At Large

  XIII

  IN BUSHEY PARK

  "So boss, you know me?"

  "I have not forgotten you, you scoundrel!"

  Such was the interchange of greetings between the man from theExhibition and Mr. Miles, the Australian. They had halted at a lamp-postsome distance down the road, and stood facing each other in thegaslight.

  "That's right. I'm glad you don't forget old mates," said the stout,round-shouldered man. "That's one good thing, anyway; but it's a bad'unto go calling them names first set-off, especially when----"

  "Look here," interrupted Miles, with an admirable imitation of hisordinary tone; "I haven't much time to give you, my man. How the deucedid you get here? And what the deuce do you want with me?"

  "Oh, so you're in a hurry, are you?" sneered the man. "And you want toget back to the music, and the wine, and the women, do you?"

  "Listen!" said Miles smoothly; "do you hear that step in the distance?It's coming nearer; it's the policeman, for certain; and if you don'tget your business stated and done with before he reaches us, I'll giveyou in charge. Nothing simpler: I know the men on this beat, and theyknow me."

  "Not so well as I do, I reckon!" returned the other dryly, and with thequiet insolence of confident security. "And so you're the fine gentlemannow, are you?"

  "If you like--and for all you can prove to the contrary."

  "The Australian gentleman on a trip home, eh? Good; very good! And yourname is Miles!"

  "It's worth your neck to make it anything else?"

  The other thrust forward his face, and the beady eyes glittered with amalignant fire. "You don't lose much time about coming to threats,mate," he snarled. "P'r'aps it'ud be better if you waited a bit; p'r'apsI'm harder to funk than you think! Because I dare prove to the contrary,and I dare give you your right name. Have you forgotten it? Then I'llremind you; and your friend the bobby shall hear too, now he's come soclose. How's this, then?--Edward Ryan, otherwise Ned the Ranger;otherwise--and known all over the world, this is--otherwise--"

  Miles stopped him with a rapid, fierce gesture, at the same time quietlysliding his left hand within his overcoat. He felt for his revolver. Itwas not there. He recalled the circumstance which had compelled him tolay it aside. It seemed like Fate: for months that weapon had never beenbeyond the reach of his hand; now, for the first time, he required it,and was crippled for want of it. He recovered his composure in a moment,but not before his discomfiture had been noticed, and its cause shrewdlyguessed. Laying a heavy hand on the other's broad, rounded shoulder, hesaid simply and impressively:

  "Hush!"

  "Then let's move on."

  "Where?"

  "Where we can talk."

  The man pointed across the road to a broad opening directly opposite thelamp-post. It was the beginning of another road; the spot where theystood was indeed the junction of the cross and down-stroke of a capitalletter T, of which the cross was the road that ran parallel with theriver.

  "Very well," said Miles, with suspicious alacrity; "but I must go backfirst to make some excuse, or they will be sending after me."

  "Then, while you are gone, I shall confide in your friend thepoliceman."

  Miles uttered a curse, and led the way across the road and straight on.There were no lamps in the road they entered now--no houses, no lightsof any kind--but on the right a tall hedge, and on the left trim postsand rails, with fields beyond. They walked on for some minutes insilence, which was at length broken by Miles's unwelcome visitor.

  "It's no sort o' use you being in a hurry," said he. "I've found youout; why not make the best of it?"

  "What am I to do for you?" asked Miles, as smoothly as though the man byhis side were an ordinary highway beggar.

  "You'll see in good time. Sorry I've put you to inconvenience, but ifyou weren't passing for what you ain't you wouldn't feel it so; so yousee, Ned Ryan, playing the gent has its drawbacks. Now, after me havingcrossed the whole blessed world to speak to you, it would be roughish ifyou refused me your best ear; now wouldn't it?"

  "You have just landed, then?" said Miles; and added, after a pause, "Ihoped you were dead."

  "Thanks," returned the other, in the tone of coarse irony that he hademployed from the beginning. "Being one as returns good for evil, Idon't mind saying I was never so glad as when I clapped eyes on youyesterday--alive and safe."

  "Yesterday! Where?"

  "Never mind where. But I ain't just landed--Oh, no!"

