Part 22 (1/2)
”Well, Mr. Bryce,” said the man in front, ”what have you got to say for yourself?”
”It's a funny thing,” remarked Bryce, with the adventures of Mr. c.u.mshaw and the late Mr. Bradby in his mind, ”it's funny how history repeats itself.”
The leader made a step forward and stared intently at Bryce. ”You're the man right enough,” he said. ”Where's your pal?”
”Ask me something easy,” sneered Bryce, ”and I'd be obliged if you'd let me drop my hands awhile. This is getting fairly tiresome.”
”You should have thought of that before you started that business,” the other one reminded him. ”It's rather late now to be finding out the flaws in your plans.”
The sneering smile on Mr. Bryce's face broadened into a grin of triumph.
”Didn't you ever hear the proverb about gla.s.s-houses and the people who live in them?” he enquired blandly.
The first speaker stared at him, but the other one said impatiently, ”Finish him off, Alick, and let's get it over.”
The man called Alick answered in a subdued voice. Bryce did not catch what he said, but supposed it to be a counsel of caution. His smile grew in intensity, so much so that Alick snapped at him. ”What the deuce are you grinning at, you fat fool?” he demanded.
”You'll know soon enough,” Bryce said with a chuckle. He looked right past them into the shadows of the trees, on his face the joyful expression of a man who sees the long-locked gates of his prison swing open before him. Both men whirled round with a chorus of oaths. They were quite positive that Bryce's mate had stolen a march on them and crept up behind their backs. They had their heads turned away but for the fraction of a second, but the time, short though it was, was plenty long enough for Mr. Bryce. With an agility, remarkable in a man of his weight and state of health, he faded into the landscape like some fat fairy.
”Fooled!” said Alick's companion, and he whipped round to face his prisoner, only to find that the keen-brained Mr. Bryce had vanished as completely as if he had been blown off the face of the earth.
”Nice pair of goats we are,” remarked Alick disgustedly.
The other said nothing, but stood for a moment in a state of indecision.
At that precise instant a pencil of flame shot out from one of the trees immediately in front of them, and Alick dropped his revolver with a howl of pain.
”He's winged me,” he said, and applied to Mr. Bryce an epithet not usually heard in polite society.
His mate fired at the tree from which the shot had evidently come, but the bullet did nothing more than flatten itself against the trunk in a shower of dust and dry bark. Mr. Bryce's revolver spoke once again. This time he failed to register.
”The sooner we get out of this the better,” said Alick, with one hand clasped to his injured shoulder. ”The beggar'll riddle us both if we stop here.”
The other man grunted his approval of the suggestion and proceeded to carry it into effect at once.
”Better look where you are going,” Alick advised. ”That other chap's about somewhere, perhaps waiting for us.”
The other consigned both Bryce and his a.s.sistant to a place more noted for its warmth than its comfort. Despite their forebodings Mr. c.u.mshaw did not put in an appearance, and they gained the shelter of the thick timber in safety.
Once he was sure that they had really departed Mr. Bryce stepped out from behind his tree, first, however, with commendable caution reloading the heavy revolver he carried. The smile was still flickering about the corners of his mouth, but there was a little wrinkle of anxiety across his forehead.
”I wonder where the devil c.u.mshaw's gone?” he remarked to the unresponsive trees. ”He went off like a scared rabbit. I'd better hunt for him. I can't get on without him now.”
With the laudable intention of finding Mr. c.u.mshaw as soon as possible he began to scour the neighbourhood.
When Mr. c.u.mshaw disappeared so precipitately it was with the idea that he must maintain his freedom at any cost. True, Bryce might be captured, but by the same token he could be rescued just as easily. Though his intentions were right enough he was prevented in the simplest manner possible from carrying them into effect. He went cras.h.i.+ng through the bushes as has already been related, and found himself on the edge of what was nothing more or less than a blind creek. The sides were covered with matted brushwood and were as slippery as gla.s.s. His momentum was such that he could not stop himself in time, and he went head over heels down the side of the gully, and spun on to the boulder-covered bottom like some new and monstrous kind of Catherine wheel. He collided with the rounded surface of one of the big weather-worn rocks which lay strewn about the gully floor like the tremendous marbles of a giant.
The world spun round him in a blaze of colored lights, and his head felt as if it were filled with fireworks. Then in an instant all sensation ceased as though cut off with the clean sweep of a naked sword. Mr.
c.u.mshaw lay still and lifeless under the shadow of the brushwood-covered gully.
Some half an hour later, when Bryce happened on this very spot, he pulled the bushes aside cautiously and peered down almost between his toes; but the shadows lay thick beneath him, and the edge of the gully so projected that he could not see the body of the man for whom he was searching. Slowly he retraced his steps. He was deeply puzzled by this new aspect of the affair. It seemed impossible that c.u.mshaw could have completely disappeared in so short a s.p.a.ce of time, yet the fact that he could not be found was in itself proof conclusive. Had Bryce lingered a couple of seconds longer he would have seen the rapidly-recovering c.u.mshaw turn over on his side, raise one hand to his head, and present a startled face to the scanty rays of light that filtered down to him. In a sense his revival was something more than a recovery; it was a resurrection. The years rolled away in an instant, and he ceased to be the Abel c.u.mshaw who had fallen down the side of the gully and cracked his head against an extra-large sized boulder; he became the Abel c.u.mshaw who had just been knocked into unconsciousness by the b.u.t.t of Mr. Bradby's revolver, and whose head still throbbed with the force of the blow.
He stared uncomprehendingly at the steep sides of the gully; they had no place in his gallery of mental pictures. He had a vague idea that there should be a creek somewhere close at hand. His head was throbbing, pulsing as if some mighty engine were working inside it. He rose unsteadily to his feet and regarded the steep declivities which formed the sides of the gully with a contemplative eye. He decided that they were climbable, but that he must wait awhile before he made the attempt.