Part 16 (1/2)

The moon was setting and the moonlight grey upon the garden, with the snow under foot very crisp and dry.

I sheathed my sword and clambered on to the coping. I turned to look at the Castle--how quietly it slept, and how brightly burned the lights in those two rooms!--and then dropped to the ledge upon the further side of the wall.

I had reached the top of the ridge of rock, when a cry rang out into the night--a cry, shrill and lonesome, in a woman's voice--a cry followed by a great silence. I halted in an agony. 'Twas not fear that I felt; 'twas not even pity. The cry spoke of suffering too great for pity, and I stood aghast at the sound of it, aghast at the thought that my handiwork had begotten it. 'Twas not repeated, however, and I tore down the ridge in a frenzy of haste, taking little care where I set my hands or my feet. How it was that I did not break my neck I have never been able to think.

The village, I remember, was dark and lifeless save just at one house, whence came a murmur of voices, and a red beam of light slipped through a c.h.i.n.k in the shutter and lay like a rillet of blood across the snow.

Once clear of the houses. I ran at full speed down the track. At the corner of the wood, I stopped and looked upwards before I plunged among the trees. The moon had set behind the mountains while I was descending the ridge, and the Castle loomed vaguely above me as though at that spot the night was denser than elsewhere. 'Twas plain that no alarm had been taken, that the cry had not been heard. I understood the reason of this afterwards. The two rooms in the tower were separated by a great interval from the other bedrooms. But what of the Countess, I thought? I pictured her in a swoon upon the corpse of her husband.

Within the coppice 'twas so black that I could not see my hand when I raised it before me, and I went groping my way by guesswork towards the trees to which we had tethered our horses. I dared not call out to Larke; I feared even the sound of my footsteps. Every rustle of the bushes seemed to betray a spy. In the end I began to fancy that I should wander about the coppice until dawn, when close to my elbow there rose a low crooning song:

Que toutes joies et toutes honneurs Viennent d'armes et d'amours.

”Jack!” I whispered.

The undergrowth crackled as he crushed it beneath his feet.

”Morrice, is that you? Where are you?”

A groping hand knocked against my arm and tightened on it. I gave a groan.

”Are you hurt, Morrice? Oh, my G.o.d! I thought you would never come!”

”You have heard nothing?”

”Nothing.”

”Not a sound? Not--not a cry?”

”Nothing.”

”Quick, then!” said I. ”We must be miles away by morning.”

He led me to where our horses stood, and we untied them and threaded through the trees to the road.

”Help me to mount, Jack!” said I.

He pulled a flask from his pocket and held it to my lips. 'Twas neat brandy, but I gulped a draught of it as though it were so much water.

Then he helped me into the saddle and settled my feet in the stirrups.

”Why, Morrice,” he asked, ”what have you done with your spurs?”

”I left them on the terrace,” said I, remembering. ”I left my spurs, my pistol, and--and something else. But quick, Jack, quick!”

'Twould have saved me much trouble had I brought that ”something else”

with me, or at least examined it more closely before I left it there.