AT POST BRIDGE HALL.
The warders stared into each other's faces.
"It's a bad job. You're sure he's dead----"
"I wouldn't have done it for anything," the man who had fired the shot
whispered. "I aimed at his legs, too. Damn the gun!"
He threw it into the heather, and turned away to hide his emotion.
The second warder glanced back over his shoulder. The fog was slipping
down the hillside again. The stone wall and the ponies were already
lost to view.
"Fire off your gun again; they'll hear it on the road. I'd better go
back for the ponies, or we shall lose 'em."
"Which way did the other fellow go?"
"I don't know. You get the ponies--I'll wait here."
The second warder hurried up the hillside towards the stone wall and
disappeared into the fog. The one who had fired the fatal shot stooped
to pick up his gun. As he did so, the figure of the convict lying on
the heather stirred. A second later he was on his feet, running for
dear life!
He was gone before the warder could realise what had happened. He swung
round and stared open-mouthed at the wall of fog surrounding him on all
sides.
"Well, I'm damned!" he ejaculated.
Jamming a cartridge into his gun, he fired it off.
* * * * *
When the fatal shot was fired Rupert was a few yards ahead of 303, and
he felt a sharp sting at the point of his shoulder as he heard the shot
whiz by. Thinking that the shot was aimed at him, and feeling himself
hit, he swerved to the right and made for a low wall which ran down
towards the powder-magazine, intent only on reaching its shelter. The
shock of being fired at had put all thought of his comrade for the
moment out of his mind, and it was not until he was over the wall and
heading for the small clump of trees, through the top of which he could
see the ruined chimney of the old powder-mill which instinct told him
was his only chance, did he think of 303.
Slackening his pace, he glanced back over his shoulder--but he could see
nothing. He turned once more and sped towards the trees which were now
only a few hundred yards away, and the fold in the ground hid him from
the road and also from the hill above. On reaching the trees, his
breath coming in great gasps, worn out with excitement, he threw himself
upon a bed of rushes growing beside the Cherry Brook, which flowed
within the walls that enclosed the powder mills.
He was consumed with raging thirst, and when he had recovered his breath
sufficiently, he crawled to the brook and buried his face in the cool,
clear stream. As he sat up he saw his right hand dripping with blood,
and for the first time remembered his wound. Taking off his
broad-arrowed coat, he felt his throbbing shoulder, and was relieved to
find the bullet had but grazed his flesh. He went to the stream and
dipped his coat into the water--when he was startled by the dull thud of
horses' hoofs approaching.
The powder mill buildings were mere ruined shells. There was no shelter
there--but suddenly his eye caught the chimney, a circular stack about
thirty feet high. The horseman had reached the wall; he heard him check
the horse and dismount. Rupert remembered that he had often swarmed up
the inside of the chimney when a boy. The sound of the pony's hoofs
striking the stones of the wall as the warder led him through the gap
caused Rupert to spring towards the chimney. In a second he was within
the ruined furnace, grasping the iron bar which crossed the chimney some
six feet above the ground.
He swung himself up, and placing his knees against the round wall in
front of him, and with his back against the other side, he slowly worked
himself up the narrow shaft until he was some twelve feet up. By jamming
his feet in a niche from which the mortar had fallen out, and with his
back thrust against the opposite wall, he made himself secure for the
moment.
He heard the warder and the pony stumbling over the rubble which strewed
the mouth of the ruined chimney; his heart was in his mouth. Pony and
man were within the furnace, and the voice of the warder almost beneath
him made Rupert look down in momentary expectation of meeting his
upturned gaze; he saw his arm and shoulder already beneath the
chimney--another moment he would be discovered.
A voice outside hailed the warder, and he stepped back--and disappeared.
For some little time Rupert heard the voice of men talking in the
precincts of the powder mill. He strained his ears to try and hear what
they said, but only caught odd words. He gathered that they were still
searching both for him and Convict 303. He was relieved to know that his
friend had not been caught; yet in his heart he realised it was only a
matter of time. Once he reached home--if indeed he were lucky enough to
succeed in doing so--he would only wait long enough to discover how
things were with his father and sister, and to warn them that a fortune
might still be lying within their grasp. He did not know how much of
the little property had been mortgaged to Sir Reginald Crichton; he
almost hoped the disused tin mine was included. As long as the interest
was paid, the mortgage would remain undisturbed; and Sir Reginald had
proved himself to be not only an upright gentleman, but a kind friend.
It was his one-time friend, Robert Despard, the man who had called
himself his pal, whom he feared. Almost the last words the latter had
spoken to him echoed ironically in his brain:
"I'll keep the secret about our radium mine, old man, never fear. It's
safe with me!"
Various schemes flashed with lightning-like rapidity through Rupert's
brain as he clung to his perilous position in the chimney above the
furnace. He began to think that the men outside intended to remain there
for the night--it seemed so long before they moved away, and he heard
the beat of their ponies' hoofs growing fainter and fainter. But at last
he knew they were really gone. Even then he waited awhile before he
commenced to painfully clamber to the ground.
