The Castle Inn Part 26

Dunborough cried out in his astonishment. 'It is a lie!' he said.

'As you please,' Sir George answered.

At that, a chill such as he had never known gripped Mr. Dunborough's heart. He had thought himself in an unpleasant fix before; and that to escape scot free he must eat humble pie with a bad grace. But on this a secret terror, such as sometimes takes possession of a bold man who finds himself helpless and in peril seized on him. Given arms and the chance to use them, he would have led the forlornest of hopes, charged a battery, or fired a magazine. But the species of danger in which he now found himself--with a gallows and a silk rope in prospect, his fate to be determined by the very scoundrels he had hired--shook even his obstinacy. He looked about him; Sir George's servant had come up and was waiting a little apart.

Mr. Dunborough found his lips dry, his throat husky. 'What do you want?'

he muttered, his voice changed. 'I have told you all I know. Likely enough they have taken her back to get themselves out of the sc.r.a.pe.'

'They have not,' said the lawyer. 'We have come that way, and must have met them.'

'They may be in Chippenham?'

'They are not. We have inquired.'

'Then they must have taken this road. Curse you, don't you see that I cannot get out of my saddle to look?' he continued ferociously.

'They have gone this way. Have you any devil's shop--any house of call down the road?' Sir George asked, signing to the servant to draw nearer.

'Not I.'

'Then we must track them. If they dared not face Chippenham, they will not venture through Devizes. It is possible that they are making for Bristol by cross-roads. There is a bridge over the Avon near Layc.o.c.k Abbey, somewhere on our right, and a road that way through Pewsey Forest.'

'That will be it,' cried Mr. Dunborough, slapping his thigh. 'That is their game, depend upon it.'

Sir George did not answer him, but nodded to the servant. 'Go on with the light,' he said. 'Try every turning for wheels, but lose no time.

This gentleman will accompany us, but I will wait on him.'

The man obeyed quickly, the lawyer going with him. The other two brought up the rear, and in that order they started, riding in silence.

For a mile or more the servant held the road at a steady trot; then signing to those behind him to halt, he pulled up at the mouth of a by-road leading westwards from the highway. He moved the light once or twice across the ground, and cried that the wheels had gone that way; then got briskly to his saddle and swung along the lane at a trot, the others following in single file, Sir George last.

So far they had maintained a fair pace. But the party had not proceeded a quarter of a mile along the lane before the trot became a walk. Clouds had come over the face of the moon; the night had grown dark. The riders were no longer on the open downs, but in a narrow by-road, running across wastes and through thick coppices, the ground sloping sharply to the Avon. In one place the track was so closely shadowed by trees as to be as dark as a pit. In another it ran, unfenced, across a heath studded with water-pools, whence the startled moor-fowl squattered up unseen.

Everywhere they stumbled: once a horse fell. Over such ground, founderous and scored knee-deep with ruts, it was plain that no wheeled carriage could move at speed; and the pursuers had this to cheer them.

But the darkness of the night, the dreary glimpses of wood and water, which met the eye when the moon for a moment emerged, the solitude of this forest tract, the m.u.f.fled tread of the horses' feet, the very moaning of the wind among the trees, suggested ideas and misgivings which Sir George strove in vain to suppress. Why had the scoundrels gone this way? Were they really bound for Bristol? Or for some den of villainy, some thieves' house in the old forest?

At times these fears stung him out of all patience, and he cried to the man with the light to go faster, faster! Again, the whole seemed unreal, and the shadowy woods and gleaming water-pools, the stumbling horses, the fear, the danger, grew to be the creatures of a disordered fancy. It was an immense joy to him when, at the end of an hour, the lawyer cried, 'The road! the road!' and one by one the riders emerged with grunts of relief on a sound causeway. To make sure that the pursued had nowhere evaded them, the tracks of the chaise-wheels were sought and found, and forward the four went again. Presently they plunged through a brook, and this pa.s.sed, were on Layc.o.c.k bridge before they knew it, and across the Avon, and mounting the slope on the other side by Layc.o.c.k Abbey.

There were houses ab.u.t.ting on the road here, black overhanging ma.s.ses against a grey sky, and the riders looked, wavered, and drew rein.

Before any spoke, however, an unseen shutter creaked open, and a voice from the darkness cried, 'Hallo!'

Sir George found speech to answer. 'Yes,' he said, 'what is it?' The lawyer was out of breath, and clinging to the mane in sheer weariness.

'Be you after a chaise driving to the devil?'

'Yes, yes,' Sir George answered eagerly. 'Has it pa.s.sed, my man?'

'Ay, sure, Corsham way, for Bath most like, I knew 'twould be followed.

Is't a murder, gentlemen?'

'Yes,' Sir George cried hurriedly, 'and worse! How far ahead are they?'

'About half an hour, no more, and whipping and spurring as if the old one was after them. My old woman's sick, and the apothecary from--'

'Is it straight on?'

