Dead Man's Love Part 20

"I know," I responded solemnly. "I've been through it all myself. I was once old Zabdiel Blowfield's clerk, and I also had the misfortune to be his nephew."

"Oh, Lord!" The boy stared at me as though his eyes would drop out of his head. "Are you the chap that stole the money, and got chokey for it?"

I nodded. "I'm that desperate villain," I said, "and I've broken out of 'chokey,' as you call it, and have come back to revisit the glimpses of the moon. Therefore you see how necessary it was that Uncle Zabdiel should not see me. Do you tumble to that?"

He looked me up and down wonderingly, much as though I had been about eight feet high. "Old Blowfield told me about you when I first came," he said. "He said it would be a warning to me not to do likewise. But he put in a bit too much; he said that you were dead."

"He wanted to make the warning more awful," I suggested, for I did not feel called upon to give him an explanation concerning that most mysterious matter. "And don't think," I added, "that I am in any sense of the word a hero, or that I am anything wonderful. At the present time I've scarcely a coin in my pocket, and I don't know where I'm to sleep to-night. It's no fun doing deeds of darkness, and breaking prison, and all that sort of thing, I can a.s.sure you."

The youth shook his head dismally. "I ain't so sure of that," he said.

"At any rate, I should think it would be better than the sort of life I lead. There's something dashing about you--but look at me!"

He spread out his thin arms as he spoke, and looked at me with his pathetic head on one side. I began to hate my uncle with fresh vigour, and to wonder when some long-sleeping justice would overtake him. For I saw that this boy was not made of the stuff that I had been made of; this was a mere drudge, who would go on being a drudge to the end of his days.

"What's your name?" I asked abruptly.

"Andrew Ferkoe," he replied.

"Well, Mr. Andrew Ferkoe, and how did you come to drop into this place?"

I asked.

"My father owed old Blowfield a lot of money; and my father died," he said slowly.

"And you were taken in exchange for the debt," I said. "I think I understand. Well, don't be downhearted about it. By the way, are you hungry?"

"I'm never anything else," he replied, with a grin.

"Then we'll have a feast, for I'm hungry, too."

I started for the door, with the full determination to raid the larder; but he called after me in a frightened voice--

"Come back, come back!" I turned about, and looked at him. "He'll kill me if I take anything that doesn't belong to me, or have me locked up."

"Oh, he'll put it down to me," I a.s.sured the boy. "I'm going to interview him in the morning, and I'll see that you don't get into trouble."

I left him sitting up in bed, and I went out into the house, knowing my way perfectly, in search of food. I knew that in that meagre household I might find nothing at all, or at all events nothing worth having; but still, I meant to get something, if possible. I got down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, and found the larder, and, to my surprise, found it better stocked than I could have hoped. I loaded my arms with good things, and started to make my way back to my old room.

And then it was that I saw Martha Leach and my uncle. The door of the room in which my uncle used always to work was opened, and the woman came out first. I was below, in an angle of the stairs leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt, and I wondered what would have happened if they had known that I was there. Uncle Zabdiel, looking not a day older than when he had spoken to me in the court after my sentence, followed the woman out, bearing a candle in his hand. He had on an ancient dressing-gown, and the black skull cap in which I think he must always have slept--certainly I never saw him without it.

"I'm much obliged to you, my good woman," he said in a low voice--"much obliged to you, indeed, for your warning. It's upset me, I can a.s.sure you, to hear that the fellow's alive; but he shall be hunted down, and given back to the law."

I set my teeth as I listened, and I felt that I might be able to persuade Uncle Zabdiel to a different purpose.

"The difficulty will be to get hold of him," said Martha Leach. "I only heard the real story, as I have told you, from the lips of his fellow-prisoner--the man they call George Rabbit."

"Then the best thing you can do," said Uncle Zabdiel, touching her for a moment on the arm, "the wisest thing you can do, is to get hold of George Rabbit and send him to me. Tell him I'll pay him well; it'll be a question of 'set a thief to catch a thief.' He'll track the dog down.

Tell him I'll pay him liberally--I'm known as a liberal man in my dealings."

While he went to the door to show the woman out, I crept round the corner of the stairs, and up to the room where I had left the boy. I found him awaiting me eagerly; it was pleasant to see the fashion in which his gaunt face lighted up when I set out the food upon the bed. He was so greedy with famine that he began to cram the food into his mouth--almost whimpering over the good things--before I had had time to begin.

