"You don't know who I am? Learn then! I'm the man you tried to
assassinate in a Mississippian forest--Charles Clancy--who means to kill
you, fairer fashion, here on this Texan plain. Dick Darke! if you have
a prayer to say, say it soon; for sure as you stand behind that rock, I
intend taking your life."
The threat is spoken in a calm, determined tone, as if surely to be
kept. All the more terrible to Richard Darke, who cannot yet realise
the fact of Clancy's being alive. But that stern summons must have come
from mortal lips, and the form before him is no spirit, but living flesh
and blood.
Terror-stricken, appalled, shaking as with an ague, the gun almost drops
from his grasp. But with a last desperate resolve, and effort
mechanical, scarce knowing what he does, he raises the piece to his
shoulder, and fires.
Clancy sees the flash, the jet, the white smoke puffing skyward; then
hears the crack. He has no fear, knowing himself at a safe distance.
For at this has he halted.
He does not attempt to return the fire, nor rashly rush on. Darke
carries a double-barrelled gun, and has still a bullet left. Besides,
he has the advantage of position, the protecting rampart, the moon
behind his back, and in the eyes of his assailant, everything in favour
of the assailed.
Though chafing in angry impatience, with the thirst of vengeance
unappeased, Clancy restrains himself, measuring the ground with his
eyes, and planning how he may dislodge his skulking antagonist. Must he
lay siege to him, and stay there till--
A low yelp interrupts his cogitations. Looking down he sees Brasfort by
his side. In the long trial of speed between the two horses, the hound
had dropped behind. The halt has enabled it to get up, just in time to
be of service to its master, who has suddenly conceived a plan for
employing it.
Leaping from his saddle, he lays holds of the muzzle strap, quickly
unbuckling it. As though divining the reason, the dog dashes on for the
rock; soon as its jaws are released, giving out a fierce angry growl.
Darke sees it approaching in the clear moonlight, can distinguish its
markings, remembers them. Clancy's stag-hound! Surely Nemesis, with
all hell's hosts, are let loose on him!
He recalls how the animal once set upon him.
Its hostility then is nought to that now. For it has reached the rock,
turned it, and open-mouthed, springs at him like a panther.
In vain he endeavours to avoid it, and still keep under cover. While
shunning its teeth, he has also to think of Clancy's gun.
He cannot guard against both, if either. For the dog has caught hold of
his right leg, and fixed its fangs in the flesh. He tries to beat it
off, striking with the butt of his gun. To no purpose now. For his
horse, excited by the attack, and madly prancing, has parted from the
rock, exposing him to the aim of the pursuer, who has, meanwhile, rushed
up within rifle range.
Clancy sees his advantage, and raises his gun, quick as for the shooting
of a snipe. The crack comes; and, simultaneous with it, Richard Darke
is seen to drop out of his saddle, and fall face foremost on the plain--
his horse, with a wild neigh, bolting away from him.
The fallen man makes no attempt to rise, nor movement of any kind, save
a convulsive tremor through his frame; the last throe of parting life,
which precedes the settled stillness of death. For surely is he dead.
Clancy, dismounting, advances towards the spot; hastily, to hinder the
dog from tearing him, which the enraged animal seems determined to do.
Chiding it off, he bends over the prostrate body, which he perceives has
ceased to breathe. A sort of curiosity, some impulse irresistible,
prompts him to look for the place where his bullet struck. In the
heart, as he can see by the red stream still flowing forth!
"Just where he hit me! After all, not strange--no coincidence; I aimed
at him there."
For a time he stands gazing down at the dead man's face. Silently,
without taunt or recrimination. On his own there is no sign of savage
triumph, no fiendish exultation. Far from his thoughts to insult, or
outrage the dead. Justice has had requital, and vengeance been
appeased. It is neither his rival in love, nor his mortal enemy, who
now lies at his feet; but a breathless body, a lump of senseless clay,
all the passions late inspiring it, good and bad, gone to be balanced
elsewhere.
As he stands regarding Darke's features, in their death pallor showing
livid by the moon's mystic light, a cast of sadness comes over his own,
and he says in subdued soliloquy:--
"Painful to think I have taken a man's life--even his! I wish it could
have been otherwise. It could not--I was compelled to it. And surely
God will forgive me, for ridding the world of such a wretch?"
Then raising himself to an erect attitude, with eyes upturned to
heaven--as when in the cemetery over his mother's grave, he made that
solemn vow--remembering it, he now adds in like solemnal tone--
"_I've kept my oath. Mother; thou art avenged_!"