Before the other could reach him, the ready Mr. Brander had
extricated himself from his perilous position and, leaving the bruised
post-boy to manage his own, strode back a pace or two, his hands
groping rigidly in the skirt-pockets of his mangy surtout. Mr. Tuke,
apt at an emergency, came up pistol in hand, which seeing, the long
rogue halted with a stony face, of which only the lurid eyes belied
the expressionlessness. For some seconds the two men faced one another
without a word. At length said the pursued:
“No doubt, sir, you are come to explain yourself.”
“I have nothing to explain,” said the other, stiff as the trigger of
his own weapon and as deadly.
“To what, then, am I to attribute this pursuit and maltreatment of a
harmless traveller using without offence the King’s highway?”
“Mr. Brander, I am not convinced my legitimate answer should not be a
bullet through your brain. I may give it yet, if you do not take your
fingers from that pistol butt.”
The rogue flung his hands in front of him, and clasped them there.
“This, you will admit,” he said quietly, “is a gross outrage. I have
done nothing to deserve it. I take post on my own concerns, and am
wantonly driven to this pass with any possibility of consequences.”
“For which you have yourself to thank. There must be two to a hunt.
Had you not fled I had not driven.”
“Surely, sir, it is excusable to fly a danger, and for an innocent
traveller to read evil in one who spurs after him along a lonely
road?”
Mr. Tuke permitted himself a spirt of merriment.
“Ingeniously argued,” said he. “So I am the highwayman? Well, I call
upon you to stand and deliver.”
“Indeed, sir, I have nothing worth your consideration.”
“Pardon me. Your sudden flight thitherwards, at the moment you
imagined me established and occupied in London, is a matter very well
worth my consideration.”
“You are mistaken. How could I know of your presence in London? You
will observe I make no pretence of ignorance as to your identity.”
“That is modest of you.”
He gave no further answer; but he set to and whistled an air from the
opera, “What a Blunder.”
“Now, Mr. Brander,” he said, “you have taken time by the forelock, but
I have taken him by the nose; so you may e’en go back the way you
came, and inform your graceful associates that the master of ‘Delsrop’
is returned to his own.”
He spoke with a very engaging _sang-froid_; but he was prepared for
contingencies. To his surprise the other, after eying him for some
moments in a manner of puzzled speculation, shrugged up his shoulders
and broke into a gobble of laughter.
“Come,” said the thief, “I will be honest with you, for all the
_marchand forain_ I am.”
“A scholar?” said Tuke. “Then you have two weapons to my one. We must
stand on even terms before I consent.”
“Bah!” exclaimed the respectable merchant; and, turning his back, he
fetched a pistol out of either side-pocket and fired each in turn at
the dangling chains of the gallows. Both bullets struck home with a
clank; the horses, twenty yards away, started and reared, and the
rogue, repouching the smoking barrels, slewed himself about once more.
“Does that satisfy you?” he said. “Now my only weapon is my tongue.”
“It shall carry further than a bullet with me, though I won’t swear it
shall speed as true. You have a very pretty aim, Mr. Brander.”
“I learnt to hit a mark when I was a schoolmaster,” said the other
dryly. “A settled fly is a fair test of skill. Well, sir, may I crave
a confident word with you?”
“The post-boy is out of ear-shot, I think.”
“I thank you, and I premise that this little expedition is of my sole
conception and at my own cost, and that the associates of whom you
spoke know nothing of it.”
“I see. You would have stolen a march on them?”
“Precisely; and, if possible, secure for myself alone the booty that
all desire to share.”
“You are candour itself.”
“I read in it my better policy. Believe me, necessity is my
foster-mother and her vile children are my comrades. Once I was
blameless, though a schoolmaster. The birch-rod was my business, the
fishing-rod my recreation, a passion for Elzivirs my ruin. I stole to
allay it--a crime as white as the theft of bread to a starving man.
The law took cognizance, grudging me all but my dry bones of syntax. I
have suffered, but I am no more vicious now than then. I desire no
gauds or vanities, but means only to the satisfying of this scholarly
craving for books.”
“To gorge on which you would pilfer a stone worth £70,000? You see I
play out my hand squarely, making no pretence of misreading your
motives.”
The tall rascal smiled.
“As to that,” he said, “I must do honour to your profound penetration.
Yes, sir, the ‘Lake of Wine’ is what I am after; and, for the rest, a
passion is none that halts on the hither side of satiety. You could
understand spending a thousand, or fifty thousand pounds on horses;
but horses die, sir, or breed-in and degenerate, whereas written words
beget great thoughts that in their turn intermarry and beget greater.”
“Well, Mr. Brander--and do you propose that I give you this stone to
buy books with?”
“I propose to come to terms with you on the subject.”
