Part 27 (2/2)

said Cullyngham. ”It was taught me by a girl I know. She made me go down on my hands and knees--”

”I refuse to go down on my knees for anybody,” said Elsie, with spirit.

”Never mind. I will do that part. I go on my hands and knees on the floor, like this, with a match lying on my back between my shoulder-blades. Then the other person--you--has his hands tied together with a handkerchief, and tries to brush the match off the other person's back. It's extraordinary how difficult it is to do it with one's hands tied and the other person bobbing and dodging to get away from you.”

”It sounds absolutely idiotic,” said Elsie coldly.

”It isn't, though. Of course it would be idiotic for you and me to play it now by ourselves; but I'll just show you the trick of it, and you will be able to have some sport with them in the billiard-room to-night.

Shall I show you?”

Elsie agreed, without enthusiasm. It seemed churlish to refuse such a trifling request to a man who was making laborious efforts to amuse her; but, for all that, this _tete-a-tete_ had lasted long enough. However, she would be on the cricket-ground in a few minutes.

Her doubts were in a measure revived when Cullyngham tied her two wrists together with a silk handkerchief. He performed the operation very quickly, and then dropped on to his hands and knees on the floor and carefully balanced a match on the broad of his back.

”Now,” he said, looking up at her, ”just try to knock that match off my back. Of course I shall dodge all I can. I bet you won't be able to do it.”

Elsie, feeling uncommonly foolish, made one or two perfunctory dabs at the match with her bound hands. Once she nearly succeeded, but Cullyngham backed away just in time. Piqued by his derisive little laugh, she took a quick step forward, and leaning over him, was on the point of brus.h.i.+ng the match on to the floor, when suddenly Cullyngham slewed round in her direction, and, thrusting his head into the enclosure of her arms, scrambled to his feet. Next moment Elsie, dazed, numbed, terrified, found herself on tiptoe, hanging round a man's neck, while the man's arms were round her and his hateful smiling face was drawing nearer, nearer, nearer to her own.

Never was a girl in more deadly peril. Elsie uttered a choking scream.

”It's no good, little girl,” said Cullyngham. ”I've got you fast, and there's not a soul in the house. A kiss, please!” He spoke thickly: the man was dead within him.

Elsie, inert and drooping, shrank back as far as her manacled wrists would allow her, and struggled frantically to free herself. But Cullyngham's arms brought her towards him again. And then, paralysed with terror, with eyes wide open, she found herself staring right over Cullyngham's shoulder at--Pip!--Pip, sprung from the earth, and standing only five yards away.

”Pip!” she moaned; ”Pip, save me!”

Almost simultaneously Cullyngham became conscious of something that gripped him by the nape of his neck, just below Elsie's fettered wrists--something that felt like a steel vice. Tighter and tighter grew the grip. The veins began to stand out on Cullyngham's forehead, and he gurgled for breath. Down he went, till his head was once more on a level with the floor and his aristocratic nose was rubbed into the matting. In a moment the girl had slipped her wrists over his head and stood free--pale, shaken, but free!

”Run into the house,” said Pip. ”I will come in a minute.”

Elsie tottered through the French window and disappeared, with her hands still bound before her, and the two men were left alone.

Finding himself in a favourable geographical position, Pip kicked Cullyngham till his toes ached inside his boots. Then he thrust him away on to the floor. Cullyngham, free at last and white with pa.s.sion, was up in a moment and rushed at Pip. He was met by a cras.h.i.+ng blow in the face and went down again.

If Pip had been himself he would have desisted there and then, for he had his enemy heavily punished already. But he was in a raging pa.s.sion.

He knew now that Elsie was more to him than all the world together, and his sudden realisation of the fact came at an inopportune moment for Cullyngham. Pip drove him round the conservatory, storming, raging, blaring like an angry bull, getting in blow upon blow with blind, relentless fury. Cullyngham was no weakling and no coward. Again and again he stood up to Pip, only to go down again under a smash like the kick of a horse. Finally, in a culminating paroxysm of frenzy, Pip took his battered opponent in his arms and hurled him into the green tub containing the orange tree.

Then he went into the house, locking the French window behind him. The fit had pa.s.sed.

Five minutes devoted to a wash, and a slight readjustment of his collar and tie, and Pip was himself again. Presently he went to seek Elsie. The girl had succeeded in freeing her hands from the handkerchief, and was sitting, badly shaken, a poor little ”figure of interment,” as the French say, on a sofa in the library. She looked up eagerly at his approach.

”Oh, Pip, did you hurt him?”

”I hope so,” said Pip simply. ”Will you tell how it happened? At least--don't, if you'd rather not.”

But she told him all. ”You were just in time, Pip,” she concluded. ”I was just going to faint, I think.”

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