19000 Pound Part 24

"If you felt as light-hearted as I do, farmer, you would want to skip and dance. It was no joking matter at the time, I can tell you."

"Go on."

"The blow rendered me insensible. When I came to myself I found that my lady here had dragged me on to the wheel, and tied me to it, bound hand and foot, and gagged."

"Good G.o.d!"

"Fact. Look at my wrists. There are the marks, you see, yet. She had evidently thrown pails of water over me, I suppose to bring me to, for I was drenched from head to foot."

"Go on."

"It evidently did bring me to, for I found myself looking her in the face. She spoke. Told me what she intended to do with me."

"What?"

"Leave me there without food or drink till the rain came and made the stream powerful enough to revolve the wheel, and let me be whirled to glory."

"Is--it possible?"

"I don't know. I didn't wait to see."

"Well, you certainly take it light-heartedly----"

"I didn't at the time. I was the most heavy-hearted man in this country.

But it is over, and the reaction is immense."

"Did she not give her reason for this behavior?"

"Well--she seemed to think that I had killed her husband, and that it was her duty to lay me out in consequence."

"Killed her husband?"

"That's what she said--killed him on a boat."

"On a boat? What does she mean? Has she been thinking about the murder on the liner you came over by? She may have heard you talking about it."

"I never thought of that! She said, 'Your life for that of the man you killed on the ship.' Had that man anything to do with her husband?"

"Don't know. Wait till she comes round, we will see. She's moving a bit now."

The woman did move. Opened her eyes, and then seemed to remember how she came on the floor.

She started into a sitting position, and her eyes fell on Gerald. Once more she screamed out:

"A ghost! A ghost! A ghost!"

Then she fell back in a burst of frenzied hysterical laughter, and despite the fact that two men held her down, the tattoo made by the tapping of her feet could be heard all over the building.

Ultimately, she was carried up to her room, quieted, and with the a.s.sistance of the farmer's wife and daughter undressed and put to bed.

Danvers was rather struck by the change in positions. He had been afraid for his life of her, now she was afraid of him.

It caused him to hang up the ax. He felt he would be able to get along without it now.

CHAPTER XVII

A SICK BED CONFESSION

One of the men built the fire, and a.s.sistance with the crockery by others meant breakfast being served ultimately.

Gerald had an appet.i.te which some of the farm hands paused to view with a kind of envy. In the rare intervals of the meal, when his mouth was not too full, he told the farmer the rest of the story.

Susan came out of her fit, but it left her lying there as weak as a rat.

It was explained to her that Gerald was really alive, and then she relapsed into sullen silence--she guessed that the sheriff or his men would be the next to interview her.

Later in the day the farmer and Gerald went up to her room.

Danvers was so buoyant over his release, so a.s.sured that the woman had a grievance, and above all so curious to get to the bottom of the affair, that he greeted her with a smile on his lips, and no visible anger.

She answered him never a word.

He sat on the bedside, and addressed her at some length, while the farmer seated himself near the head of the bed.

"Susan, those born to be hanged can't be drowned, you know; so I am here. There's no need to bother you by telling you how I escaped--I'm here. That's good enough. Now, what I want to know is what the d.i.c.kens made you put me on the wheel."

Sullen silence.

"Don't think I feel more than necessarily angry over it, because I don't. I know perfectly well that you, in your own mind, thought you had a good reason, or you would not have done it. What was it?"

Sullen silence.

"You said I had murdered your husband. I have never seen him, never even heard his name, and never hurt, killed, or wounded any man, woman, or child in the whole course of my life."

She turned her head and looked at him.

"Yes," he said smilingly, "I can look you straight in the face, Susan.

And I should be scarcely likely to do that, should I, if I had killed your husband?"

Still she looked at him.

"On the steamer in which I crossed the Atlantic there certainly was a man found dead. But whether murdered or suicide, or what his name was, I don't know. Was that your husband, or was the other man?--who, no doubt had been murdered, judging by the way his body was found."

That made her open her lips. She was startled into a speech. She said: