OVERTAKEN.
Mr. Blake had made little notes of Cherrie's discourse, and had the
whole story arranged in straightforward and business-like shape, for the
proper authorities. He did not lead his fair companion straight to those
authorities, as she vindictively desired, but back to her hotel.
"I think I'll hand over the case to Darcy, Cherrie," he said; "and he is
out of town, and won't be back till to-morrow afternoon.--There's no
hurry--Cavendish won't leave Speckport yet awhile. We'll wait until
to-morrow, Cherrie."
Cherrie had to obey orders; and passed the time watching the passers-by
under her window. There were plenty of passers-by, for the window
fronted on Queen Street, and Cherrie knew almost every one. It was hard
sometimes to hide behind the curtain instead of throwing open the
casement and hailing those old friends who brought back so vividly the
happy days when she had been the little black-eyed belle, and Captain
Cavendish was unknown. It seemed only like yesterday since she had
tripped down that sunlit street, in glittering silk, with all the men
bowing, and smiling, and tipping their hats jocosely to her; only
yesterday since the good-looking young drygoods clerks vaulted airily
over the counters to do her bidding. And now, and now! She never could
be what she had been again. And to this man, this false and treacherous
Englishman, for whom she had sacrificed noble-hearted Charley Marsh, she
owed it all. She set her teeth vindictively, and clenched her little
fist at the thought.
"But I'll pay him for it! I'll teach him to despise me! I only hope they
may hang him--the villain! Hard labor for life would not be half
punishment enough for him!"
They talk of presentiments! Surely, there never was such a thing, else
why had George Cavendish no dim foreshadowing of the doom darkening so
rapidly around him. He had told Val Blake he had an engagement. So he
had; it was in Prince Street, with Mr. Tom Oaks, who had returned to
Speckport, and who was going the road to ruin faster than any victim
Captain Cavendish had ever in hand before. It was growing dusk when they
left the gambling-hell; and Mr. Oaks was poorer and Captain Cavendish
richer by several hundred pounds than when they entered. The gorgeous
coloring of the sunset yet flared in the sky, though the crimson and
amber were flecked with sinister black. Captain Cavendish drew out a
gold hunting-watch, and looked at the hour. "Past six," he said,
carelessly; "I shall be late at Redmon, I fear. The hour is seven, I
believe. Do you drive there this evening?"
"No," said Mr. Oaks, with a black scowl, "I hope my legs will be palsied
if ever they cross the threshold of that woman! I'm not a hound, to fawn
on people who kick me!"
Captain Cavendish only smiled--he rarely lost his temper--and went off
to his hotel, whistling an opera air. He passed under Cherrie's window;
but no prescience of the flashing black eyes above troubled the serenity
of his mind. He was walking steadily to his fate, as we all
walk--blindly, unconsciously.
Captain Cavendish was the last to arrive at Redmon--all the other guests
were assembled in the drawing-room when he entered, and they had been
discussing him and his departure for the last quarter of an hour.
The dinner party at Redmon was a very pleasant one; and every one,
except, perhaps, the stately hostess herself, was very gay and animated.
Mr. Wyndham, despite the trouble he was in about his poor mad mother,
was the most entertaining and agreeable of hosts. The ladies, when they
flocked back to the drawing-room, enthusiastically pronounced Mr.
Wyndham "a perfect love!" and declared they quite envied Mrs. Wyndham a
husband who could tell such charming stories, and who was so
delightfully clever and talented. And Olive Wyndham smiled, and sat
down at the piano to do her share of the entertaining, with that dreary
pain at her beating and rebellious heart that never seemed to leave it
now. Yes, it was a very pleasant evening; and Captain Cavendish found it
so, and lingered strangely, talking to his hostess after all the rest
had gone. Lieutenant the Honorable L. H. Blank, who was waiting for him
on the graveled drive outside, grew savage as he pulled out his watch
and saw it wanted only a quarter of twelve.
"Confound the fellow!" he muttered, "does he mean to stay all night
talking to Mrs. Wyndham, and I am sleepy. Oh, here he is at last! I say,
Cavendish, what the dickens kept you?"
Captain Cavendish laughed, as he vaulted into his saddle.
"What's your hurry, my dear fellow? I was talking to Mrs. Wyndham, and
common politeness forbade my cutting the conversation short."
"Common bosh! Mrs. Wyndham was yawning in your face, I dare say! My
belief is, Cavendish, you are as much in love with that black-eyed
goddess now as ever."
"Pooh! it was only a flirtation all through; and I would as soon flirt
with a married lady any day as a single one. She looked superb to-night,
did not she, in that dress that flashed as she walked--was it pink or
white--and that ivy crown on her head?"
"She always looks superb! I should like to fetch such a wife as that
back to old England. A coronet would sit well on that stately head."
A strangely-bitter regret for what he had lost smote the heart of
Captain Cavendish. It might have been. He might have brought that
black-eyed divinity as his wife to England, but for Paul Wyndham. Why
had she preferred that man to him?
"I wonder if she loves him?" he said aloud.
"Who?--her husband? Do you know, Cavendish, she puzzles me there. She
treats him with fearfully frigid politeness, but she never ceases to
watch him. If he were any kind of man but the kind he is, I should say
she was jealous of him. He is a capital fellow, anyhow, and I like him
immensely."
They rode through the iron gates as he spoke, which clanged noisily
behind them. The night was not very bright, for the moon struggled
through ragged piles of black cloud, and only glimmered with a wan and
pallid light on the earth. The trees loomed up black against the clear
sky, and cast vivid and unearthly shadows across the dusty road. A
sighing wind moaned fitfully through the wood, and the trees surged and
groaned, and rocked to and fro restlessly. It was a spectral night
enough, and the young lieutenant shivered in the fitful blast.
"I feel as if I had taken a shower-bath of ice-water," he said. "Wasn't
it somewhere near here that Val Blake saw the ghost? Good Heavens!
What's that?"
As he spoke, there suddenly came forth from the shadow of the tree, as
if it took shape from the blackness, a figure--a woman's figure, with
long disordered fair hair, and a face white as snow. Captain Cavendish
gave an awful cry as he saw it; the cry startled his horse--only a
half-tamed thing at best--and, with a loud neigh, it started off like an
arrow from a bow. The horse of Lieutenant Blank, either taking this as a
challenge, or frightened by the sudden appearance of the woman, pricked
up its ears and fled after, with a velocity that nearly unseated his
rider. The lieutenant overtook his companion as they clattered through
the streets of the town, and the face of Captain Cavendish was livid.
"For Heaven's sake, Cavendish!" cried the young man, "what was that?
What was that we saw?"
"It was Nathalie Marsh!" Captain Cavendish said, in an awful voice.
"Don't speak to me, Blank! I am going mad!"
He looked as if he was, as he galloped furiously out of sight, waking
the sleeping townsfolk with the thunder of his horse's hoofs. He had
heard the story of the ghost, and had laughed at it, with the rest; but
he had heard it in broad daylight, and the most timid of us can laugh at
ghost-stories then. He had not been thinking of her, and he had seen
her--he had seen her at midnight--true ghostly hour--on the lonesome
Redmon road, with her death-white face and streaming hair! He had seen
her--he had seen the ghost of Nathalie Marsh!
Mr. Johnston, the sleepy valet, sitting up for his master, recoiled in
terror as that master crossed the threshold of the room. Captain
Cavendish only stared vaguely as the man spoke to him, and strode by him
and into his room, with an unearthly glare in his eyes and the horrible
lividness of death in his face. Mr. Johnston stood appalled outside the
door, wondering if his master had committed a murder on the way
home--nothing less could excuse his looking like that. Once, half an
hour after, Captain Cavendish opened his door, still "looking like
that," and ordered brandy, in a voice that did not sound like his own;
and Mr. Johnston brought it, and got the door slammed in his face
afterward.
The usually peaceful slumbers of Mr. Johnston were very much disturbed
that night by this extraordinary conduct on the part of his master. He
lost at least three hours' sleep perplexing himself about it, for never
since he had had the honor of being the captain's man, had that
gentleman behaved so singularly, or exhibited so ghastly and deathlike a
face. When, in the early watches of the morning, he presented himself at
his master's door with towels and water, it was in a state of mingled
curiosity and terror; but he found there was no call for the latter
emotion. Beyond looking uncommonly pale and hollow-eyed (sure tokens of
a sleepless night), Captain Cavendish was perfectly himself again; and
whether this was owing to the brandy he had drank or the exhilarating
effect of the morning sunshine, Mr. Johnston could not tell, but he was
inclined to set it down to the brandy. Even the paleness and
hollow-eyedness was not noticeable after he had shaved and dressed, and
partaken of his breakfast, and sauntered out, swinging his cane and
smoking his cigar, to kill thought in the bustling streets of the town.
Val Blake, standing in his office-door, hailed him as he passed.
"How are you, Cavendish? Heavenly morning, isn't it? Have you any
particular engagement for this afternoon?"
"This afternoon? What hour?"
"Oh, about three. You must postpone your engagements to accommodate me."
"I have none so early. I dine with the mess at six. What is it?"
"A little surprise that I have in store for you. Drop into Darcy's
office about five, and we'll give you a little surprise!"
"A little surprise! Of what nature, pray?"
"Honor bright!" said Val, turning to run up-stairs. "I won't tell. Will
you come?"
"Oh, certainly! It will kill time as well as anything else."
He sauntered on unsuspiciously, never dreaming he was sealing his own
fate, Val Blake had no compunctions about entrapping him. He was so
artful a villain he must be taken by surprise, or he might baffle them
yet.
"So slippery an eel," argued Mr. Blake to himself, "must not be handled
with gloves. He may as well walk into Darcy's office himself, as be
brought there by a couple of police-officers."
Captain Cavendish returned to his hotel early, and avoided all places
where he was likely to meet Lieutenant Blank. Of all people, he wanted
to shun him from henceforth; of all subjects, he never wanted to speak
of the terrible fright he had received the previous night. So he
returned to his rooms, and smoked and read, and wrote letters, and dined
at two, and as the town clock was striking five, he was opening the door
of Mr. Darcy's office. And still no presentiment of what was so near
dawned darkly upon him; no weird foreboding thrilled in nameless dread
through his breast; no dim and gloomy shadowing of the awful retribution
overtaking him so fast, made his step falter or his heart beat faster as
he opened that door. Perhaps it is only to good men that their
angel-guardians whisper in that "still small voice" those mystic
warnings, that tell us poor pilotless mariners on the sea of life of the
shoals and quicksands ahead. Perhaps it is only men like this man,
whose souls are stone-blind, that cannot see dimly the hidden shipwreck
at hand. He saw nothing, felt nothing; he walked in carelessly, and saw
Mr. Darcy, old Squire Tod, and Mr. Blake, sitting close together and
talking earnestly. He wondered why they all looked so grave, and why two
constables, who had been looking out of a window, should place
themselves one on each side of the door, as if on guard, as he came in.
He wondered, but nothing more. Mr. Darcy arose very gravely, very
gravely bowed, and presented him with a chair.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said, indifferently, "I have dropped in
on my way to the mess-room, at the request of Mr. Blake, who told me
there was a surprise in store for me here."
"There is, sir," replied Mr. Darcy, in a strange tone. "There is a
surprise in there for you, and not a very pleasant one, either. Mr.
Blake was quite right."
Something in his voice chilled Captain Cavendish, for the first time;
but he stared at him haughtily, and pulled out his gold hunting-watch.
"I dine at six," he said coldly. "It is past five now. I beg you will
let me know what all this means, as fast as possible. I have no time to
spare."
"You will make time for our business, Captain Cavendish; and as for the
mess-dinner, I think you must postpone that altogether to-day."
