Mr. Marx's Secret Part 14

"But your mother? Surely you know some of her people?"

"I have never even heard her speak of them," I answered shortly.

"Strange! You don't happen to remember her maiden name, do you?"

"I don't know that I ever heard it," I told him.

I began to wish that Mr. Marx would choose some other topic of conversation. Doubtless, it was exceedingly kind of him to take so much interest in my affairs and his questions proceeded from perfectly genuine motives, but my inability to answer any of them was becoming a little embarra.s.sing.

"One more question I was going to ask you and it shall be the last," he said, as though divining my feeling. "Were you born here?"

"I suppose so. I never heard that I was born anywhere else."

There was another long silence and it seemed to me that Mr. Marx was very deep in thought. I was beginning to feel sleepy and, closing my eyes, I leaned right back among the soft, yielding cushions.

It was one of the wildest and roughest nights of the year. Both the carriage-windows were streaming with raindrops, and we could hear the wind howling across the open country, and whistling mournfully among the leafless trees.

We had accomplished about three-quarters of our journey and had just entered upon the blackest part of it. On either side of the road and running close up to it, without even the division of hedges, was a stretch of bare, open country, pleasant enough in summer time, but now a mere plain, on which were dotted about a few straggling plantations of sickly, stunted fir trees, among which the hurricane was making weird music.

We were in the middle of this dreary region. Mr. Marx was still smoking his cigar, but with closed eyes, and was either dozing or deep in thought. I, with my share of the fur rug wrapped closely around my knees, was trying in vain to sleep--in vain, for my head was still in a whirl, after what had been for me such an exciting day.

Exciting though it had been, however, its close was to be more so.

Suddenly, without the least warning, we felt a sharp jerk, and heard the coachman calling out to his horses, who were plunging furiously. Mr. Marx and I both leaned forward, and, just as we did so, there was a tremendous crash of breaking gla.s.s, and, through the splintered carriage window, on the side nearest to him, came a heavy piece of rock, followed by a confused ma.s.s of stones and gravel and other debris.

Mr. Marx leapt to his feet, with his hand on the door handle and the blood streaming from his forehead. Before he could open the door, however, a strange thing happened. Outside, half visible through the remains of the gla.s.s and half without any intervening obstruction, flashed for one single second the white, ghastly face of a man peering in upon us. It came and went so swiftly that I could gain only the very faintest idea of the features; but with Mr. Marx it seemed to be otherwise. Like a flash of lightning, a look pa.s.sed across his face which has never died out of my memory. Every feature seemed to be dilated and shaken with a spasmodic agony of horrified recognition. For a moment he seemed struck helpless, with every power of movement and every nerve numbed. Then a low cry, such as I have never before or since heard from human throat, burst from his shaking lips and his right hand tore open his coat and sought his breast-pocket.

The door of the carriage burst open as he sprang into the road like a wild animal, and long streaks of fire flashed from the gleaming revolver which he grasped in his hand--a lurid illumination which gave me sudden glimpses of his white, bleeding face as he stood in the road, firing barrel after barrel into the darkness.

I jumped out and hurried to his side, looking eagerly around into the dark night and together we stood and listened in a breathless silence.

Across the wild, open moor the wind came rushing towards us with a deep booming sound, and among the bare tree tops of a small plantation before us we heard it shrieking and yelling like the h.e.l.lish laughter of an army of witches. The ink-black clouds lowering close above our heads were dissolving in a mad torrent of rain, and the darkness was so intense that, although we could hear the frantic plunging of the horses behind us, we could neither see them nor the carriage. The elements seemed to have declared themselves on the side of our mysterious a.s.sailant. The blackness of the night and the roaring of the wind and rain blotted out all our surroundings and deadened all sound save their own.

"Wait here!" cried Mr. Marx, in a harsh, unnatural tone. And before I could open my mouth he had vanished out of sight and it seemed as though the black, yawning darkness had swallowed him up.

For a while I stood without moving. Then a cry for help from the coachman behind and the renewed sound of struggling horses reminded me of their plight, and I groped my way back to the road again.

I was only just in time. The horses, fine, powerful creatures, very nearly thoroughbred, were perfectly mad with fright, and the groom, who had been holding and striving to subdue them, was quite exhausted.

Between us we managed to pacify them after a brief struggle, and as soon as I could find sufficient breath I began to question Burdett--who had stuck to his place on the box like an immovable statue--about the first cause of their alarm.

"What was it they shied at first?" I asked. "Did you see anyone?"

