wheeled round to fly.
"Archer, to your work!" said Murgh, "you know it."
Ere the words had left his lips the great black bow was bent and ere theechoes died away the horse, struck in its side by the keen arrow, sankdying to the ground.
Then Murgh beckoned to the rider and he came as a man who must. But,throwing down the bow, Grey Dick once more began to labour at the gravelike one who takes no further heed of aught save his allotted task.
Acour stood before Murgh like a criminal before his judge.
"Man," said the awful figure addressing him, "where have you been andwhat have you done since last we spoke together in the midday dark atVenice?"
Now, dragged word by slow word from his unwilling lips, came the answerof the traitor's heart.
"I fled from the field at Venice because I feared this knight, and you,O Spirit of Death. I journeyed to Avignon, in France, and there stroveto possess myself of yonder woman whom here in England, with the helpof one Nicholas, I had wed, when she was foully drugged. I stroveto possess myself of her by fraud and by violence. But some fate wasagainst me. She and that aged priest bribed the knave whom I trusted. Hecaused a dead man and woman dressed in their garments to be borne fromtheir lodging to the plague pit while they fled from Avignon disguised."
Here for a moment Grey Dick paused from his labours at the grave andlooked up at Hugh. Then he fell to them again, throwing out the peatysoil with both hands.
"My enemy and his familiar, for man he can scarcely be," went on Acour,pointing first to Hugh and then to Dick, "survived all my plans to killthem and instead killed those whom I had sent after them. I learned thatthe woman and the priest were not dead, but fled, and followed them, andafter me came my enemy and his familiar. Twice we passed each other onthe road, once we slept in the same house. I knew them but they knew menot and the Fate which blinded me from them, saved them also from all myplots to bring them to their doom. The woman and the priest took ship toEngland, and I followed in another ship, being made mad with desire andwith jealous rage, for there I knew my enemy would find and win her. Inthe darkness before this very dawn I overtook the woman and the priestat last and set my fellows on to kill the man. Myself I would strikeno blow, fearing lest my death should come upon me, and so I should berobbed of her. But God fought with His aged servant who in his youth wasthe first of knights. He slew my men, then fled on with the woman, Eveof Clavering. I followed, knowing that he was sore wounded and must die,and that then the beauty which has lured me to shame and ruin would bemine, if only for an hour. I followed, and here at this place of evilomen, where first I saw my foe, I found _you_, O Incarnate Sword ofVengeance."
Murgh unfolded his bare arms and lifted his head, which was sunk uponhis breast.
"Your pardon," he said gently, "my name is Hand of Fate and not Swordof Vengeance. There is no vengeance save that which men work uponthemselves. What fate may be and vengeance may be I know not fully,and none will ever know until they have passed the Gateway of the Gods.Archer the grave is deep enough. Come forth now and let us learn who itis decreed shall fill it. Knights, the hour is at hand for you to finishthat which you began at Crecy and at Venice."
Hugh heard and drew his sword. Acour drew his sword also, then criedout, pointing to Grey Dick:
"Here be two against one. If I conquer he will shoot me with his bow."
"Have no fear, Sir Thief and Liar," hissed Grey Dick, "for that shaftwill not be needed. Slay the master if you can and go safe from thesquire," and he unstrung his black bow and hid it in its case.
Now Hugh stepped to where Red Eve stood, the wounded Sir Andrew leaningon her shoulder. Bending down he kissed her on the lips, saying:
"Soon, very soon, my sweet, whom I have lost and found again, you willbe mine on earth, or I shall be yours in heaven. This, then, in greetingor farewell."
"In greeting, beloved, not in farewell," she answered as she kissed himback, "for if you die, know that I follow hard upon your road. Yet I saythat yonder grave was not dug for you."
"Nay, not for you, son, not for you," said Sir Andrew lifting his fainthead. "One fights for you whom you do not see, and against Him Satan andhis servant cannot stand," and letting fall the sword hilt he stretchedout his thin hand and blessed him.
Now when Acour saw that embrace his jealous fury prevailed against hisfears. With a curse upon his lips he leapt at Hugh and smote, thinkingto take him unawares. But Hugh was watching, and sprang back, and thenthe fray began, if fray it can be called.
A wild joy shining in his eyes, Hugh grasped his long sword with bothhands and struck. So great was that blow that it bit through Acour'sarmour, beneath his right arm, deep into the flesh and sent himstaggering back. Again he struck and wounded him in the shoulder; athird time and clove his helm so that the blood poured down into hiseyes and blinded him.
Back reeled Acour, back to the very edge of the grave, and stood thereswaying to and fro. At the sight of his helplessness Hugh's fury seemedto leave him. His lifted sword sank downward.
"Let God deal with you, knave," he said, "for I cannot."
For a while there was silence. There they stood and stared at thesmitten man waiting the end, whatever it might be. They all stared saveMurgh, who fixed his stony eyes upon the sky.
Presently it came. The sword, falling from Acour's hand into the grave,rested there point upward. With a last effort he drew his dagger.Dashing the blood from his eyes, he hurled it with all his dyingstrength, not at Hugh, but at Red Eve. Past her ear it hissed, severinga little tress of her long hair, which floated down on to the snow.