"Sir," cried Captain Cavendish, rising; but Mr. Darcy returned his gaze
stonily.
"Sit down, sir, sit down! The business that rendered your presence here
necessary is of so serious a nature--so very serious a nature, that all
other considerations must yield before it. You will not go to the
mess-dinner, I repeat. I do not think you will ever dine at the
mess-table again."
The face of Captain Cavendish turned ghastly, in spite of every effort,
and he turned with a look of suppressed fury at Val Blake.
"You traitor!" he said, "you have done this. Your invitation was only a
snare to entrap me."
"Honest men, Captain Cavendish," said Mr. Blake, composedly, "fear no
snare, dread no trap. It is only criminals, living in daily dread of
detection, who need fear their fellow-men. I preferred you should enter
here of your own accord, to being brought here handcuffed by the
officials of the law."
Every drop of blood had left the face of the Englishman; but he strove
manfully to brave it out.
"I cannot comprehend what you mean by these insults," he said. "Who dare
talk to me, an English officer and a gentleman, of handcuffs and
crimes?"
"We dare," replied Mr. Darcy. "We, in whom the laws of the land are
invested. These laws you have vilely broken, Mr. Cavendish--for I
understand you have sold out of the service, and have no longer claim to
military rank. In the name of the law, George Cavendish, I arrest you
for the willful murder of Jane Leroy!"
It was an utter impossibility for the white face of the man to grow
whiter than it had been for the last ten minutes; but at the last words
he gave a sort of gasp, and caught at the arms of the chair on which he
sat. If they had wanted moral conviction before of his guilt, they
wanted it no longer--it was written in every line of his bloodless face,
in every quiver of his trembling lips, in every choking gasp of breath
he drew. They sat looking at him with solemn faces, but no one spoke.
They were waiting for him to recover from the shock, and break the
silence. He did break it at last; but in a voice that shook so, the
words seemed to fall to pieces in his mouth.
"It is false!" he said, trying to steady his shaky voice. "I deny the
charge. Charley Marsh was tried and found guilty long ago. He is the
murderer!"'
"Charley Marsh is an innocent man--you are the murderer. Your own face
is your accuser," said Mr. Darcy. "I never saw guilt betrayed more
plainly in all my life. You murdered Jane Leroy--yes, strangled her for
her pitiful wealth."
"Who has told you this infernal story?" exclaimed the infuriated
captive, glaring upon the lawyer. "Has that d--d scoundrel found----" He
stopped suddenly, nearly choking himself with his own words, and the
phlegmatic lawyer finished the sentence.
"Found Cherrie?--yes! You see there is no hope for you now. Here,
Cherrie, my girl, come out!"
There was a door standing ajar opposite them, that looked as if it led
into some inner and smaller office. As the door opened wide, the
prisoner caught a glimpse of two men, only a glimpse; for the next
moment Cherrie stood before him. The last faint glimmer of hope died out
in his breast at sight of her with that vindictive look in her face.
"Oh, you villain!" screamed Cherrie, shaking her fist at him, her black
eyes flashing fire. "You mean, lying, deceitful villain! I'll fix you
off for the way you have treated me! I'll tell everything--I have told
it, and I'll tell it again, and again, and again; and I hope they'll
hang you, and I'll go to see you hung with the greatest pleasure, I
will!"
Here Cherrie, who had not drawn breath, and was scarlet in the face, had
to stop for a second, and Mr. Darcy struck in:
"Hold your tongue, Cherrie! Not another word! Stick to facts--abuse is
superfluous. You see, Captain Cavendish, with the evidence of this
witness, nothing more is needed but drawing out a warrant for your
arrest. She is prepared to swear positively to your guilt."
"I don't doubt it," said Captain Cavendish, with a bitter sneer; "such a
creature as she is would swear to anything, I dare say. We all know the
character of Cherrie Nettleby."
