The Deliverance Part 59

"Let me explain--let me explain," pleaded the other, in a desperate effort to gain time; "just a word or two--I only want a word."

But when his grandfather drew back and stood glowering upon him in silence, the speech he had wished to utter withered upon his lips, blighted by a panic terror, and he stood mumbling incoherently beneath his breath.

"Give me a word--a word is all I want," he reiterated wildly.

"Then out with your d.a.m.ned word and begone!" roared Fletcher.

Will's eyes travelled helplessly around the room, seeking in vain some inspiration from the objects his gaze encountered. The tin safe, the basket of feathers, the pile of walnuts on the hearth, each arrested his wandering attention for an instant, and he beheld all the details with amazing vividness.

A mouse came out into the room, gliding like a shadow along the wall to the pile of walnuts, and his eyes followed it as if drawn by an invisible thread.

"It's Maria--it's all Maria," he stuttered, and could think of nothing further. His brain seemed suddenly paralysed, and he found himself tugging hopelessly at the most commonplace word which would not come. All his swaggering bravado had scampered off at the first wag of the old man's head.

"If that's what you've got to say, you might as well be gone,"

returned Fletcher, moving toward him. "I warn you now that the next time I find you here you won't git off so easy. Maria or no Maria, you ain't goin' to lounge about this place so long as my name is Bill Fletcher. The farther you keep yourself and your yaller-headed huzzy out of my sight the better. Thar, now, be off or you'll git a licking."

"But I tell you Maria's cheated me--she's cheated me," returned Will, his voice rising shrilly as he was goaded into revolt.

"She's been scheming to get the place all along; that's her trick."

"Pis.h.!.+ Tus.h.!.+" responded Fletcher. "Are you going or are you not?"

Will's eyes burned like coals, and an observer, noting the two men as they stood glaring at each other, would have been struck by their resemblance in att.i.tude and expression rather than in feature. Both leaned slightly forward, with their chins thrust out and their jaws dropped, and there was a ceaseless twitching of the small muscles in both faces. The beast in each had sprung violently to the surface and recognised the likeness at which he snarled.

"You've left me to starve!" cried Will, strangling a sob of anger. "It's not fair! You have no right. The money ought to be mine--I swear it ought!"

"Oh, it ought, ought it?" sneered the old man, with an ugly laugh.

At the sound of the laugh, Will shrank back and s.h.i.+vered as if from the stroke of a whip. The spirit of rage worked in his blood like the spirit of drink, and he felt his disordered nerves respond in a sudden frenzy.

"It ought to be mine, you devil, and you know it!" he cried.

"I do, do I?" retorted Fletcher, still cackling. "Well, jest grin at me a minute longer like that brazen wench your mother and I'll lay my stick across your shoulders for good and all. As for my money, it's mine, I reckon, and, living or dead, I'll look to it that not one red cent gits to you. Blast you! Stop your grinning!"

He raised the stick and made a long swerve sideways, but the other, picking up the hammer from the hearth, jerked it above his head and stood braced for the a.s.sault. In the silence of the room Will heard the thumping of his own heart, and the sound inspired him like the drums of battle. He was in a quiver from head to foot, but it was a quiver of rage, not of fear, and a glow of pride possessed him that he could lift his eyes and look Fletcher squarely in the face.

"You're a devil--a devil! a devil!" he cried shrilly, sticking out his tongue like a pert and vulgar little boy. "Christopher Blake was right--you're a devil!"

As the name struck him between the eyes the old man lurched back against the stove; then recovering himself, he made a swift movement forward and brought his stick down with all his force on the boy's shoulder.

"Take that, you lying varmint!" he shouted, choking.

The next instant his weapon had dropped from his hand, and he reached out blindly, grappling with the air, for Will had turned upon him with the spring of a wild beast and sent the hammer crus.h.i.+ng into his temple.

There was a m.u.f.fled thud, and Fletcher went down in a huddled heap upon the floor, while the other stood over him in the weakness which had succeeded his drunken frenzy.

"I told you to let me alone. I told you I'd do it," said Will doggedly, and a moment later: "I told you I'd do it."

The hammer was still in his hand, and, lifting it, he examined it with a morbid curiosity. A red fleck stained the iron, and glancing down he saw that there was a splotch of blood on Fletcher's temple. "I told him I'd do it," he repeated, speaking this time to himself.

Then instantly the silence in the room stopped his heartbeats and set him quaking in a superst.i.tious terror through every fiber. He heard the stir of the mouse in the pile of walnuts, the hissing of the flame above the embers, and the sudden breaking of the smoked chimney of the lamp. Then as he leaned down he heard something else--the steady ticking of the big silver watch in Fletcher's pocket.

A horror of great darkness fell over him, and, turning, he reeled like a drunken man out into the night.

CHAPTER IX. The Fulfilling of the Law

Christopher had helped Tucker upstairs to bed and had gone into his own room to undress, when a sharp and persistent rattle upon the closed shutters brought him in alarm to his feet. Looking out, he saw a man's figure outlined in the moonlight on the walk, and, at once taking it to be Will, he ran hastily down and unbarred the door.

"Come in quietly," he said. "Uncle Tucker is asleep upstairs.

What in thunder is the trouble now?"

Stepping back, he led the way into what so short a time ago had been Mrs. Blake's parlour, and then pausing in the center of the floor, stood waiting with knitted brows for an explanation of the visit. But Will, who had shrunk dazzled from the flash of the lamp, now lingered to put up the bar with shaking hands.

"For G.o.d's sake, what is it?" questioned Christopher, and a start shook through him at sight of the other's face. "Have you had a fit?"

Closing the parlour door behind him, Will crossed the room and caught at the mantel for support. "I told you I'd do it some day--I told you I'd do it," he said incoherently, in a frantic effort to s.h.i.+ft the burden of responsibility upon stronger shoulders.

"You might have known all along that I'd do it some day."

"Do what?" demanded Christopher, while he felt the current of his blood grow weak. "Out with it, now. Speak up. You're as white as a sheet."

"He struck me--he struck me first. The bruise is here," resumed Will, in the same eager attempt at self justification. "Then I hit him on the head with a hammer and his skull gave way. I didn't hit hard. I swear it was a little blow; but he's dead. I left him stone dead in the kitchen. "

"My G.o.d, man!" exclaimed Christopher, and touched him on the shoulder.

With a groan, Will put up his hands and covered his bloodshot eyes. "I didn't mean to do it--I swear I didn't," he protested.

"Who'd have thought his head would crush in like that at the first little blow--just a tap with an old hammer? Why, it would hardly have cracked a walnut! And what was the hammer doing there, anyway? They have no business to leave such things lying about on the hearth. It was all their fault--they ought to have put the hammer away."

A convulsive shudder ran through him, ending in his hands and feet, which jerked wildly. His face was gray and old--so old that he might have been taken, at the first glance, for a man of eighty, and in the intervals between his words he sucked in his breath with a hissing noise. Meeting Christopher's look, he broke into a spasm of frightened sobs, whimpering like a child that has been whipped.

"I told you not to drink again," said Christopher sharply as he struggled to collect his thoughts. "I told you liquor would make a beast of you."

"I'll never touch another drop. I swear I'll never touch another drop," groaned Will, still sobbing. "I didn't mean to kill him, I tell you. It wasn't as if I really meant to kill him; you see that. It was all the fault of that accursed hammer they left lying on the hearth. A man must have a lot of courage to murder anybody--mustn't he?" he added, with a feeble smile; "and I'm a coward--you know I've always been a coward; haven't I--haven't I?" he persisted, and Christopher nodded an agreement.

"You see, I wasn't to blame, after all; but he flew into such a rage--he always flew into a rage when he heard your name."

"So you brought my name in?" asked Christopher carelessly.

"Oh, it was that that did it; it was your name," replied Will breathlessly. "I told him you said he was a devil--you did say so, you know. Christopher Blake was right; he called you 'a devil,' that was it. Then he ran at me with his stick, and I jerked up the hammer, and Oh, my G.o.d, they mustn't hang me!"

"Nonsense!" retorted Christopher roughly, for the other had dropped upon the floor and was grovelling in drunken hysterics at his feet. "It makes me sick to see a man act like an a.s.s."

"Get me out of this and I'll never touch a drop," moaned Will.

"Take me away from here--hide me anywhere. I'll go anywhere, I'll promise anything, only they mustn't find me. If they find me I'll go mad--I'll go mad in gaol."

"Shut up!" rejoined Christopher, listening with irritation to the sound of the other's hissing breath. "Stop your infernal racket a minute and let me think. Here, get up. Are you too drunk to stand on your feet?"

"I'm sober--I'm perfectly sober," protested Will, and, rising obediently, he stood clutching at the chimney-piece. "Get me out of this--only get me out of this," he repeated, with a desperate reliance on the other's power to avert the consequences of his deed. "I've always been a good friend to you," he went on pa.s.sionately. "The quarrel first started about you, and I stood up for you to the last. I never let him say anything against you--I never did!"