He was stiff and sore. His shoulder ached and throbbed where the stray
buckshot had struck him. There was blood upon his hand, too, where he
had cut it.
But he was still free. At first he moved cautiously, examining the
country as much as was visible in all directions. The fog had partially
cleared away, but it still lay in patches here and there.
There was not a soul in sight. Not a sound to be heard save the purling
waters of the little Cherry Brook on his left. He knelt down and washed
the blood from his hand, then took a drink. And suddenly he laughed
under his breath.
It was good to be alive again--for he had not been living those past
months in prison. He had been less alive than a caged animal. He had
slept, eaten, worked, and exercised with mechanical-like precision.
Even the agonies of mind he had undergone seemed unreal now. They did
not even seem to matter--nothing mattered but the fact that he was free!
Free to sit or stand, to walk or run, to laugh or to cry. Free to move
as he liked, look where he liked, do what he liked. He dug his hands
into the soft peat and tore it up, and sniffed the sweet scent. He stood
upright and stretched out his arms, then laughed aloud.
It was indeed good to be alive again. It was wonderful! The next
moment he was trembling from head to foot, and his body broke out in a
sweat. He was not to be alive for long. Even if he reached Blackthorn
Farm and delivered his message he would have to give himself up and go
back to prison. Back to that living grave!
He had told poor 303 that escape was absolutely impossible. Even if a
man got outside Dartmoor and reached Tavistock or Exeter or Plymouth he
was certain to be detected and brought back. His father would never
hide him or help him--he knew that.
Yet if he once succeeded in getting home he could remain there hidden
long enough to disguise himself, to grow a beard. And then one day, so
altered as to be hardly recognisable, he might ship off to Canada or
Australia.
His head swam: he put his hands up before his eyes for a moment. The
sudden draught of freedom had intoxicated him.
Once again he gazed round the moorland. It was growing dark, the sun
had set, and the western sky was still glowing red. Now and then a
faint puff of wind stirred the trees surrounding the powder mill, and he
saw stray banks of fog driving here and there, shifting their position.
By crossing the stream he could step right into the white bank of mist.
Freedom! The thought of it had become an obsession now. Taking a run
he cleared Cherry Brook and plunged into the fog. He knew his way now;
he could have found it blindfold. But he went cautiously, for no man
can be sure of himself if he once misses his way when a Dartmoor fog is
down.
To reach Blackthorn Farm he would have to pass Post Bridge Hall, which
lay between him and the East Dart. He kept edging towards the valley,
for though it was near the main road, the fog lay more thickly there
than in the higher ground.
It was rough going. Rocks and boulders and gorse bushes impeded the
progress, invisible in the mist. Now and again he struck a boggy patch
of ground and had to make a wide detour to avoid it. He had been
walking for upwards of an hour, and he began to fear lest he had missed
his way and perhaps been going round in a circle, when suddenly he
stepped out into a clear, starlit night. Below him he saw the tiny
village of Post Bridge, and almost directly in front of him red lights
gleaming through the belt of trees.
Post Bridge Hall! Down on the bridge itself, near the little post
office, he saw figures moving to and fro. He dropped on to his hands
and knees behind the shelter of a rock. He heard the barking of a sheep
dog, the voices of men and women travelled up to him.
Of course the news of the escape had spread, and the place was alive
with people searching.
How eager men and women were to hunt their kind! He remembered how as a
boy he had joined in just such a hunt.
He commenced to crawl along on all fours towards Post Bridge Hall. The
trees there might shelter him, but it would be useless to try and cross
the patch of country on the other side. He climbed a couple of stone
walls, crossed a field, scrambled over a fence, and dropped straight
into the garden of the Hall itself.
Lights gleamed from the windows. The front door stood wide open, and
not a hundred yards away from him he saw the outer door of the glass
conservatory which abutted from the drawing-room. He saw with surprise
that this was open too.
For a long time he lay waiting, watching, afraid to go on--because he
knew the fog would not descend again. The million eyes of the night
watched him from a cloudless sky.
Presently from the woods behind him he heard voices and the barking of
dogs. A gang of men were beating the spinney, searching for the two
convicts.
Within sight of home he would be caught. He rose to his feet, crossed
the narrow stretch of turf and walked boldly up the drive.
He stood a moment outside the conservatory door, listening. He heard
nothing but the voices of the men in the wood and the barking of the
dogs.
He stepped inside the conservatory, closed the door, and then, fumbling
for the key, found it. He locked it, and drew the bolts top and bottom
which he knew were there. Stooping down he crawled beneath the broad
shelf which ran the length of the glass-house. The leaves of a palm and
the fronds of a large fern gave him complete shelter.
He stretched himself out full length so as to lie perfectly flat, and as
he did so his foot struck a pile of empty flower-pots. They fell over
with a crash. He stopped breathing. He thought he detected a woman's
voice in the drawing-room. A minute passed, but no one came.
He breathed again. He was safe for the time being. The conservatory
door was locked. They would never search Sir Reginald Crichton's house!
He was still a free man. And freedom to him now was more than anything
else in the world. More than love or honour, or the wealth that might be
lying hidden in the tin mine at home, waiting for his father and sister.