The Nest of the Sparrowhawk Part 39

But Sir Marmaduke noted with satisfaction that his nerves were already under his control. He succeeded in relighting the lantern, which he could not have done if his hands had been as unsteady as they were awhile ago.

He rose once more to his feet, stamped them against the boulders, stretched out his arms, giving his elbows and shoulders full play.

Mayhap he had spent a quarter of an hour thus resting since that final jump, mayhap it had been an hour or two; he could not say for time had ceased to be.

But the mist had penetrated to his very bones and he did not remember ever having felt quite so cold.

Now he seized his lantern and began his search, trying to ascertain the exact position of the portion of the cliff's edge where he and Lambert the smith had been standing a while ago.

It was not a difficult matter, nor was the search a long one. Soon he saw a huddled ma.s.s lying in the sand.

He went up to it and placed the lantern down upon a boulder.

Horror had entirely left him. The crisis of terror at his own fell deed had been terrible but brief. His was not a nature to shrink from unpleasant sights, nor at such times do men have cause to recoil from contact with the dead.

In the murderer's heart there was no real remorse for the crime which he had committed.

"Bah! why did the fool get in my way?" was the first mental comment which he made when he caught sight of Lambert's body.

Then with a final shrug of the shoulders he dismissed pity, horror or remorse, entirely from his thoughts.

What he now did was to raise the smith's body from the ground and to strip it of its clothing. 'Twas a grim task, on which his chroniclers have never cared to dwell. His purpose was fixed. He had planned and thought it all out minutely, and he was surely not the man to flinch at the execution of a project once he had conceived it.

The death of Adam Lambert should serve a double purpose: the silencing of an avowed enemy and the wiping out of the personality of Prince Amede d'Orleans.

The latter was as important as the first. It would facilitate the realizing of the fortune and, above all, clear the way for Sir Marmaduke's future life.

Therefore, however gruesome the task, which was necessary in order to attain that great goal, the schemer accomplished it, with set teeth and an unwavering hand.

What he did do on that lonely fog-ridden beach and in the silence of that dank and misty night, was to dress up the body of Adam Lambert, the smith, in the fantastic clothing of Prince Amede d'Orleans: the red cloth doublet, the lace collars and cuffs, the bunches of ribbon at knee and waist, and the black silk shade over the left eye. All he omitted were the perruque and the false mustache.

Having accomplished this work, he himself donned the clothes of Adam Lambert.

This part of his task being done, he had to rest for a while. 'Tis no easy matter to undress and redress an inert ma.s.s.

The smith, dressed in the elaborate accouterments of the mysterious French prince, now lay face upwards on the sand.

The tide was rapidly setting in. In less than half an hour it would reach this portion of the beach.

Sir Marmaduke de Chava.s.se, however, had not yet accomplished all that he meant to do. He knew that the sea-waves had a habit of returning that which they took away. Therefore, his purpose was not fully accomplished when he had dressed the dead smith in the clothes of the Orleans prince.

Else had he wished it, he could have consigned his victim to the tide.

But Adam--dead--had now to play a part in the grim comedy which Sir Marmaduke de Chava.s.se had designed for his own safety, and the more a.s.sured success of all his frauds and plans.

Therefore, after a brief rest, the murderer set to work again. A more grim task yet! one from which of a truth more than one evil-doer would recoil.

Not so this bold schemer, this mad worshiper of money and of self.

Everything! anything for the safety of Sir Marmaduke de Chava.s.se, for the peaceful possession of 500,000.

Everything! Even the desecration of the dead!

The murderer was powerful, and there is a strength which madness gives.

Heavy boulders pushed by vigorous arms had to help in the monstrous deed!

Heavy boulders thrown and rolled over the face of the dead, so as to obliterate all ident.i.ty!

Nay! had a sound now disturbed the silence of this awesome night, surely it had been the laughter of demons aghast at such a deed!

The moon indeed hid her face, retreating once more behind the veils of mist. The breeze itself was lulled and the fog gathered itself together and wrapped the unavowable horrors of the night in a gray and ghoul-like shroud.

Madness lurked in the eyes of the sacrilegious murderer. Madness which helped him not only to carry his grim task to the end, but, having accomplished it, to see that it was well done.

And his hand did not tremble, as he raised the lantern and looked down on _that_ which had once been Adam Lambert, the smith.

Nay, had those laughing demons looked on it, they would have veiled their faces in awe!

The gentle wavelets of the torpid tide were creeping round that thing in red doublet and breeches, in high top boots, lace cuffs and collar.

Sir Marmaduke looked down calmly upon his work, and did not even shudder with horror.

Madness had been upon him and had numbed his brain.

But the elemental instinct of self-preservation whispered to him that his work was well done.

When the sea gave up the dead, only the clothes, the doublet, the ribands, the lace, the black shade, mayhap, would reveal his ident.i.ty, as the mysterious French prince who for a brief while had lodged in a cottage at Acol.

But the face was unrecognizable.

PART IV

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE DAY AFTER

The feeling which prevailed in Thanet with regard to the murder of the mysterious foreigner on the sands of Epple Bay was chiefly one of sullen resentment.

Here was a man who had come from goodness knows where, whose strange wanderings and secret appearances in the neighborhood had oft roused the anger of the village folk, just as his fantastic clothes, his silken doublet and befrilled shirt had excited their scorn; here was a man, I say, who came from nowhere, and now he chose--the yokels of the neighborhood declared it that he chose--to make his exit from the world in as weird a manner as he had effected his entrance into this remote and law-abiding little island.

The farmhands and laborers who dwelt in the cottages dotted about around St. Nicholas-at-Wade, Epple or Acol were really angry with the stranger for allowing himself to be murdered on their sh.o.r.es. Thanet itself had up to now enjoyed a fair reputation for orderliness and temperance, and that one of her inhabitants should have been tempted to do away with that interloping foreigner in such a violent manner was obviously the fault of that foreigner himself.

The watches had found him on the sands at low tide. One of them walking along the brow of the cliff had seen the dark object lying p.r.o.ne amongst the boulders, a black ma.s.s in the midst of the whiteness of the chalk.