CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
A THRILLING NARRATIVE.
"Oh, this is absurd!" cried the new-comer as soon as he had recoveredsomewhat from his surprise. "I am George Harrington. What does itmean--some subterfuge on your part, sir, to make me take fresh steps toprove my identity? If so, pray speak out."
The lawyer made a deprecatory movement.
"I beg your pardon, ladies, for speaking out so abruptly, but it was anatural feeling of indignation."
"It is quite excusable, sir, and this is no subterfuge."
"But in Heaven's name give me some explanation."
"My dear Gertrude, Mrs Hampton," said the lawyer with dignity, "perhapsit would be better for you to leave us. This gentleman and I willdiscuss the matter together."
Gertrude looked at him almost resentfully, and then there was quite anair of sympathy in her manner, as she turned to their visitor, who saidgravely:
"Yes, Miss Bellwood, I quite agree with this gentleman, it would,perhaps, be better that we should discuss the question alone. Indeed,till I have proved that I am no impostor, I am no fit company forladies."
He crossed to the door, held it open, and bowed gravely, as without aword they passed out, and then as soon as they were gone, he turnedfiercely upon the old man.
"Now, sir, if you please, I am waiting for an explanation," he said in alow, angry voice.
"Yet," said Mr Hampton, throwing himself back in his chair, thrustingup his glasses, and fixing his calm, cold eyes upon the visitor as hecontinued, "I do not grant that you have any right, sir, to demand thisexplanation. Your position should be that, if you consider you have ajust claim, you should instruct a solicitor, and he would place himselfin communication with me."
"Hang all solicitors, sir!" cried the young man angrily, and his eyesseemed to flash with indignation.
The old man made a gesture.
"I beg your pardon, Mr Hampton. I believe you said you were asolicitor," he added quickly.
"Go on, sir; I am not offended. On the contrary I rather like yourdisplay of anger. It makes me feel that you may be honest instead of anextremely clever pretender."
"Honest, sir! Good Heavens! Put yourself in my place. Now, betweenman and man what does this mean?"
"Simply what I have told you; but sit down, sir. This is a question forcalm consideration, and you are walking up and down like--"
"A wild beast in a cage. Yes, I know it; but who can be calm at a timelike this? Pray excuse me and go on."
"I have very little to tell you, sir. Perhaps, as the solicitor of theparty in possession, I ought to make no admissions. I can merely tellyou that nearly four months ago Mr George Harrington came over fromAmerica with indubitable proofs of his identity, and, as soon as theproper legal forms could be gone though, took possession."
"Nearly four months ago? Here, stop a moment, sir. Was he a man aboutmy height?"
"Yes."
"Rather darker?"
The old lawyer bowed, and scrutinised the speaker carefully.
"He had a quick, sharp way of speaking, and a habit of looking behindhim as if in search of danger."
"Exactly. You are describing Mr George Harrington most carefully."
"The villain! The hound! And I thought it was for robbery only. Well,one knows how to treat a man like that when we meet."
He showed his regular white teeth, as his brow puckered up, and therewas a look of fierce determination in his eyes as startling as his nextact, which was to slip his hand behind him, and draw a smallheavy-looking revolver from his pocket. This he examined quickly as hetried the lock.
"Put that away, sir," cried Mr Hampton sternly. "You are not in theFar West now but in civilised England. Give me that pistol instantly."
The young man handed the weapon without a moment's hesitation.
"I beg your pardon, Mr Hampton," he said. "Temper, got the better ofme."
He threw himself into a chair.
"Will you let me speak out quietly and calmly?"
"Go on, sir," said the lawyer.
There was a pause, during which the young man seemed to be collectinghimself, and then he said in a deep, clear voice:
"You are quite right, sir. This is a question for calm settlement, andas I have right on my side I can afford to wait."
"That's talking like a reasonable man, sir."
"You must excuse me. Much of my life has been passed on ranches andupon the mountains, among desperadoes and rough fellows, who do notplace much value upon a man's life. Then I have had long dealings withIndians and bears, and altogether I am not much of a drawing-room man."
The lawyer bowed and glanced at the pistol on the table at his side.
"During my last year in the West, I picked up for companion a clever,shrewd fellow, named Portway--Daniel Portway. He was in terribly lowwater, and as it seemed to me undeservedly. He had beengold-prospecting, he told me, and had made some good finds; but ill-luckhad dogged his steps. He was robbed by his companions twice over. Hewas attacked by Indians three or four times, and when I came upon him inDenver the poor wretch was down with fever. Well, to make the storyshort, I did what one Englishman would do by another if he found him outin a wild place dying. I couldn't get a woman to attend him for love ormoney, so I had to do it myself, and a long and tedious job I had. Idon't know that I liked him, but I found he was a clever hunter, andknew the way about the mountains well, so we became companions, and Itook him on my hunting expeditions. There, sir, honestly, I don't thinkI could have behaved better to him if he had been a brother."
