Part 43 (1/2)

”Yes, yes,” answered d.i.c.k as he dismounted and threw the reins of his horse to David. ”They are like the rest of Dunwich--asleep.”

So they entered and began to search the house by the dim light of the moon. First they searched the lower chambers, then those where Hugh's father and his brothers had slept, and lastly the attics. Here they found the pallets of the serving-folk upon the floor, but none at rest upon them.

”The house is deserted,” said Hugh heavily.

”Yes, yes,” answered d.i.c.k again, in a cheerful voice; ”doubtless Master de Cressi and your brothers have moved away to escape the pest.”

”Pray G.o.d they have escaped it!” muttered Hugh. ”This place stifles me,”

he added. ”Let us out.”

”Whither shall we go, master?”

”To Blythburgh Manor,” he answered, ”for there I may win tidings. David, bide you here, and if you can learn aught follow us across the moor. The manor cannot be missed.”

So once more Hugh and d.i.c.k mounted their horses and rode away through the town, stopping now and again before some house they knew and calling to its inmates. But though they called loudly none answered. Soon they grew sure that this was because there were none to answer, since of those houses many of the doors stood open. Only one living creature did they see in Dunwich. As they turned the corner near to the Blythburgh Gate they met a grey-haired man wrapped up in tattered blankets which were tied about him with haybands. He carried in his hand a beautiful flagon of silver. Doubtless he had stolen it from some church.

Seeing them, he cast this flagon into the snow and began to whimper like a dog.

”Mad Tom,” said d.i.c.k, recognizing the poor fellow. ”Tell us, Thomas, where are the folk of Dunwich?”

”Dead, dead; all dead!” he wailed, and fled away.

”Stay! What of Master de Cressi?” called Hugh. But the tower of the church round which he had vanished only echoed back across the snow, ”What of Master de Cressi?”

Then at last Hugh understood the awful truth.

It was that, save those who had fled, the people of Dunwich were slain with the Sword of Pestilence, and all his kin among them.

They were on the Blythburgh Marshes, travelling thither by the shortest road. The moon was down and the darkness dense, for the snow-clouds hid the stars.

”Let us bide here a while,” said Grey d.i.c.k as their horses blundered through the thick reeds. ”It will soon be sunrise, and if we go on in this gloom we shall fall into some boghole or into the river, which I hear running on our left.”

So they halted their weary horses and sat still, for in his wretchedness Hugh cared not what he did.

At length the east began to lighten, turning the sky to a smoky red.

Then the rim of the sun rising out of the white-flecked ocean, threw athwart the desolate marsh a fierce ray that lay upon the snows like a sword of blood. They were standing on the crest of a little mound, and d.i.c.k, looking about him, knew the place.

”See,” he said, pointing toward the river that ran near by, ”it is just here that you killed young Clavering this day two years ago. Yonder also I shot the French knights, and Red Eve and you leapt into the Blythe and swam it.”

”Ay,” said Hugh, looking up idly, ”but did you say two years, d.i.c.k? Nay, surely 'tis a score. Why,” he added in a changed voice, ”who may that be in the hollow?” and he pointed to a tall figure which stood beneath them at a distance, half-hidden by the dank snow-mists.

”Let us go and see,” said d.i.c.k, speaking almost in a whisper, for there was that about this figure which sent the blood to his throat and cheeks.

He drove the spurs into his tired horse's sides, causing it to leap forward.

Half a minute later they had ridden down the slope of the hollow. A puff of wind that came with the sun drove away the mist. d.i.c.k uttered a choking cry and leapt from his saddle. For there, calm, terrible, mighty, clothed in his red and yellow cap and robe of ebon furs, stood he who was named Murgh the Fire, Murgh the Sword, Murgh the Helper, Murgh, Gateway of the G.o.ds!

They knelt before him in the snow, while, screaming in their fright, the horses fled away.