  Suddenly Miles stopped short in his walk. They had entered again theregion of lights and houses; the road was no longer dark and lonely; ithad intersected the highroad that leads to Kingston, and afterwards bentin curves to the right; now its left boundary was the white picket-fenceof the railway, and, a hundred yards beyond, a cluster of bright lightsindicated Teddington station.

  "Not a step further," said Miles.

  "What! not to the station? How can we talk--"

  "You are a greater fool than I took you for," said Miles scornfully.

  "Yes? Well, anyway, I mean to say what I've got to say, wherever it is,"was the dogged reply. "If you came to town to my lodging, not a soulcould disturb us. We can't talk here."

  Miles hesitated.

  "There is a place, five minutes' walk from here, that I would trustbefore any room," he said presently. "Only be reasonable, my goodfellow, and I'll hear what you have to say there."

  The man turned his head and glanced sharply in the direction whence theyhad come. Then he assented.

  Miles led the way over the wooden footbridge that spans the line alittle way above the station. In three minutes they walked in the shadowof great trees. The high wall in front of them bent inwards, opening awide mouth. Here were iron gates and lamps; and beyond, black forms anddeep shadows, and the silence of sleeping trees. Without a word theypassed through the gates into Bushey Park.

  Miles chose the left side of the avenue, and led on under the spreadingbranches of the horse-chestnuts. Perhaps a furlong from the gates hestopped short, and confronted his companion.

  "Here I will settle with you," he said, sternly. "Tell me what you want;or first, if you like, how you found me. For the last thing I rememberof you, Jem Pound, is that I sacked you from our little concern--formurder."

  The man took a short step forward, and hissed back his retort:

  "And the last thing I heard of you--was your sticking up the MountClarence bank, and taking five hundred ounces of gold! You were taken;but escaped the same night--with the swag. That's the last I heard ofyou--Ned Ryan--Ned the Ranger--Sundown!"

  "I can hang you for that murder," pursued Miles, as though he had notheard a word of this retort.

  "Not without dragging yourself in after me, for life; which you'd findthe worse half of the bargain! Now listen, Ned Ryan; I'll be plain withyou. I can, and mean to, bleed you for that gold--for my fair share ofit."

  "And this is what you want with me?" asked Miles, in a tone so low andyet so fierce that the confidence of Jem Pound was for an instantshaken.

  "I want money; I'm desperate--starving!" he answered, his tone sinkingfor once into a whine.

  "Starvation doesn't carry a man half round the world."

  "I was helped," said Pound darkly.

  "Who helped you?"

  "All in good time, Sundown, old mate! Come, show me the colour of itfirst."

  Miles spread out his arms with a gesture that was candour itself.

  "I have none to give you. I am cleaned out myself."

  "That's a lie!" cried Pound, with a savage oath.

  Miles answered with cool contempt:

  "Do you think a man clears out with five hundred ounces in his pockets?Do you think he could carry it ten miles, let alone two hundred?"

  Jem Pound looked hard at the man who had been his captain in a life ofcrime. A trace of the old admiration and crude respect for a brilliantfearless leader, succeeded though this had been by years of bitterhatred, crept into
his voice as he replied:

  "You could! No one else! No other man could have escaped at all as youdid. I don't know the thing you couldn't do!"

  "Fool!" muttered Miles, half to himself.

  "That's fool number two," answered Pound angrily. "Well, maybe I am one,maybe I'm not; anyhow I've done what a dozen traps have tried andfailed, and I'll go on failing--until I help them: I've run you toearth, Ned Ryan!"

  "Ah! Well, tell me how."

  "No, I heard a footstep just then; people are about."

  "A chance passer," said Miles.

  "You should have come with me. Walls are safe if you whisper; here thereare no walls."

  "You are right. We have stuck to the most public part, though; follow methrough here."

  They had been standing between two noble trees of the main avenue. Thisavenue, as all the world knows, is composed of nothing but horsechestnuts; but behind the front rank on either side are four lines oflimes, forming to right and left of the great artery four minor parallelchannels. Miles and his companion, turning inwards, crossed the softsward of the minor avenues, and emerged on the more or less brokenground that expands southward to Hampton Wick. This tract is patched inplaces with low bracken, and dotted in others with young trees. It isstreaked with converging paths--some worn by the heavy tread of men,others by the light feet of the deer, but all soft and grassy, and nomore conspicuous than the delicate veins of a woman's hand.