"Silence, sir!" thundered Mr. Darcy; "you are the very last who should
cast a stone at her--you, who have deliberately led her to her ruin!"
"He told me I was his wife," sobbed Cherrie, hysterically, "or I never
should have gone. I never knew it was a sham marriage, until Mr. Blake
told me so down in Charlottetown. We were married in the Methodist
meeting-house, and I thought it was a minister; and Mr. Blake was there,
and I thought it was all right! Oh, dear me!" sobbed Cherrie, the
hysterics growing alarming; "everybody was in a wicked plot against me,
and I was only a poor girl, and not up to them; and I wish I had never
been born--so there!"
Squire Tod and Mr. Darcy turned with looks of stern inquiry upon Mr.
Blake.
"What does this mean?" asked old Squire Tod. "You never said anything
about this, Blake."
"No," said Val, perfectly undisturbed; "I only told you Cherrie had run
away with Captain Cavendish."
"That is my irreproachable accuser, you see," said Captain Cavendish,
with sneering sarcasm. "What that woman says is true; I did inveigle her
into a sham marriage, but Mr. Val Blake managed the whole affair--got
the church and the sham clergyman, and deceived that crying fool there
fifty times more than I did; for she trusted him!"
Squire Tod's face darkened into a look of stern severity as he turned
upon Val.
"Mr. Blake," he said, "I am more astonished and shocked by this than
anything I have heard yet. That you should be guilty of so base and
unmanly an act--you, whom we all respected and trusted--as to entrap a
poor weak-minded child (for she was only a child) to misery and ruin!
Shame, shame on you, sir, for such a coward's act!"
Very few people ever suspected Val Blake of dignity. One would have
thought he must have shrunk under these stern words, abashed. But he did
not--he held his head proudly erect--he rose with the occasion, and was
dignified.
"One moment!" he said, "wait one moment, squire, before you condemn me!
Gentlemen," he rose up and threw wide the door of the room from which
Cherrie had emerged, "gentlemen, please to come out."
Everybody looked, curious and expectant. Cherrie ceased the sobbing to
look, and even Captain Cavendish forgot for a moment his supreme peril,
in waiting for what was to come next.
Two gentlemen, the Reverend Mr. Drone, of the Methodist persuasion, and
another clerical and white neck-clothed gentleman, came out and stood
before the company. Mr. Drone was well known, the other was a stranger,
a young man, with rather a dashing air, considering his calling, and a
pair of bright, roving dark eyes. Captain Cavendish had only seen him
once in his life before, but he recognized him instantaneously.
"You all know Mr. Drone, gentlemen," said Val, "this other is the
Reverend Mr. Barrett, of Narraville. Mr. Barrett, it is a year since you
were in Speckport is it not?"
"It is," replied Mr. Barrett, with the air of a witness under
cross-examination.
"Will you relate what occurred on the last night of your stay in this
town, on the occasion of that visit?"
"With pleasure, sir! I am a minister of the Gospel, gentlemen, as you
may see," said Mr. Barrett, bowing to the room, "and a cousin of Mr.
Drone's. I had been settled about two years up in Narraville last
summer, when I took it into my head to run down here for a week or so on
a visit to Mr. Drone. I had known Mr. Blake for years, and had a very
high respect for his uprightness and integrity, else I never should have
complied with the singular request he made me the day before I left."
"What was the request?" asked Mr. Darcy, on whom a new light was
bursting.
