Part 79 (2/2)
Near midnight, and all was still. Then arose a cry upon the night so hideous, so wild, and so terrible, that the roosting birds dashed off affrighted, and the dense mist, as though in sympathising fear, prolonged the echoes a hundred fold. One articulate cry, ”Oh! you treacherous dog!” given with the fierce energy of a dying man, and then night returned to her stillness, and the listeners heard nothing but the weeping of the moisture from the wintry trees.
The two perpetrators of the atrocity stood silent a minute or more, recovering themselves. Then Hawker said in a fierce whisper,--
”You clumsy hound; why did you let him make that noise? I shall never get it out of my head again, if I live till a hundred. Let's get out of this place before I go mad; I could not stay in the house with it for salvation. Get his horse, and come along.”
They got the two horses, and rode away into the night; but Hawker, in his nervous anxiety to get away, dropped a handsome cavalry pistol,--a circ.u.mstance which nearly cost Doctor Mulhaus his life.
They rode till after daylight, taking a course toward the sea, and had gone nearly twelve miles before George discovered his loss, and broke out into petulant imprecations.
”I wouldn't have lost that pistol for five pounds,” he said; ”no, nor more. I shall never have one like it again. I've put over a parrot at twenty yards with it.”
”Go back and get it, then,” said Moody, ”if it's so valuable. I'll camp and wait for you. We want all the arms we can get.”
”Not I,” said George; ”I would not go back into that cursed hut alone for all the sheep in the country.”
”You coward,” replied the other; ”afraid of a dead man. Well, if you won't, I will: and, mind, I shall keep it for my own use.”
”You're welcome to it, if you like to get it,” said George. And so Moody rode back.
Chapter x.x.xVIII
HOW DR. MULHAUS GOT BUSHED IN THE RANGES, AND WHAT BEFEL HIM THERE.
I must recur to the same eventful night again, and relate another circ.u.mstance that occurred on it. As events thicken, time gets more precious; so that, whereas at first I thought nothing of giving you the events of twenty years or so in a chapter, we are now compelled to concentrate time so much that it takes three chapters to twenty-four hours. I read a long novel once, the incidents of which did not extend over thirty-six hours, and yet it was not so profoundly stupid as you would suppose.
All the party got safe home from the picnic, and were glad enough to get housed out of the frosty air. The Doctor, above all others, was rampant at the thoughts of dinner, and a good chat over a warm fire, and burst out, in a n.o.ble ba.s.s voice, with an old German student's song about wine and Gretchen, and what not.
His music was soon turned into mourning; for, as they rode into the courtyard, a man came up to Captain Brentwood, and began talking eagerly to him.
It was one of his shepherds, who lived alone with his wife towards the mountain. The poor woman, his wife, he said, was taken in labour that morning, and was very bad. Hearing there was a doctor staying at the home station, he had come down to see if he could come to their a.s.sistance.
”I'll go, of course,” said the Doctor; ”but let me get something to eat first. Is anybody with her?”
”Yes, a woman was with her; had been staying with them some days.”
”I hope you can find the way in the dark,” said the Doctor, ”for I can tell you I can't.”
”No fear, sir,” said the man; ”there's a track all the way, and the moon's full. If it wasn't for the fog it would be as bright as day.”
He took a hasty meal, and started. They went at a foot's pace, for the shepherd was on foot. The track was easily seen, and although it was exceedingly cold, the Doctor, being well wrapped up, contrived, with incessant smoking, to be moderately comfortable. All external objects being a blank, he soon turned to his companion to see what he could get out of him.
”What part of the country are you from, my friend?”
”Fra' the Isle of Skye,” the man answered. ”I'm one of the Macdonalds of Skye.”
”That's a very ancient family, is it not?” said the Doctor at a venture, knowing he could not go wrong with a Highlander.
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