There was a pause, and then in a voice husky with emotion he exclaimed:
"Hang it all! how can a man be such a brute? Well, sir, I suppose inchatting with him I let him know all my affairs, and at last read him myletters. He knew that I was coming to England as soon as I had endedthat last expedition. There, I'm a frank sort of fellow, who wouldtrust any man till I found out that he was a rogue. I suppose I begantalking about my affairs, like a fool, to relieve the tedium of hisillness. Thus it went on till he must have known all I knew."
"This is a very plausible story, Mr Daniel Portway," said the lawyerquietly; but he started, and laid his hand upon the revolver, so fiercewas the bound the young man made to his feet.
But he sat down again directly.
"No, no; you don't think that, sir. May I go on?"
"By all means."
"Shall I take the cartridges out of the revolver, sir?" said the youngman drily, "in case, I make a snatch at it."
"No, no, no. Go on, sir; go on."
There was a meaning smile on the young man's lips as he went on again,and began telling of his last hunting-trip; but the smile soon died out,and he looked stern and relentless as he spoke of the weary tramp theyhad had, the midday sleep, and their journey afterwards till they werebeside the great canon, where he stepped forward to look about him.
"And then--I suppose it was a sudden temptation--the brute took a stepor two forward, came close behind me, and before I could turn, for Ifelt paralysed with the horror of my position, he raised his rifle ashigh as he could reach, and struck me a crashing blow upon the back ofthe head."
"How do you know if you were looking in another direction?"
"Because the evening sun cast his shadow upon the side of the canon,where it seemed to me in that momentary flash that one giant was smitingdown another. Then I fell headlong down, and for a few moments all wasdarkness."
"Go on, sir," said the old lawyer, who was deeply interested, for his_vis-a-vis_ was talking in a slow, laboured way, as if the recollectionof the terrible scene was more than he could bear and choked him withemotion.
"Then I came to myself, to lie helpless as if in a dream. I could notstir or make a sound; but I could hear distinctly, as I lay low downwhere I had fallen, the sounds made by some one lowering himself downthe side of the canon. Now twigs were breaking, and now stones keptfalling; and after what seemed to be a long time, full of a
dull senseof pain and drowsiness, I was conscious of a heavy breathing as of awild beast."
"A bear," said the old lawyer involuntarily.
"No," said the young man with a bitter smile; "a worse kind of wildbeast than that: a man, sir--mine own familiar friend--Dan Portway."
"Ah!"
"He was searching my pockets, and taking everything about me; myroughly-made, plain gold ring--pure gold from a pocket in themountains--what letters I had; everything. Of course I had not muchwith me; nearly all I possessed was at my tent in the saddlebags milesaway."
"You felt all this?"
"And saw, though my eyes were nearly closed. And at last, as it seemedto me, he was about to finish his work by casting me down headlong intothe profound depths of the great chasm, when a devilish thought enteredhis mind and seemed to flash into mine as he held me."
There was another pause, and the young man's voice sounded very husky,and he seemed to be suffering the bygone horror over again as herecommenced:
"I tell you I could not stir, but I could think, and feel, and see thatdevil's satisfied grin as he must have said to himself:--
"`Some day, perhaps, his body may be found, and then they will say hewas last seen in my company, and it might prove awkward. They shallthink he was killed by the Indians.'"
During the earlier part of this narrative the old lawyer had leaned backin his chair; but as he grew interested he sat up, then leaned forward,and now rested his hands upon the arms of his chair, and gazed full inthe speaker's face, so as not to lose a gesture, the slightest play ofhis countenance, or a word.
"Yes," he continued; "go on."
"It was as I thought, and for a moment I tried to shut out the horror,and to ask God to forgive all I had done wrong, and spare me thehorrible agony I was to feel before I died.
"But I could only think a few of the words I wished to say, and then, asif every other sense grew more capable of taking in all that passed, Isaw him draw his keen hunting-knife from his belt. He seized my hair,and the next moment the point was dividing the skin of my forehead, andI felt the resistance offered by the bone, the sharp pain, and the bloodstart and begin to trickle over my temples. Then there was a hideousyell; he let me fall, and fled."
"Repentant?" said the old lawyer in an excited whisper.