"He came to me," said Mr. Barrett, "and having drawn from me a promise
of strict secrecy, told me a somewhat singular story. A gentleman of
rank and position, an English officer, had fallen in love with a
gardener's pretty daughter, a young lady with more beauty than common
sense, and wanted to entrap her into a sham marriage. He had intrusted
the case to Mr. Blake, whose principles, he imagined, were as loose as
his own, and Mr. Blake told me he would inevitably succeed in his
diabolical plot if we did not frustrate him. Mr. Blake's proposal was,
that I should marry them in reality, while letting him think it was only
a mockery of a holy ordinance. He urged the case upon me strongly; he
said the man was a gambler, a libertine, and a fortune-hunter; that he
was striving to win for his wife a most estimable young lady--Miss
Marsh--for her fortune merely; that if he succeeded, she would be
miserable for life, and that this was the only way to prevent it. He
told me the man was so thoroughly bad, that all compunctions would be
thrown away on him; and at last I consented. To prevent a great crime, I
married them privately in Mr. Drone's church. Mr. Blake was the witness,
and the marriage is inserted in the register. I told Mr. Drone before I
left, and he consented to keep the matter secret until such time as it
was necessary to divulge it. I married George Percy Cavendish and
Charlotte Nettleby the night before I left Speckport, and took a copy of
the certificate with me; and I am ready to swear to the validity of the
marriage at any time and in any place. I recognize them both, and that
man and woman are lawfully husband and wife!"
Mr. Barrett bowed and was silent. Poor Cherrie, with one glad cry,
sprang forward and fell on her knees before Mr. Val Blake, and did him
theatrical homage on the spot. Val lifted her up, and looked in calm
triumph at the baffled Englishman, and saw that that gentleman's face
was purple with furious rage.
"Liar!" he half screamed, glaring with tigerish eyes as he heard Mr.
Barrett, "it is false! You never performed it--I never saw you before!"
"You have forgotten me, I dare say," said Mr. Barrett, politely, "but I
had the pleasure of marrying you to this lady, nevertheless. It is
easily proved, and I am prepared to prove it on any occasion."
"You may as well take it easy, Cavendish," said Val. "Cherrie is your
wife fast enough! Don't cry, Cherrie, it's all right now, and you're
Mrs. Cavendish as sure as Church and State can make you."
"It's a most extraordinary story," said Squire Tod, "and I hardly know
what to say to you, Blake. How came you to let him get engaged to Miss
Henderson, knowing this?"
"Oh," said Val, carelessly, "Miss Henderson never cared a snap about
him; and then Paul Wyndham came along and cut him out, just as I was
getting ready to tell the story. I meant to make him find Cherrie before
he left Speckport, and publish the marriage; only Providence let me find
her out myself, to clear the innocent, and bring this man's guilt home.
I had to keep Cherrie in the dark, as I never would have got that
confession out of her."
"Well," said Mr. Darcy, rising, "it is growing dark, and I think there
is no more to be done this evening. Burke, call a cab. Captain
Cavendish, you will have to exchange the mess-room for the town-jail
to-night."
Captain Cavendish said nothing. His fury had turned to black, bitter
sullenness, and his handsome face was disturbed by a savage scowl.
"You, gentlemen, and you, Mrs. Cavendish," said Mr. Darcy, bowing to
Cherrie, and smiling slightly, "will hold yourselves in readiness to
give evidence at the trial. I think we will have no difficulty in
bringing out a clear case of willful murder."
An awful picture came before the mind of the scowling and sullen
captain. A gaping crowd in the raw dawn of a cheerless morning, a
horrible gallows, the dangling rope, the hangman's hand adjusting it
round his neck, the drop, a convulsed figure quivering in the air in
ghastly agony, and then----Great beads of cold sweat broke out on his
forehead, and his livid face was contracted by a spasm of mortal agony.
Then he saw the two clergymen, Mr. Blake, and Cherrie standing up to go.
"I think I'll take you home, Cherrie," said Val, "I'll get another cab
for you! Won't they open their eyes when they see you, though?"
Mr. Blake and Cherrie departed, followed by the two clergymen; and no
one spoke to the ghastly-looking man, sitting, guarded by the constable,
staring at the floor, with that black, desperate scowl, that so changed
his face that his nearest friend would hardly have known it. Cherrie
trembled and shrank away as she passed him, and did not breathe freely
until she was safely seated in the cab beside Val, and rattling away
through the streets on her way home.
