The Bronze Bell Part 10

A second match spluttered, its flame waxing in the pink cup of Doggott's hands. The servant's head and shoulders stood out in dim relief against the darkness.

"I've burnt me 'and somethin' 'orrid on this d.a.m.n' 'ot chimney," he complained nervously.

He succeeded in setting fire to the wick. The light showed him barefoot and shivering in shirt and trousers. He lifted a bemused red face to Amber, blinking and nursing his scorched hand. "For pity's syke, sir, w'at's 'appened?"

"It's hard to say," replied Amber vaguely, preoccupied. He went immediately to a window and stood there, looking out.

"But w'ere's Mr. Rutton, sir?"

"Gone--out there--I don't know just where." Amber moved back to the table. "You see, he had a caller."

"A caller, sir--on a night like this?"

"The man he came here to hide from," said Amber.

"I knew 'e was tryin' to dodge somethin', sir; but 'e never told me aught about it. What kind of a person was 'e, sir, and what made Mr.

Rutton go aw'y with 'im?"

"He didn't; he went after him to...." Amber caught his tongue on the verge of an indiscretion; no matter what his fears, they were not yet become a suitable subject for discussion with Rutton's servant. "I think," he amended lamely, "he had forgotten something."

"And 'e's out there now! My Gawd, what a night!" He hung in hesitation for a little. "Did 'e wear 'is topcoat and 'at, sir?"

"No; he went suddenly. I don't think he intended to be gone long."

"I'd better go after 'im, then. 'E'll 'ave pneumonia ... I'll just jump into me clothes and--" He slipped into the back room, to reappear with surprisingly little delay, fully dressed and b.u.t.toning a long ulster round his throat. "You didn't 'appen to notice which w'y 'e went, sir?"

"As well as I could judge, to the east."

Doggott took down a second ulster and a cap from pegs in the wall.

"I'll do my best to find 'im; 'e might lose 'imself, you know, with no light nor nothin'."

"And you?"

"I'll be all right; I'll follow 'is footprints in the snow. I've a 'andy little electric bull's-eye to 'elp me, in my pocket."

"Are you armed, Doggott?"

"By Mr. Rutton's orders, sir, I've carried a revolver for years. You aren't thinkin' it's come to that, sir?"

"I don't know.... If I was sure I wouldn't let you go alone," said Amber, frowning. "It's only that Mr. Rutton may not want me about ... I wish I knew!"

"It'll be better, sir, for you to stay and keep the fire up--if you don't mind my makin' so free as to advise--in case 'e's 'arf-froze when 'e gets back, as is likely. But I'd better 'urry, 'specially if...."

Doggott's color faded a little and his mouth tightened. "But I 'ope you're mistyken, sir. Good-night."

The door slammed behind him.

Alone, and a prey to misgivings he scarce dared name to himself, Amber from the window watched the blot of light from Doggott's handlamp fade and vanish in the storm; then, becoming sensible to the cold, went to the fireplace, kicked the embers together until they blazed, and piled on more fuel.

A cosy, crackling sound began to be audible in the room; sibilant jets of flame, scarlet, yellow, violet, and green, spurted up from the driftwood. Under the hypnotic influence of the comforting warmth, weariness descended upon Amber like a burden; he was afraid to close his eyes or to sit down, lest sleep should overcome him for all his intense excitement and anxiety. He forced himself to move steadily round the room, struggling against a feeling that all that he had witnessed must have been untrue, an evil dream, akin to the waking visions that had beset him between the loss of Quain and the finding of Rutton. The very mediocrity of the surroundings seemed to discredit the testimony of his wits.

Unmistakably a camp erected for its owners' convenience during the hunting season, alike in design and furnishing the cabin was almost painfully crude and homely. The walls were of rough-hewn logs from which the bark had not been removed; the interstices were stopped only with coa.r.s.e plaster; the part.i.tion dividing it into two rooms was of pine, unpainted. In one corner near Rutton's trunk, a bed-hammock swung from a beam. The few chairs were plain and rude. There were two deal tables, a plate-rack nailed to the part.i.tion, and a wall-seat in the chimney-corner. On the centre table, aside from the lamp, were a couple of books, some out-of-date magazines, and a common tin alarm-clock ticking stolidly.

In a setting so hopelessly commonplace and everyday, one act of a drama of blood and fire had been played; into these mean premises the breath of the storm, as the babu entered, had blown Romance.... Incredible!

