Julian turned rather green as he read. 'I don't like it,' he
growled, 'Two signs, and independent ones. The one sign death. I
saw it myself when the bones were thrown. The other sign danger.
And Celia hasn't the sort of conscience that would let her invent
it. I don't know what to set about doing. But I must do something
or other.' He began to reflect. He started from the unsubstantial
grounds of twofold superstition, and tried to be practical in his
own defense.
'About midnight,' he thought, 'Well, I can trust Jim. And I can't
trust the other two boys that inhabit my back kitchen. Piet has
some of his own to get back for what I did last Christmas, and
the other boy I simply don't know. He was only sent to me to-day.
I'll tell Jim to go over to the location and take the other two
with him, and look after them for all of to-night. Tommy should
be back by eleven. We two ought to be able to look after
ourselves. Likely enough it's all moonshine this back-of-the-house
business.' He pitied himself for his anxieties, and took an
extra drink to dispel them. He went to the kitchen. Jim and the
new piccanin were just discussing the movements of somebody as he
arrived.
'When was it?' asked Jim.
'Just when the sun set,' the piccanin answered.
'Where?' asked Jim.
Then Julian cut them short, heedless of what they were saying.
'Lock up at once, and go over to the location. Mind, Jim, you
must look after the other two and see they don't come back here.
I don't want any boys on the place to-night. D'you hear?' Julian
proceeded to enlarge on the bigness of reward or punishment in
certain eventualities.
Julian went to his study, and put on his slippers. He called Jim
to light the wood-fire before he left. The night seemed a bitter
one, or was it that he had taken a chill? He took up a local
paper when Jim was gone. 'It's been a busy day,' he reflected, as
he straightened it out. 'Fancy my not looking at a paper of any
sort till this time of night.'
He searched the columns impatiently.
'No news to speak of,' he thought. But then he cried out as his
eye caught an out-of-the-way corner. 'Why, Hunter's dead!' The
news seemed to take his breath like a body-blow. 'A good man!' he
said to himself. 'The man who gave me the sop when he had dipped
it. The best of that Church gang! A man who called me an apostate
straight out more than once! The man who sent me that weird card
this morning! Yes and he sent me a quaint souvenir, a sort of
"Memento Mori," once before, last Christmas, just when my boom
came off. I haven't forgotten the words yet. I will say to my
soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take
thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." And God said unto him,
"Thou fool, this night."
'This night,' he muttered. 'I wish this night were well over.'