  They left the trees behind, and strode on heedlessly into the darkness.Their shins split the dew from the ferns; startled fawns rose in frontof them and scampered swiftly out of sight, a momentary patch of greyupon the purple night.

  "This will suit you," said Miles, still striding aimlessly on. "It is agood deal safer than houses here. Now for your story."

  He was careful as they walked to keep a few inches in the rear of Pound,who, for his part, never let his right hand stray from a certain sheaththat hung from the belt under his coat: the two men had preserved thesecounter-precautions from the moment they quitted the lighted roads.

  "It is soon told, though it makes me sweat to think of it--all but theend, and that was so mighty neat the rest's of no account," Pound began,with a low laugh. "Well, you turned me adrift, and I lived like a hunteddingo for very near a year. If I'd dared to risk it, I'd have blabbed onyou quick enough; but there was no bait about Queen's evidence, and Idaren't let on a word else--you may thank the devil for that, not me!Well, I had no money, but I got some work at the stations, though insuch mortal terror that I daren't stay long in one place, until at lastI got a shepherd's billet, with a hut where no one saw me from week'send to week's end. There I was safe, but in hell! I daren't lay down o'nights; when I did I couldn't sleep. I looked out o' the door twentytimes a night to see if they were coming for me. I saw frightful things,and heard hellish sounds; I got the horrors without a drop o' liquor!You did all this, Ned Ryan--you did it all!"

  Inflamed by the memory of his torments, Pound raised his voice in rageand hate that a single day had exalted from impotency to might. But ragered-hot only aggravates the composure of a cool antagonist, and thereply was cold as death:

  "Blame yourself. If you had kept clean hands, you might have stuck to usto the end; as it was, you would have swung the lot of us in anothermonth. No man can accuse me of spilling blood--nor poor Hickey either,for that matter; but you--I could dangle you to-morrow! Remember that,Jem Pound; and go on."

  "I'll remember a bit more--you'll see!" returned Pound with a stifledgasp. He was silent for the next minute; then added in the tone of onewho bides his time to laugh last and loudest: "Go on? Right! Well, then,after a long time I showed my nose in a town, and no harm came of it."

  "What town?"

  "Townsville."

  "Why Townsville?" Miles asked quickly.

  "Your good lady was there; I knew she would give me--well, call itassistance."

  "That was clever of you," said Miles after a moment's silence, but hiscalm utterance was less natural than before.

  "I wanted a ship," Pound continued; "and could have got one too, throughbeing at sea before at odd times, if I'd dared loaf about the quay byday. Well, one dark night I was casting my eyes over the Torres Straitsmail boat, when a big man rushed by me and crept on board like a cat. Iknew it was you that moment; I'd heard of your escape. You'd your swagwith you; the gold was in it--I knew it! What's the use of shaking yourhead? Of course it was. Well, first I pushed forward to speak to you,then I drew back. Why? Because just then you'd have thought no more ofknocking me on the head and watching me drown before your eyes than I'dthink of----"

  "Committing another murder! By heaven, I wish I had had the chance!"muttered Miles.

  "Then, if I'd started the hue and cry, it would have meant killing thegolden goose--and most likely me with it. I thought of something better:I saw you drop down into the hold--there was too much risk in showingyour money for a passage or trying for a fo'c'stle berth; the boat wasto sail at daylight. I rushed to your wife and told her; but her cottagewas three miles out of the town, worse luck to it! and when I got her tothe quay, you were under way and nearly out of sight--half-an-hour latein sailing, and you'd have had a friend among the passengers!"

  "And what then?"

  "Why, then your wife was mad! I soothed her: she told me that she hadsome money, and I told her if she gave me some of it I might still catchyou for her. I showed her how the mail from Sydney, by changing atBrindisi, would land one in England before the Queensland boat. I knewit was an off-chance whether you ever meant to reach England at all, orwhether you'd succeed if you tried; but," said Pound, lowering his voiceunaccountably, "I was keen to be quit of the country myself. Here was mychance, and I took it; your wife shelled out, and I lost no time."

  The man ceased speaking, and looked sharply about him. His eyes werebecome thoroughly used to the darkness, so that he could see somedistance all round with accuracy and ease; but they were eyes no lesskeen than quick; and so sure-sighted that one glance was at all timesenough for them, and corroboration by a second a thing unthought of.