Home! how poor Cherrie's heart longed for the peace of that little
cottage where those who loved her, and had mourned her, dwelt. She was
crying quietly, as she sat silently away in a corner, thinking what a
long, and wretched, and forlorn, and dreary year the last had been, and
what a foolish girl she had been, and how much she owed to Val Blake.
Mr. Blake did not disturb her reflections; he was thinking of wronged
Charley Marsh, exiled from home, branded as a felon.
The cab, for which Mr. Darcy had sent one of the constables, drew up at
the office door, as Mr. Blake's drove away; and the prisoner, between
the two officials, with Mr. Darcy following close behind, came
down-stairs.
Captain Cavendish had gone down-stairs very quietly between his two
guards, neither speaking nor offering the slightest resistance; but his
eyes were furtively taking in everything, and the captive's instinct of
flight was strong upon him. One of the constables went forward to open
the cab-door, the other had but a slight grasp of his arm. The murky
darkness, the empty street, favored him.
With the rapidity of lightning, he wheeled round, struck the constable a
blinding blow in the face with his fist, that forced him to release his
hold, and, like a flash, he sped off, turned sharp round a corner, and
was gone! The whole thing had been the work of two seconds. Before any
one among them could quite comprehend he had really gone, he was
entirely out of sight.
The next instant, the still street was in an uproar, the two constables
and Mr. Darcy, shouting for assistance as they went, started in pursuit.
The corner round which Captain Cavendish had cut, and which they now
took, led to a dirty waterside street, branching off into numerous
wharves, crowded with hogsheads, bales, barrels, and piles of lumber,
affording a secure and handy hiding-place for any runaway. It was like
looking for a needle in a hay-stack even in daylight; and now, in the
thick fog and darkness, it was the wildest of wildgoose-chases. They ran
from one wharf to another, collecting a crowd about them wherever they
went; and all the time, he for whom they were searching was quietly
watching them in a black and filthy alley, that cut like a dirty vein of
black mud from that waterside street to the one above.
Drawing his hat far down over his eyes, Captain Cavendish started up the
alley, and found himself again in the street he had left. The cab still
stood before the office door of Mr. Darcy; he gave it one derisive
glance as he strode rapidly along, and struck into another by-street. If
he could only make good his escape; if he could baffle them yet! Hope
sent his heart in mad plunges against his side--if he could only escape!
Suddenly, a thought flashed upon him--the cars. There had been a picnic
that day, and an excursion-train, he knew, left at half-past seven to
fetch the picnickers home. If he could only get to the depot in time, he
might stay in hiding about the country until the first hue and cry was
over, then, in disguise, make his way to S----, and take the steamer for
Quebec. He had a large sum of money about him; he might do it--he might
escape yet.
He pulled out his watch as he almost ran along, twenty-five minutes past
seven; only five minutes, and a long way off still. He fled through the
dark streets like a madman, but no one knew him, and reached the depot
at last, panting and breathless. A crowd lingered on the platform, a
bell was clanging, and the train was in motion. Desperation goaded him
on; he made a furious leap on board, and--there was a wild cry of horror
from the bystanders, an awful shriek of "O my God!" from a falling man,
and then all was uproar, and confusion, and horror, and dismay. Whether
in his blind haste he had missed his footing, whether the darkness of
the night deceived him, whether the train was moving faster than he had
supposed, no one ever knew; but he was down, and ground under the
remorseless wheels of the terrible Juggernaut.
The train was stopped, and everybody flocked around in consternation.
Two of the brakemen lifted up something--something that had once been a
man, but which was crushed out of all semblance of humanity now. No one
there recognized him; they had only heard that one agonized cry wrung
from the unbelieving soul in that horrible moment--giving the lie to
his whole past life--but they had heard or knew nothing more. Some one
brought a door; and they laid the bloody and mangled mass upon it, and
now raised it reverentially on their shoulders, and carried it slowly to
the nearest house. A cloth was thrown over the white, staring face, the
only part of him, it seemed, not mangled into jelly; and so they carried
him away from the spot, a dreadful sight, which those who saw never
forgot.