Part 49 (1/2)
She followed this thought with perfect understanding, for allegory was a part of her racial inheritance. She was touched, also, by the soft timbre of his voice--a quality which showed him to be deeply moved--and she leaned farther forward, peering out at him. There was something weird, and something fascinating, about these impressive words issuing from an unseen and unexpected source. The night was so still and ghostlike--the atmosphere about the cottage so charged with tragedy--the metonymy this invisible speaker employed so subtle!
”Whar's yoh gyard'ner?” she asked breathlessly.
”I don't know,” he gave a short laugh.
”Well, he ain' so ve'y fur off, honey! Go an' seek 'im--you needs 'im, Gawd knows you does!--but mebbe he won' find sich a turr'ble lot of wu'k to do, arter all! Sometimes people's gyardens is cu'ious dat a-way!”
He left after this, and walked slowly beyond the house to the circle of cedars. As he was pus.h.i.+ng aside the branches, his eyes detected something white, out near the gate, moving through the deep shadows of the trees. He stopped, puzzled. A faint radiance from the stars made the spot where he stood quite discernible and, now seeing him, this white thing, whatever it was, changed its course and approached. As it came he saw that it seemed to be stumbling, or staggering, and he thought that it was moaning. Then suddenly he recognized Jane.
In a bound he was across the intervening s.p.a.ce and, as she stumbled again, caught her in his arms, crying hoa.r.s.ely:
”For G.o.d's sake, what has happened?”
She clung to him, drooping, sobbing, and out of breath; and fiercely he held her closer, as though by the presence of his strength she might feel secure.
”Mac,” she gasped, convulsively, ”Mac--is dead!”
”How?” He asked it calmly; with a fearful, avenging calm; knowing that in the way Mac died would be revealed a tragedy.
She tried, but could not answer, and simply leaned against him sobbing great silent sobs which shook her body and tore his soul with anguish.
The love he had felt for her was slight to the pa.s.sion now demanding utterance; yet his lips set resolutely to suppress any word of endearment. He knew that she had come only to a friend, a big brother, someone to sustain her, and he knew too well how deadly the suggestion of anything more would be.
”Can't you tell me?” he asked gently.
”That fiendish man jumped out and caught my horse's bridle! Mac sprang at him, and he dropped the bridle, and I tried to ride him down, but he had a club and knocked my poor horse flat;--I jumped up, and Mac was fighting him terribly, but I knew he would kill Mac--and then--and then--I was so frightened I ran as fast as I could back here!”
”Thank G.o.d,” he whispered, in a voice which must surely have told her how he, too, was suffering.
She gathered her strength and stood more firmly, while he let his arms quietly fall to his sides.
”Would you like Bob and Ann to come over?”
”You could take me home, couldn't you?” she wavered. ”They thought I was going to stay here for dinner, and it's no use frightening them with such a telephone message.”
Turning, they went slowly, silently, toward the house, but near the porch he hesitated, listening; then turned her about--for coming toward them across the lawn, limping, panting, with his nose to the ground but his stumpy tail belligerently up, was Mac.
She gave a low cry and knelt upon the gra.s.s, her arms out to receive him, and he dashed into them with a yelp of joy. The things she whispered then were exactly those which Brent would have given the riches of the earth to have heard her say to him; and Mac replied with all his doggy eloquence, furiously wiggling his body and making futile attempts to lick her face. Brent stood silently by, and for the first time in his life--at least the first time in his remembrance--something mysteriously hot and wet slipped down his cheek.
An hour later they drove into Flat Rock, leading her horse which was found grazing by the roadside. Back at Arden the Colonel and Dale, each with a high powered rifle, were mounting horses; and in town the sheriff was lifting a bloodhound to his buggy.
With a silent hand-clasp Jane pa.s.sed into the house, but Brent waited for a word with Bob.
”The fellow must be quite crazy,” he told this young planter, ”so you ought to stay here with the girls. I'll meet the others, and tell you about it later.”
Reaching the pike he drove hurriedly and was the first to arrive at their prearranged meeting-place. This was a hollow, where a little stream crossed--the place Tusk usually turned off after leaving Tom's house, and the scene of an earlier struggle. He got out of the buggy and carefully scanned the ground, flas.h.i.+ng the same electric torch which had played a part here once before; smiling, despite his soberness, when he came to a patch of violently torn up sod ten feet from the spot where, evidently, Jane's horse had fallen. Here, he knew, Mac had made his gallant stand, desisting only after his instinct told him Jane had fled to safety.
There was little talking when the others came. The sheriff lifted his bloodhound to the ground, and the mild eyes of this heavy dewlapped creature looked confidently up at them, waiting to be told what human atom of the millions over the earth he must bring to justice. This was all he asked to know; so when Jess held out the handle of Tusk's discarded club, he sniffed it carefully and was satisfied. A low whine a.s.sured them that the man-hunter had now an imperishable record of the scent; that he was ready to follow it across the State, around the world--providing the pursued one used no pepper or other mean artifice, and traveled by foot on land.
The men tied their horses, for this chase must be followed warily--nor could horses go where a hunted man might venture. Jess led, holding the leash strained by the hound's impatience. Silently the others followed into the black wood, and all was quiet save for the occasional snapping of a dead branch;--this hound having been too well taught to allow himself the joy of baying, except in rare situations. He knew the chase, and he knew the value of keeping his quarry unwarned.