CHAPTER XXVIII
THE QUARRY
Some few minutes before this the hunted man had emerged upon the road.
As, worn-out, pallid, aching in every limb, he dragged himself wearilyforward on hands and knees, it would have been difficult to recognise inthis poor, suffering fragment of humanity the brilliant, dashinggentleman of the road, the foppish, light-hearted dandy, whom thecountryside had nicknamed Beau Brocade.
The wound in his shoulder, inflamed and throbbing after the breakneckride from the Court House to the Heath, had caused him almostunendurable agony, against which he had at first resolutely set histeeth. But now his whole body had become numb to every physicalsensation. Covered with mud and grime, his hair matted against his dampforehead, the lines of pain and exhaustion strongly marked round hisquivering mouth, he seemed only to live through his two senses: hissight and his hearing.
The spirit was there though, indomitable, strong, the dogged obstinacyof the man who has nothing more to lose. And with it all the memory ofthe oath he had sworn to her.
All else was a blank.
Hunted by men, and with a hound on his track, he had--physically--becomelike the beasts of the Moor, alert to every sound, keen only on eludinghis pursuers, on putting off momentarily the inevitable instant ofcapture and of death.
Early in the day he had been forced to part from his faithful companion.Jack o' Lantern was exhausted and might have proved an additional sourceof danger. The gallant beast, accustomed to every bush and every cornerof the Heath, knew its way well to its habitual home: the forge of JohnStich. Jack Bathurst watched it out of sight, content that it would lookafter itself, and that being riderless it would be allowed to wend itsway unmolested whither it pleased, on the Moor.
And thus he had seen the long hours of this glorious September afternoondrag on their weary course; he had seen the beautiful day turn to late,glowing afternoon, then the sun gradually set in its mantle of purpleand gold, and finally the grey dusk throw its elusive and mysteriousveil over Tors and Moor. And he, like the hunted beast, crept fromgorse bush to scrub, hiding for his life, driven out of one strongholdinto another, gasping with thirst, panting with fatigue, determined inspirit, but broken down in body at last.
By instinct and temperament Jack Bathurst was essentially a brave man.Physical fear was entirely alien to his nature: he had never known it,never felt it. During the earlier part of the afternoon, with a scoreof men at his heels, some soldiers, others but indifferently-equippedlouts, he had really enjoyed the game of hide-and-seek on the Heath: tohim, at first, it had been nothing more. It was but a part of thatwild, mad life he had chosen, the easily-endured punishment for thebreaking of conventional laws.
He knew every shrub and crag on this wild corner of the earth which hadbecome his home, and could have defied a small army, when hidden in thenatural strongholds known only to himself.
But when he first heard the yelping of the bloodhound set upon his trackby the fiendish cunning of an avowed enemy, an icy horror seemed tocreep into his very marrow: a horror born of the feeling ofpowerlessness, of the inevitableness of it all. His one thought now waslest his hand, trembling and numb with fatigue, would refuse him servicewhen he would wish to turn the muzzle of his pistol against his owntemple, in time to evade actual capture.
The dog would not miss him. It was practically useless to hide: flightalone, constant, ceaseless flight, might help him for a while, but itwas bound to end one way, and one way only: the scent of blood wouldlead the cur on his track, and his pursuers would find and seize him!bind him like a felon, and hang him! Aye! hang him like a common thief!
He had oft laughed and joked with John Stich about his ultimate probablefate. He knew that his wild, unlawful career would come to an endsooner or later, but he always carried pistols in his belt, and had noteven remotely dreamt of capture.
... Until now!
But now he was tired, ill, half-paralysed with pain and exhaustion. Histrembling hand crept longingly round the heavy silver handle of theprecious weapon. Every natural instinct in him clamoured for death, now,at this very moment before that yelping cur drew nearer, before thoseshouts of triumph were raised over his downfall.
Only ... after that ... what would happen? He would be asleep and atpeace ... but she? ... what would she think? ... that like a coward hehad deserted his post ... like a felon he had broken his oath, whilstthere was one single chance of fulfilling it ... that he had left her atthe mercy of that same enemy who had already devised so much crueltreachery.
And like a beast he crept back within his lair, and watched and listenedfor that one chance of serving her before the end.
He had seen Sir Humphrey Challoner and Mittachip ambling up thehillside. He tried not to lose sight of them, and, if possible, to keepwithin earshot, but he was driven back by a posse of his pursuers, closeupon his heels, and now having succeeded in reaching the road at last,he had the terrible chagrin of seeing that he was too late; the two menwere remounting their horses and turning back towards Brassington.
