Part 44 (1/2)

On rushed the train through the darkness of night.

Purcell, who sat beside his mistress, spread a plaid over the back of her seat, and pinned it about her shoulders, grumbling that she would take her death of cold in the drafty car; and presently she fell fast asleep, with her head resting against the jarring panel.

Purcell, too, dozed off, and dreamed that he was in his own cozy room at Castle Brand; and only awoke with the banging of a door ringing in his ears and the soft hand of his mistress clutching his arm.

The train was gliding on again, but it had paused one minute at a little country station, and a man had entered.

He was m.u.f.fled in a huge fur coat, and seated himself near Margaret, with a grunt of satisfaction that he had a whole seat to extend his legs upon.

Margaret regarded him keenly, and he returned her gaze with stolid indifference. Purcell growled out his disapprobation of the new-comer's placing his clumsy foot against his mistress' long dress, and the man serenely changed his position, wound a scarlet m.u.f.fler about his copper-colored throat, and settled himself for a nap.

He was a tall, stout man, with a heavy jaw, coa.r.s.e lips turned doggedly down at the corners, and piercing steel-blue eyes; his face was red and his hands were large and brown; but stupid, dull, and sleepy, he seemed unworthy of a second thought; and Margaret sank into a deep reverie and forgot him.

On they glided; through dim villages, amid bare-branched wealds, and over creeping rivers, which shone like misty mirrors in the faint starlight, resting from time to time, for a few minutes, at the country stations.

Other cars emptied and were filled again with fresh travelers; other compartments changed their occupants from seat to seat, but the trio sat still in this, and whiled away the time silently.

Then the train entered upon an hour's stretch of country, which it must traverse without pausing.

The man in the fur coat, weary of steadying his drowsy head against the corner of his seat, sat upright and drew a newspaper from his pocket.

Falling asleep over that, he produced a silver snuff-box, and refreshed himself with a generous pinch; then he looked meditatively at the old steward nodding comfortlessly before him, and proffered him the snuff-box; but looking into it, he discovered that it was about empty.

This appeared to afford him peculiar gratification, for he smiled to himself as he drew a paper parcel from his pocket, and proceeded to fill the snuff-box with its fragrant contents.

Idly Margaret watched him thrusting the diminished parcel back into the breast-pocket, and waking Purcell up by a vigorous poke, in order to offer him the replenished snuff-box.

The old man's eyes brightened, he uttered a heartfelt ”I thank you kindly, sir,” and inhaled a huge pinch, handing back the box with a courtly bow.

Then, sneezing with much fervor and wiping his eyes, Purcell vowed that he couldn't remember the day when snuff had smelt so queer; at which the man in the fur coat roared with laughter and boasted that his was the best; and presently Purcell's head sank down on his breast, and he took no further notice of his _vis-a-vis_.

Margaret drew out her handkerchief and covered her face with it, for a faint, sickening, drowsy odor was exhaling from Purcell's nostrils, and stealing her breath away.

She next tried her smelling-salts, and requested Purcell to open the window on his side: but he, taking no heed, she shook his arm, and, at last, gazed into his face.

It was chalk-white, a deadly perspiration bathed lip and brow; the half-closed eyelids showed the eyeb.a.l.l.s glazed and sightless, and his breast heaved painfully, as if a ton-weight lay upon it.

Margaret Walsingham came to herself in an instant--she grew cool and calm.

She knew now that the man who sat opposite to her had been hired by Mortlake to murder her.

No more tremors of fear, no more hurried plans for escape, no more hoping for some fortunate circ.u.mstance to save her. She felt that her time had come; and she knew that she must succ.u.mb to her fate. She saw how well her destruction was planned; she traced out the tragedy with terrific distinctness, she saw herself seized by these great, cruel hands in the first tunnel whose resounding roar could drown her death-shriek, and the pistol fired off at her ear, or the silent knife plunged into her bosom; and she knew how easy it would be for her murderer to leave the car at the next station and escape forever.

Before she raised herself from her speechless examination of her drugged servant, she had foreseen her death, and accepted it with a stony despair.

She mechanically turned to pull down the window at her own side, but the rough hand of the murderer met hers and arrested the act; his steel-blue eyes gleamed into hers, and drove her back to her corner, where she sat gazing like a dumb animal into the man's face, with her arms folded over her breast, a frail s.h.i.+eld which he laughed at.

Some minutes pa.s.sed, the servant partially recovered consciousness, and was plied with a handkerchief saturated with chloroform and pressed to his nostrils; and, when he was swaying to and fro in his seat like a dead man, with every lurch of the car, the ruffian turned to the unhappy woman beside him with a mischievous, fatal look in his coa.r.s.e face.