  They were walking, more slowly now, on a soft mossy path, and nearing asmall plantation, chiefly of pines and firs, half-a-mile from theavenues. This path, as it approaches the trees, has beside it severalsaplings shielded by tall triangular fences, which even in daylightwould afford very fair cover for a man's body. Miles and Pound hadpassed close to half-a-dozen or more of these triangles.

  "Well?" said Miles; for Pound remained silent.

  "I am looking to see where you have brought me."

  "I have brought you to the best place of all, this plantation," Milesanswered, leaving the path and picking his way over the uneven grounduntil there were trees all round them. "Here we should be neither seennor heard if we stayed till daybreak. Are you going on?"

  But Pound was not to be hurried until he had picked out a spot to hisliking still deeper in the plantation; far from shaking his sense ofsecurity, the trees seemed to afford him unexpected satisfaction. Theplace was dark and silent as the tomb, though the eastern wall of thepark was but three hundred yards distant. Looking towards this wall inwinter, a long, unbroken row of gaslights marks the road beyond; but insummer the foliage of the lining trees only reveals a casual glimmer,which adds by contrast to the solitude of this sombre, isolated,apparently uncared-for coppice.

  "I reached London just before you," resumed Pound, narrowly watching theeffect of every word. "I waited for your boat at the docks. There wereothers waiting. I had to take care--they were detectives."

  Miles uttered an ejaculation.

  "I watched them go on board; I watched them come back--without you. Theywere white with disappointment. Ned Ryan, those men would sell theirsouls to lay hands on you now!"

  "Go on!" said Miles between his teeth.

  "Well, I got drinking with the crew, and found you'd fallen overboardcoming up Channel--so they thought; it happened in the night. But you'veswum swollen rivers, before my eyes, stronger than I ever
see man swimbefore or since, and I was suspicious. Ships get so near the land comingup Channel. I went away and made sure you were alive, if I could findyou. At last, by good luck, I did find you."

  "Where?"

  "At the Exhibition. I took to loafing about the places you were sure togo to, sooner or later, as a swell, thinking yourself safe as the Bank.And that's where I found you--the swell all over, sure enough. Youstopped till the end, and that's how I lost you in the crowd going out;but before that I got so close I heard what you were saying to yourswell friends: how you'd bring 'em again, if they liked; what you'dmissed that day, but must see then. So I knew where to wait about foryou. But you took your time about coming again. Every day I was waitingand watching--and starving. A shilling a day to let me into the place;a quid in reserve for when the time came; and pence for my meals. Do youthink a trifle'll pay for all that? When you did turn up againyesterday, you may lay your life I never lost sight of you."

  "I should have known you any time; why you went about in that rig----"

  "I had no others. I heard fools whisper that I was a detective,moreover, and that made me feel safe."

  "You followed me down here yesterday, did you? Then why do nothing tillto-night?"

  The fellow hesitated, and again peered rapidly into every corner of thenight.

  "Why did you wait?" repeated Miles impatiently.

  An evil grin overspread the countenance of Jem Pound. He seemed to bedallying with his answer--rolling the sweet morsel on his tongue--asthough loth to part with the source of so much private satisfaction.Miles perceived something of this, and, for the first time that night,felt powerless to measure the extent of his danger. Up to this point hehad realised and calculated to a nicety the strength of the hold of thisman over him, and he had flattered himself that it was weak incomparison with his own counter-grip; but now he suspected, nay felt,the nearness of another and a stronger hand.

  "Answer, man," he cried, with a scarcely perceptible tremor in hisvoice, "before I force you! Why did you wait?"

  "I went back," said Pound slowly, slipping his hand beneath his coat,and comfortably grasping the haft of his sheath-knife, "to reportprogress."

  "To whom?"

  "To--your wife!"

  "What!"

  "Your wife!"

  "You are lying, my man," said Miles, with a forced laugh. "She nevercame to England."

  "She didn't, didn't she? Why, of course you ought to know best, even ifyou don't; but if you asked me, I should say maybe she isn't a hundredmiles from you at this very instant!"

  "Speak that lie again," cried Miles, his low voice now fairly quiveringwith passion and terror, "and I strike you dead where you stand! She isin Australia, and you know it!"

  Jem Pound stepped two paces backward, and answered in a loud, harshtone:

  "You fool! she is here!"