"Just catched a glimpse of the blackguard, sir, and that was all,"

Burdett answered. "We were a-spinning along beautiful, for they knew as they were on their way home, them animals did, when, all of a sudden like, Dandy shies, and up goes the mare on her hind legs and as near as possible pitches me into the road. I slackened the reins and laid the whip across them, while Tom jumped down. And just then I saw a figure in the middle of the road and heard a crash through the carriage window.

Tom, he'd catched hold of their heads by then, which was lucky; for when the firing began they was like mad creatures and I could never have held them. It's a mercy we aren't altogether smashed up, and no mistake. The Lord save me from ever being out wi' my 'osses again on such a night as this!"

"You didn't see the face of the man who attacked us, then?" I asked eagerly.

"Not being possessed of the eyes of a heagle or a cat, sir, I did not,"

Burdett replied. "Just you look round and see what sort of a night it is.

Why, I can only just make out your outline, sir; although I've been looking at you this five minutes, I can't see nothing of your face."

"Neither did you, I suppose, Tom?" I asked the groom.

"No, sir; nothing except just a black figure. Good thing that you was neither of you hurt, sir."

"I'm not sure that Mr. Marx isn't," I answered; "his face was bleeding a good deal. I wish he'd come back."

Never did time pa.s.s so slowly as then, when we waited in the storm and rain for Mr. Marx's return. It must have been nearly an hour before we heard him hailing us in the distance, and soon afterwards saw his figure loom out of the darkness close at hand. He was alone.

Splashed from head to foot with mud, hatless, and with great streaks of blood clotted upon his forehead and cheeks, he presented at first a frightful figure. But his face had lost that dreadful expression of numbed horror which had made it for a moment so terrible to me, and, as he sank back breathless and exhausted, among the cushions, he even attempted a smile.

"All in vain, you see," he said. "Couldn't find a single trace of anyone anywhere."

"Are you much hurt, sir?" asked the groom, who was tying up the broken carriage-door.

"Not at all. Only a scratch. Tell Burdett to drive home as fast as he can now, Tom, there's a good fellow."

We were left together to talk over this strange affair. Mr. Marx seemed to have made up his mind about it already.

"Without doubt," he said deliberately, "it was some tramp, desperate with want or drink, who made up his mind to play the highwayman. He started well, and then, seeing two of us instead of one, funked it and bolted. I don't think I ever had such a start in my life."

"You came off the worst," I remarked, pointing to his forehead.

"It wasn't that that upset me," he answered. "It was a horrible idea which flashed upon me just for a moment. The face which peered in at the window--you saw it--was horribly like the face of a man who is dead--whom I know to be dead. It gave me, just while the idea lasted, a sensation which I hope I shall never experience again as long as I live. It was ghastly."

The face of the dead! It was not a cheerful thought. But I looked at the wrecked door and window of the carriage and felt immediately rea.s.sured.

Our a.s.sailant, whoever he might have been, was no ghostly one. There was undeniable evidence of his material presence and strength in the shattered gla.s.s, the wrenched woodwork, and the wound on Mr. Marx's forehead.

The carriage pulled up with a jerk. We had reached my home.

"Hadn't you better come in and bathe your forehead, Mr. Marx?" I suggested hesitatingly.

He shook his head and declined.

"No, thanks. I'll get back to the Castle as soon as I can and doctor it myself. Good-bye, Morton. If I don't see you again before you go, I wish you every success at Mr. Randall's."

I thanked him warmly, shook his offered hand, and, shutting the carriage-door, called out to Burdett to drive on. For a moment or two I stood in the road watching the lights as they rapidly grew fainter and fainter in the distance. Then I turned slowly up the path towards the house.

Half-way there I stopped short and, holding my breath, listened intently.

The wind had dropped and the rain had almost ceased, but the night was still as dark as pitch. I listened with strained ears and beating heart and soon I knew that I had not been mistaken. Coming down the hill between Rothland Wood gate and where I was, along the road by which we had just come, I could hear the faint, but nevertheless unmistakable, sound of light, running footsteps. Turning back, I stole softly down the path and stood in the middle of the road, waiting.

CHAPTER XIX.

A STRANGE ATTACK.

It could not in reality have been more than a minute or two, although it seemed to me then a terribly long while, before I again heard the sound which had attracted my attention. When I did, it was quite close at hand, just at the beginning of the range of farm-buildings which skirted the road. There was no possibility of any mistake. The situation was sufficiently plain, at any rate. Scarcely fifty yards away a man was coming running towards me, either barefooted or with very soft shoes on; and it was past midnight, pitch dark, and a lonely road.