Part 22 (2/2)

He stretched his hand out with his accustomed signal; the King lifted his head where he grazed, and came to him with the murmuring noise of pleasure he always gave at his master's caress, and pressed his forehead against Cecil's breast, and took such tender heed, such earnest solicitude, not to harm him with a touch of the mighty fore hoofs, as those only who care for and know horses well will understand in its relation.

Cecil threw his arm over his neck, and leaned his own head down on it, so that his face was hidden. He stood motionless so many moments, and the King never stirred, but only pressed closer and closer against his bosom as though he knew that this was his eternal farewell to his master. But little light came there, the boughs grew so thickly; and it was still and solitary as a desert in the gloom of the meeting trees.

There have been many idols--idols of gold, idols of clay--less pure, less true than the brave and loyal-hearted beast from whom he parted now.

He stood motionless a while longer, and where his face was hidden, the gray silken mane of the horse was wet with great, slow tears that forced themselves through his closed eyes; then he laid his lips on the King's forehead, as he might have touched the brow of the woman he loved; and with a backward gesture of his hand to his servant, plunged down into the deep slope of netted boughs and scarce penetrable leaf.a.ge, that swung back into their places, and shrouded him from sight with their thick, unbroken screen.

”He's forgot me right and away in the King,” murmured Rake, as he led Forest King away slowly and sorrowfully, while the hunter pulled and fretted to force his way to his master. ”Well, it's only natural like.

I've cause to care for him, and plenty on it; but he ain't no sort of reason to think about me.”

That was the way the philosopher took his wound.

Alone, Cecil flung himself full-length down on the turf beneath the beech woods; his arms thrown forward, his face buried in the gra.s.s, all gay with late summer forest blossoms; for the first time the whole might of the rain that had fallen on his was understood by him; for the first time it beat him down beneath it, as the overstrained tension of nerve and of self-restraint had their inevitable reaction. He knew what this thing was which he had done--he had given up his whole future.

Though he had spoken lightly to his servant of his intention to enter a foreign army, he knew himself how few the chances were that he could ever do so. It was possible that Rockingham might so exert his influence that he would be left unpursued, but unless this chanced so (and Baroni had seemed resolute to forego no part of his demands), the search for him would be in the hands of the law, and the wiles of secret police and of detectives' resources spread too far and finely over the world for him to have a hope of ultimate escape.

If he sought France, the Extradition Treaty would deliver him up; Russia--Austria--Prussia were of equal danger; he would be identified, and given up to trial. Into the Italian service he knew many a scoundrel was received unquestioned; and he might try the Western world; though he had no means to pay the pa.s.sage, he might work it; he was a good sailor.

Yachts had been twice sunk under him, by steamers, in the Solent and the Spezzia, and his own schooner had once been fired at by mistake for a blockade runner, when he had brought to, and given them a broadside from his two shotted guns before he would signal them their error.

As these things swept, disordered and aimless, through his mind, he wondered if a nightmare were upon him; he, the darling of Belgravia, the Guards' champion, the lover of Lady Guenevere, to be here outlawed and friendless; wearily racking his brains to solve whether he had seamans.h.i.+p enough to be taken before the mast, or could stand before the tambour-major of a French regiment, with a chance to serve the same flag!

For a while he lay like a drunken man, heavy and motionless, his brow resting on his arm, his face buried in the gra.s.s; he had parted more easily with the woman he loved than he had parted with Forest King. The chimes of some far-off monastery, or castle-campanile, swung lazily in the morning stillness; the sound revived him, and recalled to him how little time there was if he would seek the flight that had begun on impulse and was continued in a firm, unshrinking resolve; he must go on, and on, and on; he must burrow like a fox, hide like a beaten cur; he must put leagues between him and all who had ever known him; he must sink his very name, and ident.i.ty, and existence, under some impenetrable obscurity, or the burden he had taken up for others' sake would be uselessly borne. There must be action of some sort or other, instant and unerring.

”It don't matter,” he thought, with the old idle indifference, oddly becoming in that extreme moment the very height of stoic philosophy, without any thought or effort to be such; ”I was going to the bad of my own accord; I must have cut and run for the debts, if not for this; it would have been the same thing, anyway, so it's just as well to do it for them. Life's over, and I'm a fool that I don't shoot myself.”

But there was too imperious a spirit in the Royallieu blood to let him give in to disaster and do this. He rose slowly, staggering a little, and feeling blinded and dazzled with the blaze of the morning sun as he went out of the beech wood. There were the marks of the hoofs on the damp, dewy turf; his lips trembled a little as he saw them--he would never rid the horse again!

Some two miles, more or less, lay between him and the railway. He was not certain of his way, and he felt a sickening exhaustion on him; he had been without food since his breakfast before the race. A gamekeeper's hut stood near the entrance of the wood; he had much recklessness in him, and no caution. He entered through the half-open door, and asked the keeper, who was eating his sausage and drinking his lager, for a meal.

”I'll give you one if you'll bring me down that hen-harrier,” growled the man in south German; pointing to the bird that was sailing far off, a mere speck in the sunny sky.

Cecil took the rifle held out to him, and without seeming even to pause to take aim, fired. The bird dropped like a stone through the air into the distant woods. There was no tremor in his wrist, no uncertainty in his measure. The keeper stared; the shot was one he had thought beyond any man's range, and he set food and drink before his guest with a crestfallen surprise, oddly mingled with veneration.

”You might have let me buy my breakfast, without making me do murder,”

said Bertie quietly, as he tried to eat. The meal was coa.r.s.e--he could scarcely touch it; but he drank the beer down thirstily, and took a crust of bread. He slipped his ring, a great sapphire graven with his crest, off his finger, and held it out to the man.

”That is worth fifty double-Fredericks. Will you take it in exchange for your rifle and some powder and ball?”

The German stared again, open-mouthed, and clinched the bargain eagerly.

He did not know anything about gems, but the splendor of this dazzled his eye, while he had guns more than enough, and could get many others at his lord's cost. Cecil fastened a shot-belt round him, took a powder-flask and cartridge-case, and with a few words of thanks, went on his way.

Now that he held the rifle in his hand, he felt ready for the work that was before him; if hunted to bay, at any rate he could now have a struggle for his liberty. The keeper stood bewildered, gazing blankly after him down the vista of pines.

”Hein! Hein!” he growled, as he looked at the sapphire sparkling in his broad, brown palm; ”I never saw such a with-lavishness-wasteful-and-with-courteous-speech-laconic gentleman! I wish I had not let him have the gun; he will take his own life, belikes; ach, Gott! He will take his own life!”

But Cecil had not bought it for that end--though he had called himself a fool for not sending a bullet through his brain, to quench in eternal darkness this ruined and wretched life that alone remained to him. He walked on through the still summer dawn, with the width of the country stretching sun-steeped around him. The sleeplessness, the excitement, the misery, the wild running of the past night had left him strengthless and racked with pain, but he knew that he must press onward or be caught, sooner or later, like netted game in the poacher's silken mesh. Where to go, what to do, he knew no more than if he were a child; everything had always been ready to his hand; the only thought required of him had been how to amuse himself and avoid being bored; now thrown alone on a mighty calamity, and brought face to face with the severity and emergency of exertion, he was like a pleasure-boat beaten under high billows, and driven far out to sea by the madness of a raging nor'wester. He had no conception what to do; he had but one resolve--to keep his secret; if, to do it, he killed himself with the rifle his sapphire ring had bought.

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