“Terms (you must really forgive my outspokenness) from a cut-purse and
a cut-throat?--terms from one who has no shadow of a title to the gem,
or, even if he had, has attempted to enforce it by means ridiculously
illegal? Upon my word, sir, for a school-master----!”
Brander waved a tolerant but extremely dirty hand.
“I will question you, Mr. Tuke,” he said. “Why am I a cut-throat?”
“Ah! had I been a scholar of yours, I might answer, maybe.”
“A mere veil of satire to conceal a paucity of proof. Why, sir, why, I
ask?”
“You are insistent. Shall we suggest--apart from reasonable surmise as
to your general career--that you had a hand, say twenty years ago, in
the murder of a colleague under these very gallows?”
“Twenty years ago I was acting usher at a school.”
“Oh! we won’t be particular to a day or two.”
Mr. Brander straddled his legs, knuckled one fist upon his hip under
his coat-skirt, and with his other hand rasped his chin meditatively.
“Well,” said he, “give a dog a bad name. ’Tis all of second
importance. Only, being so, ’tis scarce worth an untruth. Sir, I
regard lies as strong waters--the more regularly indulged in, the
weaker is their effect when needed. This is no particular occasion for
one. I had no hand in the man Cutwater’s death. I had not then any
shadowy knowledge, even, of the great stone or the concealment of it
that brought about his fate.”
“Nor of the admirable Mr. Fern?”
“Nor of Jack Fern, who alone, I believe, of the original gang
survives.”
“You interest me vastly. Then, I protest it is a fatuous policy of
that gentleman to make him new confidants in the secret, when, had he
worked alone, he might have aimed at securing all for himself--as you
are doing. But you really flatter my credulity.”
“Let it pass, then.”
“And pray why did Mr. Fern never return to the assault?”
“I had the story in rough from him in Newgate (where we were confined
together in ’86), that he was put in for an old affair before the
other scandal had blown by, and that there he had remained ever since,
his band dispersed or tied up;--and the year after, he went to Botany
Bay along with Governor Phillip and his fleet of off-scourings,
and----”
“Here he is back again--at the end of twenty years--an escaped
convict, I presume, with an ex-pedagogue for lieutenant and a
tradition to trade upon. Surely he is forfeit to the law at the
outset; and, upon my word, Mr. Brander, your confidences are
embarrassing.”
“Make him over to the hangman, sir. I give you my honour I’ll help
you. Maybe I could prove his title to a fast place in Execution Dock.”
“I see. You are really a very admirable rascal. But, you’ll want your
price?”
“Oh! without doubt.”
“And that is--no, no, Mr. Brander; not half the value of the stone?”
“It’s a damned risky business, Mr. Tuke. I play my life against a
competence.”
“But, listen, my friend. What claim has any one of you to a share in
the ruby?”
“If it comes to that, what claim have you?”
“None whatever.”
“See here, sir. The man was one of us. The stone was fair spoil for
division--not the perquisite of a single master-rogue. It was no
appendage, conditional on your acquisition of the property--now, was
it?”
“You know all about it, I see. Well, Mr. Brander, your boy there’s
getting impatient.”
The long man’s jaw hung slack while he rubbed it, and a very evil look
came into his eyes.
“Is that tantamount to saying you decline to treat?” he said.
“Your boy, Mr. Brander. I yield you precedence of the road, sir.”
“I’ve given you my confidence, by God! You’ll know what that means.”
“I never asked for it, you’ll observe.”
The devil looked out of Mr. Tuke’s eyes, and he set his teeth.
“You dog!” he cried low. “What makes you dare presume thus upon my
tolerance?”
His fingers were nervous with his pistol-stock. He took a quick step
forward. At that Brander’s fury came with a clap.
“Presume!” he hissed, and cried it again with a scream. “A cursed
broken gamester that daren’t show his face in public! A posted
defaulter! A despicable and despised spendthrift, with a wilderness
for his reversion! Oh! I understand you, sir--I understand you. You’re
a woundy character, by God! and you’ll make disposition of the stone
and think to patch your reputation with bank-notes. But, beware, sir!
There’s no law of heaven or earth that gives you a title to the gem.
To withhold it from the just processes of barter is to put yourself
without the pale of consideration. Why, who are you--who are you,
I----”
He choked with his very rage, and stood impotently quivering his
clenched fists.
“Mr. Brander,” said the other, absolutely suave and unheated, “I give
you two minutes to mount and be off.”
The click of his flint-lock cut in like the snap of teeth.
For a moment it looked as if a tragedy were near enacting. The gallows
chains, swung by the wind, creaked with rusty laughter. High overhead
a crow, lazily drifting down the valley, checked its course a
speculative instant and resumed it with a peevish and contemptuous
“Caw!”
Brander had turned abruptly and was stalking towards his chaise. Once
only he looked back over his shoulder, and then there was no
expression on his face but a smile; but that Mr. Tuke would have given
a dozen rubies to obliterate with a bullet.