  Miles stepped forward as if to carry out his threat; but even as hemoved he heard a rustle at his side, and felt a light hand laid onhis arm. He started, turned, and looked round. There, by hisside--poverty-stricken almost to rags, yet dark and comely as thesummer's night--stood the woman whom years ago he had made his wife!

  A low voice full of tears whispered his name: "Ned, Ned!" and "Ned,Ned!" again and again.

  He made no answer, but stood like a granite pillar, staring at her. Shepressed his arm with one hand, and laid the other caressingly on hisbreast; and as she stood thus, gazing up through a mist into his stern,cold face, this topmost hand rested heavily upon him. To him it seemedlike lead; until suddenly--did it press a bruise or a wound, that such ahideous spasm should cross his face? that he should shake off the womanso savagely?

  By the merest accident, the touch of one woman had conjured the visionof another; he saw before him two, not one; two as opposite in theirimpressions on the senses as the flower and the weed; as separate intheir associations as the angels of light and darkness.

  Yet this poor woman, the wife, could only creep near himagain--forgetting her repulse, since he was calm the next moment--andpress his hand to her lips, so humbly that now he stood and bore it, andrepeat brokenly:

  "I have found him! Oh, thank God! Now at last I have found him!"

  While husband and wife stood thus, silenced--one by love, the other bysensations of a very different kind--the third person watched them withan expression which slowly changed from blank surprise to mortificationand dumb rage. At last he seemed unable to stand it any longer, for hesprang forward and whispered hoarsely in the woman's ear:

  "What are you doing? Are you mad? What are we here for? What have wecrossed the sea for? Get to work, you fool, or----"

  "To work to bleed me, between you!" cried Ned Ryan, shaking himselfagain clear of the woman. "By heaven, you shall find me a stone!"

  Elizabeth Ryan turned and faced her ally, and waved him back with acommanding gesture.

  "No, Jem Pound," said she, in a voice as clear and true as a clarion,"it is time to tell the truth: I did not come to England for that! ONed, Ned! I have used this man as my tool--can't you see?--to bring meto you. Ned, my husband, I am by your side; have you no word ofwelcome?"

  She clung to him, with supplication in her white face and drooping,nerveless figure; and Pound looked on speechless. So he had been fooledby this smooth-tongued, fair-faced trash; and all his plans and schemes,and hungry longings and golden expectations, were to crumble into dustbefore treachery such as this! So, after all, he had been but a dupe--aladder to be used and kicked aside! A burning desire came over him toplunge his knife into this false demon's heart, and end all.

  But Ryan pushed back his wife a third time, gently but very firmly.

  "Come, Liz," said he, coldly enough, yet with the edge off his voice andmanner, "don't give us any of this. This was all over between us longago. If it's money you want, name a sum; though I have little enough,you shall have what I can spare, for I swear to you I got away with mylife and little else. But if it's sentiment, why, it's nonsense; and youknow that well enough."

  Elizabeth Ryan stood as one stabbed, who must fall the moment the bladeis withdrawn from the wound; which office was promptly performed by onewho missed few opportunities.

  "Why, of course!" exclaimed Pound, with affected sympathy with the wifeand indignation against the husband. "To be sure you see how the windlies, missis?"

  "What do you mean?" cried Elizabeth Ryan fiercely.

  "Can't you see?" pursued Pound in the same tone, adding a strong dash ofvulgar familiarity; "can't you see that you're out of the running, Liz,my lass? You may be Mrs. Ryan, but Mrs. Ryan is a widow; there's no NedRyan now. There's a Mr. Miles, an Australian gentleman, in his skin,and, mark me, there'll be a Mrs.--"

  He stopped, for Liz Ryan turned on him so fiercely that it looked asthough she was gathering herself to spring at his throat.

  "You liar!" she shrieked. "Tell him, Ned! Give him the lie yourself!Quickly--speak, or I shall go mad!"

  Her husband uttered no sound.

  "He can't, you see," sneered Pound. "Why, if you'd only come in with meinto the garden, you'd have seen the two together sweethearting in thestarlight!"

  "If I had," said Mrs. Ryan, trembling violently, "I pity both. But no, Idon't believe it! O Ned! Ned! answer, unless you want to break myheart!"

