CURTIUS.
Richard had many subjects for thought to beguile his lonely way to
Gethin, but one was paramount, and absorbed the rest, though he strove
to dismiss it all he could.
He endeavored to think of his dead mother. His heart was full of her
patient love and weary, childless life; but her portrait faded from his
mind like a dissolving view, and in its place stood that of Solomon Coe,
haggard, emaciated, hideous. Still less could he think of Harry and her
son, between whom and himself this spectre of the unhappy man rose up at
once, summoned by the thought of them, as by a spell. It did not occur
to Richard even now that he had had no right to kill him; but he
shuddered to think, if he had really done so, how this late opening
flower of love which he had just discovered would blossom into fear and
loathing. In that case his heart would have been softened only to be
pierced. His mother's death, the knowledge of Harry's fidelity, and of
the existence of his son, to whom his affection had been already drawn,
unknowingly and in spite of himself, had dissolved his cruel purpose. He
was eager to spare his mother's memory the shame of the foul crime he
had contemplated, and passionately anxious that in the veins of his
new-found son there should at least run no murderer's blood.
"Faster! faster!" was still his cry, though the horses galloped whenever
it was practicable, and the wheels cast the winter's mire into his eager
face. This haste was made, as he well knew, upon the road to his own
ruin. To find Solomon alive was to be accused of having compassed his
death. There was no hope in the magnanimity of such a foe. But yesterday
Richard had cared little or nothing for his own safety, and was only
bent upon the prosecution of his scheme against his foe; now life had
mysteriously become dear to him, and he was about to risk it in saving
the man he had hated most on earth from the doom to which he had himself
consigned him. He had calculated the possibilities which were in his own
favor, and they had resolved themselves into this single chance--that
Solomon might be induced, by the unconditional offer of Wheal Danes and
its golden treasure, to forego his revenge. His greed was great; but his
malice, as Richard had good cause to know, was also not easily
satisfied. Moreover, even if his victim should decline to be his
prosecutor, he would still stand in great peril. It was only too
probable that he would be recognized at Gethin for the stranger that had
so lately been staying at Turlock; he had not, indeed, mentioned his
assumed name at the latter place; but his lack of interest in the fate
of Solomon--whose disappearance had been narrated to him by the
waitress--and his departure from the town under such circumstances,
would (in case of his identification) be doubtless contrasted with this
post-haste journey of his to deliver this same man. He had made up his
mind, however, to neglect no precautions to avoid this contingency. It
would be dark when he got to Gethin; and his purpose once accomplished
he might easily escape recognition, unless he should be denounced by
Solomon himself. In that case Richard was fully determined that he would
glut no more the curiosity of the crowd. He would never stand in the
prisoner's dock, or be consigned again to stone walls. The gossips
should have a dead man's face to gaze at, and welcome; they might make
what sport they pleased of that, but not again of his living agony.
Then, instead of his being Solomon's murderer, he would be his victim.
To judge by his present feeling, thought Richard, bitterly, this man
would not enjoy his triumph even then. Revenge, as his mother had once
told him, was like a game of battle-door--it is never certain who gets
the last stroke. If Solomon was now dead, starved skeleton or rat-eaten
corpse as he might be, Richard felt that he would still have had the
advantage over him.
"What is it? Why are we stopping?" cried he, frantically, as the man
pulled up on the top of a hill.
"Let me breathe the horses for an instant," pleaded the driver; "we
shall gain time in the end."
"How far are we still from Gethin?" inquired Richard, impatiently.
"In time, two hours, Sir, for the road is bad, though me and the horses
will do our best; but the distance is scarce twelve miles. Do you see
that black thing out to seaward yonder? That's the castled rock. He
stands out fine against the sunset, don't he?"
"Yes, yes; make haste;" and on they sped again at a gallop.
Within a mile or two of this spot Richard had first caught sight of that
same object twenty years ago. The occasion flashed upon him with every
minutest circumstance, even to the fact of how hungry he had been at the
moment. The world was all before him then, and life was young. Now,
prematurely aged, his interest centred in three human beings, and one of
those was his bitter enemy.
The dusk thickened into dark; and the tired horses--for the stage had
been a very long one--made but slow way.
"Faster! faster!" was Richard's constant cry, till the brow of the last
hill was gained, and the scanty lights of Gethin showed themselves. Then
it suddenly struck him for the first time what unnecessary speed had
been made. Why, this man, Solomon, strong and inured to privation, had,
after all, been but eight-and-forty hours in the mine, and would surely
be alive, unless the rats had killed him. Where had he somewhere read of
a strong man overpowered in a single night by a legion of rats, and
discovered a heap of clean-picked bones by morning?
The inn, as usual at that season, showed few signs of life; but there
were some half dozen miners drinking at the bar.
"Keep those men," said Richard to the inn-keeper; for Solomon had long
delegated that office to another, though his own name was still over the
door, and the _Gethin Castle_ was still his home. "I shall want their
help to-night."
"Their help, Sir?" said the astonished landlord.
"Yes; but say nothing for the present. Bring me a bottle of brandy and
some meat--cold chicken, if you have it; then let me have a word with
you."