'Ay, to be sure, straight on--and the apothecary from Corsham, as I was saying, he said, said he, as soon as he saw her--'

But his listeners were away again; the old man's words were lost in the scramble and clatter of the horses' shoes as they sprang forward. In a moment the stillness and the dark shapes of the houses were exchanged for the open country, the rush of wind in the riders' faces, and the pounding of hoofs on the hard road. For a brief while the sky cleared and the moon shone out, and they rode as easily as in the day. At the pace at which they were moving Sir George calculated that they must come up with the fugitives in an hour or less; but the reckoning was no sooner made than the horses, jaded by the heavy ground through which they had struggled, began to flag and droop their heads; the pace grew less and less; and though Sir George whipped and spurred, Corsham Corner was reached, and Pickwick Village on the Bath road, and still they saw no chaise ahead.

It was past midnight, and it seemed to some that they had been riding an eternity; yet even these roused at sight of the great western highway.

The night coaches had long gone eastwards, and the road, so busy by day, stretched before them dim, shadowy, and empty, as solitary in the darkness as the remotest lane. But the knowledge that Bath lay at the end of it--and no more than nine miles away--and that there they could procure aid, fresh horses and willing helpers, put new life even into the most weary. Even Mr. Fishwick, now groaning with fatigue and now crying 'Oh dear! oh dear!' as he b.u.mped, in a way that at another time must have drawn laughter from a stone, took heart of grace; while Sir George settled down to a dogged jog that had something ferocious in its determination. If he could not trot, he would amble; if he could not amble, he would walk; if his horse could not walk, he would go on his feet. He still kept eye and ear bent forward, but in effect he had given up hope of overtaking the quarry before it reached Bath; and he was taken by surprise when the servant, who rode first and had eased his horse to a walk at the foot of Haslebury Hill, drew rein and cried to the others to listen.

For a moment the heavy breathing of the four horses covered all other sounds. Then in the darkness and the distance, on the summit of the rise before them, a wheel creaked as it grated over a stone. A few seconds and the sound was repeated; then all was silent. The chaise had pa.s.sed over the crest and was descending the other side.

Oblivious of everything except that Julia was within his reach, forgetful even of Dunborough by whose side he had ridden all night--in silence but with many a look askance--Sir George drove his horse forward, scrambled and trotted desperately up the hill, and, gaining the summit a score of yards in front of his companions, crossed the brow and drew rein to listen. He had not been mistaken. He could hear the wheels creaking, and the wheelers stumbling and slipping in the darkness below him; and with a cry he launched his horse down the descent.

Whether the people with the chaise heard the cry or not, they appeared to take the alarm at that moment. He heard a whip crack, the carriage bound forward, the horses break into a reckless canter. But if they recked little he recked less; already he was plunging down the hill after them, his beast almost pitching on its head with every stride. The huntsman knows, however, that many stumbles go to a fall. The bottom was gained in safety by both, and across the flat they went, the chaise bounding and rattling behind the scared horses. Now Sir George had a glimpse of the black ma.s.s through the gloom, now it seemed to be gaining on him, now it was gone, and now again he drew up to it and the dim outline bulked bigger and plainer, and bigger and plainer, until he was close upon it, and the cracking whips and the shouts of the postboys rose above the din of hoofs and wheels. The carriage was swaying perilously, but Sir George saw that the ground was rising, and that up the hill he must win; and, taking his horse by the head, he lifted it on by sheer strength until his stirrup was abreast of the hind wheels. A moment, and he made out the bobbing figure of the leading postboy, and, drawing his pistol, cried to him to stop.

The answer was a blinding flash of light and a shot. Sir George's horse swerved to the right, and plunging headlong into the ditch, flung its rider six paces over its head.

The servant and Mr. Dunborough were no more than forty yards behind him when he fell; in five seconds the man had sprung from his saddle, let his horse go, and was at his master's side. There were trees there, and the darkness in the shadow, where Sir George lay across the roots of one of them, was intense. The man could not see his face, nor how he lay, nor if he was injured; and calling and getting no answer, he took fright and cried to Mr. Dunborough to get help.

But Mr. Dunborough had ridden straight on without pausing or drawing rein, and the man, finding himself deserted, wrung his hands in terror.

He had only Mr. Fishwick to look to for help, and he was some way behind. Trembling, the servant knelt and groped for his master's face; to his joy, before he had found it, Sir George gasped, moved, and sat up; and, muttering an incoherent word or two, in a minute had recovered himself sufficiently to rise with help. He had fallen clear of the horse on the edge of the ditch, and the shock had taken his breath; otherwise he was rather shaken than hurt.

As soon as his wits and wind came back to him, 'Why--why have you not followed?' he gasped.

''Twill be all right, sir. All right, sir,' the servant answered, thinking only of him.

'But after them, man, after them. Where is Fishwick?'

'Coming, sir, he is coming,' the man answered, to soothe him; and remained where he was. Sir George was so shaken that he could not yet stand alone, and the servant did not know what to think. 'Are you sure you are not hurt, sir?' he continued anxiously.

'No, no! And Mr. Dunborough? Is he behind?'

'He rode on after them, sir.'

'Rode on after them?'

'Yes, sir, he did not stop.'

'He has gone on--after them?' Sir George cried.

'But--' and with that it flashed on him, and on the servant, and on Mr.

Fishwick, who had just jogged up and dismounted, what had happened. The carriage and Julia--Julia still in the hands of her captors--were gone.

And with them was gone Mr. Dunborough! Gone far out of hearing; for as the three stood together in the blackness of the trees, unable to see one another's faces, the night was silent round them. The rattle of wheels, the hoof-beats of horses had died away in the distance.