We feasted well, sitting there in the dark; we were very still as we heard Zabdiel Blowfield pause at the door on his way upstairs, and listen to be sure that all was silent. Fortunately for us, he did not come in; we heard his shuffling feet take their way towards his own room.

"Safe for the night!" I whispered. "And now I suppose you feel better--eh?"

He nodded gratefully. "I wish I'd got your courage," he answered wistfully. "But when he looks at me I begin to tremble, and when he speaks I shake all over."

"Go to sleep now," I commanded him, "and comfort yourself with the reflection that in the morning he is going to do the shaking and the trembling for once. Bless your heart!" I added, "I was once like you, and dared not call my soul my own. I'll have no mercy on him, I promise you."

He smiled and lay down, and was asleep in no time at all. I had removed the dishes from the bed, meaning to take them downstairs so soon as I could be sure that Uncle Zabdiel was asleep. I sat down on a chair by the open window, and looked out into the night, striving perhaps to see some way for myself--some future in which I might live in some new and wholly impossible world.

Most bitterly then did I think of the girl who was lost to me for ever.

My situation had not seemed to be so desperate while I carried the knowledge in my heart that she believed in me and trusted me; but now all that was past and done with. In the morning I must begin that fight with my ancient enemy as to whether I should live, or whether I should be condemned to that living death from which I had escaped; and I knew enough now, in this calmer moment, to recognise the cunning of the man with whom I must fight, and that the power he held was greater than mine.

Sitting there, I must at last have fallen asleep, with my head upon the window sill; it was hours later when I awoke. The dawn was growing in the sky, and the boy still slept heavily. I gathered up the dishes silently, and crept out of the room, and put them back in some disorder into the larder; for to the consumption of that meal I meant to confess solely on my own account. Then I began to mount the stairs again, to get back to the room I had left.

I heard a noise above me in the house, and I knew instinctively that my uncle had been roused, and was coming down. There was no chance for me to hide, and above all things I knew that he would search the place from top to bottom until he found the intruder. More than that, the inevitable meeting must take place at some time, and this time was as good as, if not better than, any other. So I mounted the stairs, until at last I saw him on a landing above me, standing in the grey light of the morning, with a heavy stick poised in his hands, ready to strike.

"It's all right, uncle," I said cheerfully, "I was coming to meet you."

He lowered the stick slowly, and looked at me for a moment or two in silence; then I heard him chuckle ironically.

"Good-morning, nephew," he said; "welcome home again!"

CHAPTER IX.

A SHOOTING PARTY.

Now, my Uncle Zabdiel had known me always as something subservient to his will, and apparently anxious to please him; he was to meet me now in a different mood. As we stood facing each other, in the grey light of the morning which filtered through a high window on to the staircase where we had met, I was able to realise that he would once more play the bully with me, if he felt it possible to do so, and that it behoved me to get the upper hand at once if I would bring myself with any credit out of the tangle. So I spoke sharply after that first ironical greeting of his; I wanted the man to understand that he had not to deal with the milk-and-water boy he had known something over a year before.

"I want a word with you," I said, "and I'll say it where it suits you best to hear it."

"By all means, my dear nephew," he said suavely. "If you will allow me to pa.s.s you, I will show you where we can talk in comfort."

I did not like his tone in the least; I began to understand that he had had the night in which to think over matters, and had doubtless made good use of the time. However, I followed him into that room from which not so long before I had seen Martha Leach emerge; and there I faced him, with the door shut behind me.

"You're only partly surprised to see me," I began at once. "You heard last night that I was alive, and almost in your neighbourhood. A woman told you."

That seemed to stagger him a little; he looked at me keenly and with a new interest. "How do you know that?" he demanded.

I laughed. "I know the woman who told you; she is no friend of mine, as you may imagine," I answered him. "It must have been rather a shock to you to know that the nephew of whom you had got rid so easily, and who had even apparently had the good sense to put an end to his miserable existence, was very much alive, and likely to trouble you again.

Therefore I thought I'd follow up the tale by putting in an appearance at once, the better to relieve your pardonable anxiety."

He grinned at me in a fashion that would have been disconcerting to anyone else; but I was no longer afraid of him. "And what are your demands now?" he asked.