Richard did not order the food for himself. While it was being brought
he sat down in the very chair that he had used so often--for he had been
ushered into his old parlor--and gazed about him. There were the same
tawdry ornaments on the mantel-piece, and the same books on the dusty
shelf. Nothing was altered except the tenant of that room; but how great
a change had taken place in _him_! What a face the dingy mirror offered
him in place of that which it had shown him last! When the inn-keeper
returned his mind involuntarily conjured up old Trevethick, as he had
received from him the key of the ruin, and doggedly taken his
compliments upon its workmanship. Truly, "there is no such thing as
forgetting;" and to recall our past to its minutest details at the
judgment-day will not be so impracticable as some of us would desire.
Richard had made up his mind exactly as to what he would say to this
man, but a question suddenly presented itself, which had been absent
from his thoughts from the moment that he had resolved to rescue his
enemy. It was a very simple one, too, and would have occurred to any one
else, as it had done already many times to himself.
"Has Mr. Coe been found yet?"
He listened for the answer eagerly, for if such was the case, not only
was his journey useless, but had brought him into the very jaws of
destruction. He would have thrown away his life for nothing.
"No, Sir, indeed--and he never will be," replied the inn-keeper. "When
the sea don't give a man up in four-and-twenty hours, it keeps him for
good--at least we always find it so at Gethin."
"Well, listen to me. My name is Balfour. I knew Mr. Coe, and have had
dealings with him. We had arranged a partnership together in a certain
mine; and it is my opinion that he came down here upon that business."
"Very like, Sir. He was much engaged that way, and made, they say, a
pretty penny at it."
"I was at Plymouth, on my way to join him, when I heard this sad news. I
came to-day post-haste in consequence of it. The search for him must be
renewed to-night."
"Lor, Sir, it is easy to see you are a stranger in these parts! I
wouldn't like to go myself where poor Mr. Coe met his end, on so dark a
night as this. It's a bad path even in daylight along Turlock cliff."
"He did not take that way, at least I think not. Have you a ladder about
the premises?"
"Yes, sure."
"And a lantern?"
"Now that's strange enough, Sir, that you should have inquired for a
lantern; for we wanted one just now to see to your horses, and, though
they're looking for it high and low, it can't be found nowhere."
"It doesn't strike you, then, that Mr. Coe might have taken it with
him?"
"Lor, Sir," cried the inn-keeper, with admiration, "and so he must ha'
done! Of course it strikes one when the thing has been put into one's
head. Well, 'twas a good lantern, and now 'tis lost. Dear me, dear me!"
Golden visions of succeeding to the management of the inn, and of taking
to the furniture and fixings in the gross, had flitted across this
honest gentleman's brain, and the disappearance of the lantern affected
him with the acute sense of pecuniary damage. The general valuation
would probably be no less because of the absence of this article.
"Send out and borrow another, as many, in fact, as you can get," said
Richard, impatiently; "and get ready a torch or two besides. Pick out
four of the strongest men yonder, and bid them come with me, and search
Wheal Danes."
"What! that old pit. Sir? You'll not find a man to do it--no, not if
they knowed as master was at the bottom of it. You wait till morning."
"Your master _is_ at the bottom of it. I feel sure he took the lantern
with him to search that mine. I will give them a pound apiece to start
at once. Pack up this food, and lend them a mattress to bring him home
upon. Be quick! be quick!"
Richard's energy fairly overpowered the phlegmatic inn-keeper, whose
conscience, perhaps, also smote him with respect to his missing master;
and he set about the execution of these orders promptly. Wheal Danes, he
had truly hinted, was a very unpopular spot with its neighbors after
nightfall; but, on the other hand, sovereigns were rare in Gethin, and
greatly prized. In less than half an hour the necessaries which Richard
had indicated were procured, and a party, consisting of himself, four
stalwart miners, and the inn-keeper, started for the pit. These were
followed by half the inhabitants of the little village, attracted by the
rumor of their purpose, which had oozed out from the bar of the _Gethin
Castle_. The windy down had probably never known so strange a concourse
as that which presently streamed over it, with torch and lantern, and
stood around the mouth of the disused mine. The night was dark, and
nothing could be seen save what the flare of the lights they carried
showed them--a jagged rim of pit without a bottom. Notwithstanding their
numbers there was but little talk among them; they had a native dread of
this dismal place, and, besides, there might now be a ghastly secret
hidden within it. A muffled exclamation, half of admiration, half of
awe, broke from the circling crowd as, the ladder planted, Richard was
seen descending it torch in hand. No other man followed; none had
volunteered, and he had asked for no companion. They watched him, as the
countrymen of those who had formerly worked Wheal Danes might have
watched Curtius when he leaped into the gulf; and as in _his_ case, when
they saw the ladder removed, and the light grow dim, and finally die out
before their eyes, it seemed that the pit had closed on Richard--that he
was swallowed up alive. No one, unless the strange story about their
missing neighbor which this man had brought was true, had ventured into
Wheal Danes for these fifty years! They kept an awe-struck silence,
straining eye and ear. Some thought they could still see a far-off
glimmer, others that they could hear a stifled cry, when the less
fortunate or the less imaginative could hear or see nothing. But after a
little darkness and silence reigned supreme beneath them; they seemed
standing on the threshold of a tomb.