Part 52 (1/2)

Then again they cast lots as before. This time the lot fell to Quilleash. He took his stand where the lad had stood, and put the trigger of the gun at c.o.c.k.

”Men,” he said, ”if we don't take this man's life nothing will hould him but he'll take ours; and it's our right to protect ourselves, and the ould Book will uphold us. It isn't murder we're at, but justice, and Lord A'mighty ha' ma.s.sy on their sowls!”

”Give him another chance,” said Teare, and Quilleash, nothing loath, put his question again. Dan, with a glance at Davy, answered as before, with as calm a voice, though his face was blanched, and his eyes stood out from their sockets, and his lips and nostrils quivered.

Then there was silence, and then down on their knees behind Quilleash fell the three men, Crennel, Corkell, and Teare. ”Lord ha' ma.s.sy on their sowls!” they echoed, and Quilleash raised the gun.

Never a word more did Dan say, and never a cry or a sign came from Davy Fayle. But Quilleash did not fire. He paused and listened, and turning about he said, in an altered tone, ”Where's the horse?”

The men lifted their heads and pointed, without speaking, to where the horse was tethered by the doorway. Quilleash listened with head aslant.

”Then whose foot is that?” he said.

The men leapt to their feet. Teare was at the doorway in an instant.

”G.o.d A'mighty, they're on us!” he said in an affrighted whisper.

Then two of the others looked, and saw that from every side the coroner and his men were closing in upon them. They could recognize every man, though the nearest was still half a mile away. For a moment they stared blankly in to each other's faces, and asked themselves what was to be done. In that moment every good and bad quality seemed to leap to their faces. Corkell and Crennell, seeing themselves outnumbered, fell to a bout of hysterical weeping. Teare, a fellow of sterner stuff, without pity or ruth, seeing no danger for them if Dan were out of sight, was for finis.h.i.+ng in a twinkling what they had begun--shooting Dan, flinging him into the loft above, down the shaft outside, or into a manure-hole at the doorway, that was full of slimy filth and was now half-frozen over.

Quilleash alone kept his head, and when Teare had spoken the old man said, ”No,” and set his lip firm and hard. Then Dan himself, no less excited than the men themselves, called and asked how many they were that were coming. Crennell told him nine--seven men and the coroner, and another--it might be a woman--on a horse.

”Eight men are not enough to take six of us,” said Dan. ”Here, cut my rope and Davy's--quick.”

When the men heard that, and saw by the light of Dan's eyes that he meant it, and that he whose blood they had all but spilled was ready to stand side by side with them and throw in his lot with their lot, they looked stupidly into each other's eyes, and could say nothing. But in another breath the evil spirit of doubt had taken hold of them, and Teare was laughing bitterly in Dan's face.

Crennell looked out at the doorway again. ”They're running, we're lost men,” he said; and once more he set up his hysterical weeping.

”Dowse that,” said Quilleash; ”where's your trustin' now?”

”Here, Billy,” said Dan eagerly, ”cut the lad's rope and get into the loft, every man of you.”

Without waiting to comprehend the meaning of this advice, realizing nothing but that the shed was surrounded and escape impossible, two of them, Crennell and Corkell, clambered up the ladder to the loft. Old Quilleash, who from the first moment of the scare had not budged an inch from his place on the floor, stood there still with the gun in his hand.

Then Dan, thinking to free himself by burning one strand of the rope that bound him, threw himself down on his knees by the fire of gorse and wood, and held himself over it until one shoulder and arm and part of his breast were in the flame. For a moment it seemed as if, bound as he was, he must thrust half his body into the fire, and roll in it, before the rope that tied him would ignite. But at the next moment he had leaped to his feet with a mighty effort, and the rope was burning over his arm.

At that same moment the coroner and the seven men with Mona riding behind them, came up the doorway of the shed. There they drew up in consternation. No sight on earth was less like that they had looked to see than the sight they then beheld.

There, in a dense cloud of smoke, was Davy Fayle, still bound and helpless, pale and speechless with affright; and there was Dan, also bound, and burning over one shoulder as if the arm itself were afire, and straining his great muscles to break the rope that held him.

Quilleash was in the middle of the floor as if rooted to the spot, and his gun was in his hands. Teare was on the first rung of the wall-ladder, and the two white faces of Corkell and Crennell were peering down from the trap-hole above.

”What's all this?” said the coroner.

Then Teare dropped back from the ladder and pointed at Dan and said, ”We caught him and were taking him back to you, sir. Look, that's the way we strapped him. But he was trying to burn the rope and give us the slip.”

Dan's face turned black at that word of treachery, and a hoa.r.s.e cry came from his throat.

”Is it true?” said the coroner, and his lip curled as he turned to Dan.

Davy Fayle shouted vehemently that it was a lie, but Dan, shaking visibly from head to foot, answered quietly and said, ”I'll not say no, coroner.”

At that Quilleash stepped out. ”But I'll say no,” he said, firmly. ”He's a brave man, he is; and maybe I'm on'y an ould rip, but d---- me if I'm goin' to lie like that for n.o.body--no, not to save my own sowl.”