"You shall hear, sir. As my head struck the rock there was a heavybreathing, a rustling sound of undergrowth being thrust aside, and aheavy foot was planted upon my chest, as a huge bear rushed over me infull pursuit of my would-be murderer, and then I lay listening to thecrackling of twigs and the falling of stones. By degrees this diedaway, and for a long time all was still, and I must have glided into astate of insensibility from which I was roused by a low, snufflingnoise, and I felt hot breath upon my face, and the wet tongue of thegreat bear licking my forehead. Then I felt him paw at me, and turn meover on to my face.
"Then all was blank.
"When I could see again I was lying chest downward, perfectly helpless,but with my head so turned that I could see, a dozen yards away, thegreat grizzly bear busy feeding upon the fruit of one of the low shrubswhich grew on the side of the canon. Sometimes he crawled leisurelydown, sometimes up, as the fruit was most abundant; and this seemed tosatisfy him; for though during the next two days he came near me againand again, he never so much as snuffed about me.
"But it all seems, after I awoke that morning, dreamlike and strange. Itold you it was two days, but I am not sure about that. I have a dimrecollection of the sun burning me, and seeming to scorch my brain, ofits being light and dark, and of a horrible sensation of thirst, andthen of all being blank. Rather a ghastly tale for ladies' ears, sir?"
"Yes, yes," said the old lawyer. "And afterwards?"
"Afterwards, sir? Yes; the next thing I remember is lying upon abison-skin in an Indian's skin lodge, and of the dark, dirty, wild faceof a squaw looking down into mine. Then of being held up while my headwas bandaged, and then for a long period all seemed misty and wild. Iwas hunting and shooting in the Rockies. Then I was galloping afterbison with which the plain seemed to be black. Then I was prospectingfor gold, and finding rifts in the rocks full and waiting to be tornout, but I could never get the gold, never succeed in hunting orshooting. There was always something to interfere, till at last I foundthat I was as weak as a child, and with almost the thought and action ofa helpless babe, living in the lodge of a roving party of Indians whocamped just where it seemed to be good in their own eyes. They aresavages, whom the white man has ousted from nearly all their own huntinggrounds; they are filthy and abominable in their ways, false andtreacherous, all that is bad some have learned, but they nursed methrough a long fever and delirium into a sort of imbecile childhood,from which I slowly gained my manhood's reason and strength, and thenthey gave me my rifle, and set me at liberty to join a party ofgold-seekers across whom we came."
"They found you there, lying half dead by the bear."
"I suppose so, sir. All I know I found out by thinking the matter over.I recollect standing my rifle against a rock close to the track; and asmy companion fled, I suppose they must have seen it in passing, huntedabout for the owner and found me. I do not know for I could notunderstand the Indians, and they could not understand me.
"I have nearly done, sir," said the young man speaking more briskly now."I made my way to my old camping-place, but there was nothing there,and I was wondering whether Dan Portway had carried everything off, tillI remembered seeing the bear charge him, and I went to the place,expecting, perhaps, to find his bones. But I made no discovery; andknowing what a hopeless task it would be to try and find the villain, Idetermined to come on here in obedience to the letter I had receivedbefore I went for my last trip, made my way to San Francisco, and thereI learned of my grandfather's death."
"You made no effort then to find your assailant?" said the lawyer.
"No, sir, and it has proved to be the correct thing to do, for in cominghere I have run him to earth."
They sat gazing at each other for some moments in silence. Then MrHampton spoke.
"You have the scar, then, made by your enemy's knife?"
"Yes, sir, here," said the young man, slightly pressing back his hair,and bending forward so that the light of the shaded lamp fell upon a redline about half an inch from the roots.
"And the injury to your head?"
"Rather an ugly place still, sir. The skull was slightly fractured. Doyou wish for that proof of my identity?"
"I should like that proof of the truth of your story, sir. I am alawyer."
"Give me your hand, then."
He took the old man's index finger, bent lower, and pressed it upon theback of his head.
The old man shuddered and drew back.
"And if you want any further proof that I am the man I say, I have onehere that I had forgotten. When I was a child, for some freak, myfather tattooed a heart and dart upon my breast. There they are."
He tore open the flannel shirt he wore, and displayed the blue marksupon his clear white skin.
"There, sir; that is all I can tell you now. The next thing is toconfront Mr Dan Portway."
"You think, then, that your old companion--I mean you wish me to believethat your old companion took everything he could to prove his identity,and has come here, and traded upon the knowledge he won?"
"And come here and laid claim to the estate, sir. Yes, I could lay mylife that is the case."
At that moment there was a tap at the door.