At Large

He raised himself on his elbows and looked towards the spot where he had seen Pound last. The formation of the parapet seemed to puzzle him. It was unlike the ranges.

"He was always the worst of us, that Jem Pound," he went rambling on; "the worst of a bad lot, I know. But those murders were his doing. So at last we chucked him overboard. And now he's come back and murdered me. As to that, I reckon we're about quits, with the bulge on my side. Never mind, Jem Pound" – with a sudden spice of grim humour – "we'll meet again directly. Your revenge'll keep till then, old son!"

All this time Ryan's brain was in a state of twilight. He now lay still and quiet, and began to forget again. But he could not keep his eyes long from the spot whence Pound had disappeared, and presently, after a fruitless effort to stand upright, he crawled to the parapet, slowly lifted himself, and hung over it, gazing down below.

Nothing to be seen; nothing but the tops of the fir-trees. Nothing to be heard; for the fir-trees were asleep in the still, heavy atmosphere, and the summer rain made no noise. He raised his head until his eyes fell upon the broad flat table-land. The air was not clear, as it had been in the morning. That pall of black smoke covering the distant town was invisible, for the horizon was far nearer, misty and indeterminate; and his eyes were dim as they never had been before. The line of white smoke left by an engine that crept lazily across the quiet country was what he saw clearest; the tinkling of a bell – for Sunday-school, most likely – down in one of the hamlets that he could not see, was the only sound that reached his ears.

Yet he was struggling to recognise as much as he could see, vaguely feeling that it was not altogether new to him. It was the struggle of complete consciousness returning.

He was exhausted again; he fell back into the road. Then it was that he noticed the parapet streaming with blood at the spot where he had hung over it. To think that the coward Pound should have bled so freely in so short a time! And how strange that he, Ned Ryan, should not have observed that blood before he had drenched himself in it! No! Stop! It was his own blood! He was shot; he was dying; he was bleeding to his death – alone – away from the world!

A low moan – a kind of sob – escaped him. He lay still for some minutes. Then, with another effort, he raised himself on his elbow and looked about him. The first thing that he saw – close to him, within his reach – was that fatal tress of light-coloured hair!

In a flash his mind was illumined to the innermost recesses, and clear from that moment.

Now he remembered everything: how he had come to his senses at the very moment that Pound was handling this cherished tress, which alone was sufficient reason and justification for shooting Jem Pound on the spot; how he had been on his way to fetch help – help for Alice Bristo!

He pressed the slender tress passionately to his lips, then twined it tightly in and out his fingers.

Faint and bleeding as he was, he started to his feet. New power was given him; new life entered the failing spirit: new blood filled the emptying vessels. For a whole minute Ned Ryan was a Titan. During that minute the road reeled out like a red-brown ribbon under his stride. The end of that minute saw him at the top of Melmerbridge Bank. There, with the village lying at his feet, and the goal all but won, he staggered, stumbled, and fell headlong to the ground.

XXVIII

THE EFFORT

Galloping over the moor, fresh from his corn, the pony suddenly swerved, and with such violence that the trap was all but overturned.

"What was that?" asked Edmonstone, who was driving.

"A hat," Pinckney answered.

These two men were alone together, on an errand of life or death.

Edmonstone glanced back over his shoulder.

"I'll swear," said he, "that hat is Miles's!"

"Good heavens! has he stuck to the road?"

"Looks like it."

"Then we're on his track?"

"Very likely."

"And will get him, eh?"

At this question Edmonstone brought down the lash heavily on the pony's flank.

"Who wants to get him? Who cares what becomes of him? The Melmerbridge doctor's the man we want to get!"

Pinckney relapsed into silence. It became plain to him that his companion was painfully excited. Otherwise there was no excuse for his irritability.

At the foot of the last steep ascent on the farther side of the moor, Pinckney had jumped out to walk. He was walking a few yards ahead of the pony. Suddenly he stopped, uttered a shrill exclamation, and picked up something he found lying in the road. He was then but a few feet from the top, and the low stone parapet was already on his right hand.

"What is it?" cried Dick, from the pony-trap below.

Pinckney threw his hand high over his head. The revolver was stamped black and sharp against the cold grey sky.

A cold shudder passed through Edmonstone's strong frame. The wings of death beat in his ears and fanned his cheek with icy breath. The dread angel was hovering hard by. Dick felt his presence, and turned cold and sick to the heart.

"Let me see it," cried Dick, urging on the pony.

Pinckney ran down to meet him with a pale, scared face.

"It was his," faltered Pinckney. "I ought to know it. He threatened me with it when I tried to stop him bolting."

The slightest examination was enough to bespeak the worst.

"One cartridge has been fired," said Dick, in a hushed voice. "God knows what we shall find next!"

What they found next was a patch of clotting blood upon the stones of the parapet.

They exchanged no more words, but Dick got down and ran on ahead, and Pinckney took the reins.

Dick's searching eyes descried nothing to check the speed of his running till he had threaded the narrow, winding lane that led to Melmerbridge Bank, and had come out at the top of that broad highway; and there, at the roadside, stretched face downward on the damp ground, lay the motionless form of Sundown, the Australian outlaw.

The fine rain was falling all the time. The tweed clothes of the prostrate man were soaked and dark with it. Here and there they bore a still darker, soaking stain; and a thin, thin stripe of dusky red, already two feet in length, was flowing slowly down the bank, as though in time to summon the people of Melmerbridge to the spot. Under the saturated clothes there was no movement that Dick could see; but neither was there, as yet, the rigidity of death in the long, muscular, outstretched limbs.

Dick stole forward and knelt down, and murmured the only name that rose to his lips:

"Miles! Miles! Miles!"

No answer – no stir. Dick lowered his lips to the ear that was uppermost, and spoke louder:

"Miles!"

This time a low, faint groan came in answer. He still lived!

Dick gently lifted the damp head between his two hands, and laid Ryan's cheek upon his knee.

Ryan opened his blue eyes wide.

"Where am I? Who are you? Ah!"

Consciousness returned to the wounded man, complete in a flash this time. At once he remembered all – tearing madly down from the top, in and out this winding track – and all that had gone before. He was perfectly lucid. He looked up in Edmonstone's face, pain giving way before fierce anxiety in his own, and put a burning question in one short, faint, pregnant word:

"Well?"