"Methinks we have outwitted that gallant highwayman after all," SirHumphrey was saying with one of those boisterous outbursts of merriment,which to Bathurst's sensitive ears had a ring of the devil's own glee init.
"What hellish mischief have those two reprobates been brewing, Iwonder?" he mused. "If those fellows at my heels hadn't cut me off Imight have known..."
He crept nearer to the two men, but they set their horses at a sharptrot down the road: Jack vainly strained his ears to hear their talk.
For the last eight hours he had practically covered every corner of theHeath, backwards and forwards, across boulders and through morass; thehound had had some difficulty in finding and keeping the trail, but nowit seemed suddenly to have found it, the yelping drew nearer, but theshouts had altogether ceased.
What was to be done? God in heaven, what was to be done?
It was at this moment that the plaintive bleating of one or two of thepenned-up sheep suddenly aroused every instinct of vitality in him.
"The sheep!..." he murmured. "A receipt and tally for some sheep!..."
Fresh excitement had in the space of a few seconds given him a new leaseof strength. He dragged himself up to his feet and walked almostupright as far as the hut.
There certainly was a flock of sheep in the pen: the dog was watchingclose by the gate, but the shepherd was nowhere to be seen.
"The sheep! ... A receipt and tally for some sheep! ... In Sir HumphreyChalloner's coat pocket! ..."
Oh! for one calm moment in which to think ... to think!
"The sheep!..." This one thought went on hammering in the poor tiredbrain, like the tantalising, elusive whisper of a mischievous sprite.
And with it all there was scarce a second to be lost.
The hound, yelping and straining on the leash, was not half a mile away;the next ten or perhaps fifteen minutes would see the end of this awfulman-hunt on the Moor. And yet there close by, behind those clumps ofgorse and the thickset hedge of bramble, was the clearing, where justtwenty-four hours ago he had danced that mad rigadoon, with her almostin his arms.
Instinctively, in the wild agony of this supreme moment, Beau Brocadeturned his steps thither. This clearing had but two approaches, therewhere the tough branches of furze had once been vigorously cut into.Last night he had led her through the one whilst Jock Miggs sat besidethe other, piping the quaint sad tune.
For one moment the hunted man seemed to live that mad, merry hour again,and from out the darkness fairy fingers seemed to beckon: and herface--just for one brief second--smiled at him out of the gloom.
Surely this was not to be the end! Something would happen, something_must_ happen to enable him to render her the great service he had swornto do.
Oh! if that yelping dog were not quite so close upon his track! Withinthe next few minutes, seconds even, he would surely think of somethingthat would g
uide him towards that great goal: _her service_. Oh! forjust a brief respite in which to think! a way to evade his captors for ashort while--a means to hide! a disguise! anything.
But for once the Moor--his happy home, his friend, his mother--wassilent, save for the sound of hunters on his trail, of his doom drawingnearer and nearer, whilst he stood and remembered his dream.
It was madness surely, or else a continuance of that fairy vision, butnow it seemed to him, as he stood just there, where yesterday her foothad plied the dear old measure, that his ear suddenly caught once morethe sound of that self-same rigadoon.
It was a dream of course. He knew that, and paused awhile, althoughevery second now meant life or death to him.
The tune seemed to evade him. It had been close to his ear a momentago, now it was growing fainter and fainter, gradually vanishing away:soon he could scarce hear it, yet it seemed something tangible,something belonging to her: it was the tune which she had loved, towhich her foot had danced so gladsomely, so he ran after it, ran as fastas his weary body would take him, to the further end of the clearing,whither the sweet, sad tune was leading him with its tender, plaintiveecho.
There, just where the clearing debouched upon the narrow path whichleads to Wirksworth, he overtook Jock Miggs who was slowly wending hisway along, and who just now must have passed quite close to him, blowingon his tiny pipe, as was his wont.
"The shepherd! ... Chorus of angels in paradise lend me your aid now!"
With a supreme effort he pulled his scattered senses together: themighty fever of self-defence was upon him, that tower of strength whichsome overwhelming danger will give to a brave man once perhaps in hislifetime. The veil of semi-consciousness, of utter physicalprostration, was lifted from his dull brain for this short brief while.The exhausted, suffering, hunted creature had once more given place tothe keen, alert son of the Moor, the mad, free child of Nature, with aresourceful head and a daring hand. And for that same brief while thegreat and mighty power whom men have termed Fate, but whom saints havecalled God, allowed his untamed spirit to conquer his body and to holdit in bondage, chasing pain away, trampling down exhaustion, whilstdisclosing to his burning eyes, amidst the dark and deadly gloom, themagic, golden vision of a newly-awakened hope.