  "Well, well, what does it matter?" put in Pound hastily, speaking to herin a fatherly, protective tone, which hit the mark aimed at. "Liz, mydear, you and I have been good friends all this time; then why not lethim go his ways?--after we've got our rights, I mean."

  Ned Ryan glanced sharply from his wife to the man who had brought herfrom Australia; and then he spoke:

  "My good woman, why not be frank? What's the use of acting a part tome? Anyway, it's a bit too thin this time. Only let me alone, and youtwo can go on--as you are. Come now, I don't think I'm hard on you;considering everything I might be a deal harder."

  His wife sprang before him, her black eyes flashing, her whole framequivering.

  "Edward Ryan, you shall ans
wer for these foul, cruel words before Himwho knows them to be false. What do you think me, I wonder? That vilething there--can't you see how I have used him?--he has been the bridgebetween me and you, yet you make him the barrier! Oh, you know me betterthan that, Ned Ryan! You know me for the woman who sacrificed all foryou--who stood by you through thick and thin, and good and bad, whileyou would let her--who would not have forsaken you for twentymurders!--who loved you better than life--God help me!" cried the poorwoman, wildly, "for I love you still!"

  She rose the next moment, and continued in a low, hard, changed voice:

  "But love and hate lie close together; take care, and do not make mehate you, for if you do I shall be pitiless as I have been pitiful,cruel as I have been fond. I, who have been ready all these years toshield you with my life--I shall be the first to betray you to the lawsyou have cheated, if you turn my love to hate. Ned! Ned! stop and thinkbefore it is too late!"

  She pressed both hands upon her heart, as if to stay by main force itstumultuous beating. Her limbs tottered beneath her. Her face was likedeath. Her life's blood might have mingled with the torrent of hereloquence!

  "You are beside yourself," said her husband, who had listened like astone; "otherwise you would remember that tall talk never yet answeredwith me. And yet--yet I am sorry for you--so poor, so ragged, so thin--"His voice suddenly softened, and he felt with his hand in his pocket."See here! take these twenty pounds. It's a big lump of all I have; but'twill buy you a new dress and some good food, and make you decent for abit, and if I had more to spare, upon my soul you should have it!"

  Elizabeth Ryan snatched the notes from her husband's hand, crumpled themsavagely, and flung them at his feet; with a wild sweep of her arm shetore off her bonnet, as though it nursed the fire within her brain, andcoils of dark, disordered hair fell down about her shoulders. For onemoment she stood glaring fixedly at her husband, and then fell heavilyto the ground.

  "She has fainted," said Miles, not without pity, and bending over her."Bring her to, then lead her away. Take her back; she must not see meagain."

  Pound knelt down, and quietly pocketed the crumpled notes; then heraised the senseless head and fanned the ashy face, looking up meanwhileand saying:

  "Meet me here to-morrow night at ten; I will come alone."

  "For the last time, then."

  "I am agreeable; but it will rest with you."

  Miles drew away into the shadows. He waited, and presently he heard afaint, hollow, passionate voice calling his name:

  "Ned Ryan! I will come back, Ned Ryan! Come back, never fear, and seeyou--see you alone! And if you are as hard then--as hard andcruel--Heaven help us both!--Heaven help us both!"

  When Ned Ryan, alias Sundown, alias Miles, heard the footsteps fail inthe distance and die on the still night air, a rapid change came overhis face and bearing. Throughout the night he had lost his self-commandseldom; his nerve never. But now the pallor of a corpse made hisfeatures ghastly, and a cold sweat burst forth in great beads upon hisforehead. His limbs trembled, and he staggered.

  By a violent effort he steadied his brain and straightened his body. Ina few minutes he had well-nigh regained his normal calm. Then graduallyhis chest expanded, and his air became that of one who has climbedthrough desperate peril to the lofty heights and sweet breath offreedom. Nay, as he stood there, gazing hopefully skyward, with the dimlight upon his strong handsome face, he might very well have beenmistaken for a good man filled with dauntless ambition, borne aloft onthe wings of noble yearning.

  "After all, I am not lost!" The thoughts escaped in words from thefulness of his soul. "No, I am safe; he dares not betray me; she willnot--because she loves me. Not another soul need ever know."

  A new voice broke upon his ear:

  "You are wrong; I know!"

  His lowered gaze fell upon the motionless figure of Dick Edmonstone, whowas standing quietly in front of him.