Two Sides of the Face Part 8

Roger, having locked the door, came slowly forward and waited, looking down at her, with his back to the hearth.

By-and-by she lifted her face. "How will you do it?" she asked, very quietly, meeting his eyes.

For the moment he did not seem to understand. Then, drawing in his breath, he laughed to himself--almost without sound, and yet she heard it.

"There's more than one way, if you was woman. But I've been reading the Bible: there's a deal about witches in the Bible, and so I came to understand ye." He stared at her and nodded.

Having once lifted her face, she could eye him steadily. But she made no answer.

He stooped and picked up the ladle at his feet. "You needn't be afraid,"

he said slowly: "I promised Trevarthen I wouldn't hurt you beforehand.

And afterwards--it'll be soon over. D'ye know what I use this for?

It's for melting bullets."

He felt in his waistcoat pocket, drew out a crown-piece, held it for a moment betwixt finger and thumb, and dropped it into the ladle.

"They say 'tis the surest way with a witch," said he; then, after a pause, "As for that lawyer-fellow of yours--"

And here he paused again, this time in some astonishment; for she had risen, and now with no fear in her eyes--only scorn.

"Go on," she commanded.

"Well," concluded Roger grimly, "where you fought me as my father's wife he fought for dirty pay, and where you cheated me he lead you into cheating. Therefore, if I caught him, he'd die no such easy death.

Isn't that enough?"

"I thank you," she said, and her eyes seemed to lighten as they looked into his. "You are a violent man, but not vile--as some. You have gone deep, and you meant to kill me to-morrow--or is it to-night? But I mean to save you from that."

"I think not, mistress."

"I think 'yes,' stepson--that is, if you believe that, killing me, you will kill also your father's child!"

For a moment he did not understand. His eyes travelled over her as she stood erect, stretching out her hands.

Suddenly his head sank. He did not cry out, though he knew--as she knew-- that the truth of it had killed him. Not for one moment--it was characteristic of him--did he doubt. In her worst enemy she found, in the act of killing him, her champion against the world.

He groped for the door, unlocked it, and pa.s.sed out.

In the kitchen he spoke to Jane the cook, who ran and escorted Mrs.

Stephen, not without difficulty, up to her own room.

Roger remained as she left him, staring into the fire.

XV.

He served the supper himself, explaining Jane's absence by a lie.

Towards midnight the volunteers began to arrive, dropping in by ones and twos; and by four in the morning, when Roger withdrew to his attic to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' sleep, the garrison seemed likely to resume its old strength. The news of the widow's capture exhilarated them all.

Even those who had come dejectedly felt that they now possessed a hostage to play off, as a last card, against the law.

That night Roger Stephen, in his attic, slept as he had not slept for months, and awoke in the grey dawn to find Trevarthen shaking him by the shoulder.

"Hist, man! Come and look," said Trevarthen, and led him to the window.

Roger rubbed his eyes, and at first could see nothing. A white sea-fog covered the land and made the view a blank; but by-and-by, as he stared, the fog thinned a little, and disclosed, two fields away, a row of blurred white tents, and another row behind it.

"How many do you reckon?" he asked quietly.

"Soldiers? I put 'em down at a hundred and fifty."

"And we've a bare forty."

"Fifty-two. A dozen came in from Breage soon after five. They're all posted."

"A nuisance, this fog," said Roger, peering into it. Since the first a.s.sault he and his men had levelled the hedge across the road, so that the approach from the fields lay open, and could be swept from the loopholes in the courtlage wall.

"I don't say that," answered Trevarthen cheerfully. "We may find it help us before the day is out. Anyway, there's no chance of its lifting if this wind holds."

"I wonder, now, the fellow didn't try a surprise and attack at once."

"He'll summon you in form, depend on't. Besides, he has to go gently.

He knows by this time you hold the woman here, and he don't want her harmed if he can avoid it."

"Ah!" said Roger. "To be sure--I forgot the woman."

While the two men stood meditating a moan sounded in the room below.

It seemed to rise through the planking close by their feet.

Trevarthen caught Roger by the arm. "What's that? You haven't been hurting her? You promised--"

"No," Roger interrupted, "I haven't hurt her, nor tried to. She's sick, maybe. I'll step down and have a talk with Jane."

On the landing outside Mrs. Stephen's room the two men shook hands, and Trevarthen hurried down to go the round of his posts in the out-buildings.

They never saw one another again. Roger hesitated a moment, then tapped at the door.

After a long pause Jane opened it with a scared face. She whispered with him, and he turned and went heavily down the stairs; another moan from within followed him.

At the front door Malachi met him, his face twitching with excitement.

The Sheriff (said he) was at the gate demanding word with Master Stephen.

For the moment Roger did not seem to hear. Then he lounged across the courtlage, fingering and examining the lock of his musket, with ne'er a glance nor a good morning for the dozen men posted beside their loopholes.

Another half-dozen waited in the path for his orders; he halted, and told them curtly to march upstairs and man the attic windows, whence across the wall's coping their fire would sweep the approach from the fields; and so walked on and up to the gate, on which the Sheriff was now hammering impatiently.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

"Are you Roger Stephen?" answered the Sheriff's voice.

"Roger Stephen of Steens--ay, that's my name."