And yet Amber's hand, dropping idly in his coat-pocket, encountered a priceless witness to the reality of what had pa.s.sed. Frowning, troubled, he drew forth the ring and slipped it upon his finger; rays of blinding emerald light coruscated from it, dazzling him. With a low cry of wonder he took it to the lamplight. Never had he looked upon so fine a stone, so strangely cut.

It was set in ruddy soft gold, worked and graven with exquisite art in the semblance of a two-headed cobra; inside the band was an inscription so worn and faint that Amber experienced some difficulty in deciphering the word RAO (king) in Devanagari, flanked by swastikas. Aside from the stone entirely, he speculated, the value of the ring as an antique would have proven inestimable. As for the emerald itself, in its original state, before cutting, it must have been worth the ransom of an emperor; much had certainly been sacrificed to fashion it in its present form. The cunning of a jewel-cutter whose art was lost before Tyre and Nineveh upreared their heads must have been taxed by the task.

Its innumerable facets reproduced with wonderful fidelity a human eyeball, unwinking, sleepless. In the enigmatic heart of its impenetrable iris cold fire lived, cold pa.s.sionless flames leaped and died and leaped again like the sorcerous fire of a pythoness.

To gaze into its depths was like questioning the inscrutable green heart of the sea. Fascinated, Amber felt his consciousness slip from him as a mantle might slip from his shoulders; awake, staring wide-eyed into the emerald eye, he forgot self, forgot the world, and dreamed, dreamed curiously....

The crash of the door closing behind him brought him to the right-about in a panic flutter. He glared stupidly for a time before comprehending that Rutton and Doggott had returned. How long they had been absent he had no means of reckoning; the interval might have been five minutes or an hour in duration. The time since he had stooped to examine the ring was as indefinite; but his back was aching and his thoughts were drowsy and confused. He had a sensation as of being violently recalled to a dull and colourless world from some far realm of barbaric enchantment.

His brain reeled and his vision was blurred as if by the flash and glamour of many vivid colours.

With an effort he managed to force himself to understand that Rutton was back. After that he felt more normal. His thoughts slid back into their accustomed grooves.

If there were anything peculiar in his manner, Rutton did not remark it. Indeed, he seemed unconscious, for a time, of the presence either of Amber or of Doggott. The servant relieved him of his overcoat and hat, and he strode directly to the fire, bending over to chafe and warm his frost-nipped hands. Unquestionably he laboured under the influence of an extraordinary agitation. His limbs twitched and jerked nervously; his eyebrows were tensely elevated, his eyes blazing, his nostrils dilated; his face was ashen grey.

From across the room Doggott signalled silence to Amber, with a forefinger to his lips; and with a discretion bred of long knowledge of his master's temper, tiptoed through into the back room and shut the door.

Amber respected the admonition throughout a wait that seemed endless.

The tin clock hammered off five minutes or more. Suddenly Rutton started and wheeled round, every trace of excitement smoothed away.

Meeting Amber's gaze he nodded as if casually, and said, "Oh, Amber,"

quietly, with an effect of faint surprise. Then he dropped heavily into a chair by the table.

"Well," he said slowly, "that is over."

Amber, without speaking, went to his side and touched his shoulder with that pitifully inadequate gesture of sympathy which men so frequently employ.

"I killed him," said Rutton dully.

"Yes," replied Amber. He was not surprised; he had apprehended the tragedy from the moment that Rutton had fled him, speechless; the feeling of horror that he had at first experienced had ebbed, merged into a sort of apathetic acknowledgment of the inevitable.

After a bit Rutton turned to the table and drew an automatic pistol from his pocket, opening the magazine. Five cartridges remained in the clip, showing that two had been exploded. "I was not sure," he said thoughtfully, "how many times I had fired." His curiosity satisfied, he reloaded the weapon and returned it to his pocket. "He died like a dog," he said, "whimpering and blaspheming in the face of eternity ...

out there in the cold and the night.... It was sickening--the sound of the bullets tearing through his flesh...."

He shuddered.

"Didn't he resist?" Amber asked involuntarily.

"He tried to. I let him pop away with his revolver until it was empty.

Then...."

"What made you wait?"

"I didn't care; it didn't matter. One of us had to die to-night; he should have known that when I refused to accompany him back to ... I was hungry for his bullet more than for his life; I gave him every chance. But it had to be as it was. That was Fate. Now...." He paused and after a little went on in a more controlled voice. "Quaintly enough, if there's anything in the theory of heredity, David, my hands have been stained with no man's blood before to-night. Yet my forebears were a murderous lot.... Until this hour I never realised how swift and uncontrollable could be the impulse to slay...."