Then Acour threw his arms wide and fell backward--fell backward andvanished in the grave.
Dick ran to look. There he lay dead, pierced through back and bosom bythe point of his own sword.
For one brief flash of time a black dove-shaped bird was seen hoveringround the head of Murgh.
"Finished!" said Dick straightening himself. "Well, I had hoped to see abetter fight, but cowards die as cowards live."
Leaning on Red Eve's shoulder Sir Andrew limped to the side of thegrave. They both looked down on that which lay therein.
"Daughter," said the old man, "through many dangers it has come aboutas I foretold. The bond that in your drugged sleep bound you to thishighborn knave is severed by God's sword of death. Christ have pity onhis sinful soul. Now, Sir Hugh de Cressi, come hither and be swift, formy time is short."
Hugh obeyed, and at a sign took Eve by the hand. Then, speaking verylow and as quickly as he might for all his life was draining from himthrough the red wound in his side, the old priest spoke the hallowedwords that bound these two together till death should part them. Yes,there by the graveside, over the body of the dead Acour, there in thered light of the morning, amidst the lonely snows, was celebrated thestrangest marriage the world has ever seen. In nature's church it wascelebrated, with the grim, grey Archer for a clerk, and Death's ownfearful minister for congregation.
It was done and with uplifted, trembling hands Sir Andrew blessed themboth--them and the fruit of their bodies which was to be. He blessedthem in the name of the all-seeing God he served. He bade them put asidetheir grief for those whom they had lost. Soon, he said, their shortday done, the lost would be found again, made glorious, and withthem himself, who, loving them both on earth, would love them througheternity.
Then, while their eyes grew blind with tears, and even the fierce archerturned aside his face, Sir Andrew staggered to where he stood who in theLand of Sunrise had been called Gateway of t
he Gods. Before him he benthis grey and ancient head.
"O thou who dwellest here below to do the will of heaven, to thee I comeas once thou badest me," he said, and was silent.
Murgh let his eyes rest on him. Then stretching out his hand, he touchedhim very gently on the breast, and as he touched him smiled a sweet andwondrous smile.
"Good and faithful servant," he said, "thy work is done on earth. Now I,whom all men fear, though I be their friend and helper, am bidden by theLord of life and death to call thee home. Look up and pass!"
The old priest obeyed. It seemed to those who watched that the radianceon the face of Murgh had fallen upon him also. He smiled, he stretchedhis arms upward as though to clasp what they might not see. Then down hesank gently, as though upon a bed, and lay white and still in the white,still snow.
The Helper turned to the three who remained alive.
"Farewell for a little time," he said. "I must be gone. But when we meetagain, as meet we shall, then fear me not, for have you not seen that tothose who love me I am gentle?"
Hugh de Cressi and Red Eve made no answer, for they knew not what tosay. But Grey Dick spoke out boldly.
"Sir Lord, or Sir Spirit," he said, "save once at the beginning, whenthe arrow burst upon my string, I never feared you. Nor do I fear yourgifts," and he pointed to the grave and to dead Sir Andrew, "which oflate have been plentiful throughout the world, as we of Dunwich know.Therefore I dare to ask you one question ere we part for a while. Why doyou take one and leave another? Is it because you must, or because everyshaft does not hit its mark?"
Now Murgh looked him up and down with his sunken eyes, then answered:
"Come hither, archer, and I will lay my hand upon your heart also andyou shall learn."
"Nay," cried Grey Dick, "for now I have the answer to the riddle, sinceI know you cannot lie. When we die we still live and know; therefore I'mcontent to wait."
Again that smile swept across Murgh's awful face though that smile wascold as the winter dawn. Then he turned and slowly walked away towardthe west.
They watched him go till he became but a blot of fantastic colour thatsoon vanished on the moorland.
Hugh spoke to Red Eve and said:
"Wife, let us away from this haunted place and take what joy we can. Whoknows when Murgh may return again and make us as are all the others whomwe love!"
"Ay, husband won at last," she answered, "who knows? Yet, after so muchfear and sorrow, first I would rest a while with you."
So hand in hand they went till they, too, grew small and vanished on thesnowy marsh.
But Grey Dick stayed there alone with the dead, and presently spokealoud for company.
"The woman has him heart and soul," he said, "as is fitting, and where'sthe room between the two for an archer-churl to lodge? Mayhap, afterall, I should have done well to take yonder Murgh for lord when I hadthe chance. Man, or god, or ghost, he's a fellow to my liking, and oncehe had led me through the Gates no woman would have dared to come topart us. Well, good-bye, Hugh de Cressi, till you are sick of kisses andthe long shafts begin to fly again, for then you will bethink you of acertain bow and of him who alone can bend it."
Having spoken thus in his hissing voice, whereof the sound resembledthat of an arrow in its flight, Grey Dick descended into the grave andtrod the earth over Acour's false and handsome face, hiding it from thesight of men forever.
Then he lifted up the dead Sir Andrew in his strong arms and slowly borehim thence to burial.
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