A RESCUE.
Twelve o’clock has chimed from Big Ben, and Hyde Park is deserted.
It is a cold winter night, and the snow lies upon London’s open spaces.
It has been freezing hard all day, but the ice on the Serpentine is not
thick enough to bear the great army of skaters yet, and so there are no
loiterers along the bank.
Here and there, eluding as best they can the bull’s-eye of the
policeman who saunters along on his round, lie the miserable homeless
wretches who creep into the London parks and stretch their weary limbs
out for a while upon the seats.
On one of these seats sit, or rather crouch, a man and a woman.
The man is speaking.
‘Bess, my darling, leave me,’ he says. ‘Leave me. I can shift for
myself. Go back to the Jarvises—they will give you shelter, and I will
contrive to let you know from time to time where I am.’
‘No, George dear,’ answers the woman, ‘I will not leave you. Come what
may, I will stay with you. I could not rest, knowing that at any moment
you might be discovered and taken back again to that dreadful place.
Something tells me to hope—to hope that our troubles may yet pass away,
and we may find peace at last.’
‘In the grave—nowhere else,’ answers the man sorrowfully. ‘I am
branded. I am something to be hunted like a beast. Every man’s hand is
against me. I am an escaped convict.’
‘Hush, hush!’ whispers the woman. ‘Do not speak so loud; some one may
hear you.’
‘Where are we to sleep to-night says the man presently. ‘You can’t
wander about again such a bitter night as this.’
The woman does not answer. She is wondering what they are to do. They
are not starving, these people, and they are warmly wrapped up; nor are
they penniless, for Mrs. Jarvis had not only slipped some money into
Bess’s hand, but told her to come for more if they wanted it.
They could afford to pay for a lodging; but where are they to go?
Everywhere the man is terrified lest questions should be asked, lest he
should be recognised. The news of his escape is far and wide, his
description is advertised in the papers; for days they have been
wandering about, Bess going into the shops and buying the food, and at
night they have been sleeping in out-of-the-way parts of London,
entering late at night into the lodging-houses, and George keeping his
face tied up as though he had a bad cold.
They have adopted every means in their power to elude discovery; but
George is nervous, and Bess shares his fears. Last night when they
applied for a room at a little inn up by Hammersmith, the landlady
stared at George and hesitated, and all night long they lay awake,
fearing they heard the steps of the police on the stairs. To-night they
dread to apply anywhere. So long as they can wander about in the parks
and quiet places they feel safe. It is when night comes, and they must
go between four walls, that the great terror comes.
Thus it is that they are lingering on to-night in the park. George
suggests presently that they shall move on a little, for a thick mist
is falling.
Just as they are rising to go they hear voices down by the water, the
voices of men quarrelling, and something impels them to stay where they
are and listen.
They are quite alone in this part of the park; the night is too bitter
for any to linger in such a spot. The mist has grown thicker and
thicker, and they can see no forms, they can only hear the two voices
in angry dispute.
Presently there is a loud oath, then a crash, as of yielding ice, a
splash and a cry, and then the sound of footsteps hurrying away through
the fog.
Bess clutches her husband’s arm and listens.
‘Help! help!’
It is a faint cry from the water’s edge, and the thick mist half drowns
it.
Forgetting his position, forgetting all save that perhaps a
fellow-creature is in deadly peril, George Heritage runs in the
direction of the sound. Bess follows him.
He can hear a voice, and he can see two dark arms waving through the
mist.
‘Where are you?’ he shouts.
‘Here! here! Help, for God’s sake, help!’ shouts the man in the water.
‘I cannot hold out! I’m going!—the water’s a-dragging of me down! Help!
help!’
Quick as thought, Bess tears her shawl off, and gives it to her
husband.
‘God have mercy on me!’ cries the man, struggling fiercely to raise
himself above the crackling, treacherous ice. ‘Lord forgive me!’
At that moment George, clutching his wife’s hand firmly to support
himself, throws the shawl across the thinly frozen water. With a wild
despairing cry the man flings out his hand and clutches it. A moment
more and he is dragged ashore.
He is faint with exertion, and gasping, and he can scarcely stand.
‘Give me some brandy, quick!’ he murmurs. ‘The damned villain’s nearly
put my light out—curse him!’
‘Hush!’ cries George. ‘Thank God for your safety.’
Bess, trembling in every limb with terror, has been feeling in her
pockct. Dreading lest George should fall ill, she had, like the loving,
thoughtful little woman she always was, put a small bottle in her
pocket, and had it filled in the morning.
The half-drowned man seizes it, and gulps the contents down. Then he
turns to his preserver and peers into his face. Directly he can discern
his features he starts back. His teeth are still chattering with the
shock of the immersion, as he gasps out, ‘George Heritage!’
George starts back in terror, and Bess almost falls. Who is this man
they have saved from death to cry their secret aloud like this?
‘Nay, don’t be afeard,’ growls the man. ‘You’ve saved my life, and
you’ve done the best night’s work you ever done in your lives. Let’s
get out of this place, and I’ll tell you something as’ll make you thank
God all your days for what you’ve done.’ Hardly knowing what they do,
so dazed are they by the rapid progress of events, George and Bess
follow the strange man. He is wet to his waist, and his saturated
clothes are frozen on him, but he doesn’t seem to care about it. His
mind is busy with some thought that makes his burly frame heave with
passion, and his fierce face hideous with rage.
‘By G—d, if he only knew!’ he cries.
At the park gates he gets into a cab, and bids his preservers follow
him. He tells them enough to assure them he means them no harm.
In a quarter of an hour George and Bess are safely sheltered in a house
in Lisson Grove, and the man they have rescued sits with them by a
roaring fire, and tells them a story which makes Bess’s pale cheeks
crimson with excitement and her eyes bright with joy, and which makes
George raise his eyes to heaven in thankfulness, and cry:
‘At last. Thank God!—thank God!’
The man they have rescued is Josh Heckett, and the man whose retreating
footsteps they had heard in the mist, and who in a fit of furious rage
had hurled the old man on to the treacherous ice, was Edward Marston.
The next morning there was a council of war. George confided his story
fully to Heckett, for he had learnt enough to know that Heckett
cherished a scheme of deadly revenge, and that George was to be the
chief instrument in it.
Heckett had only one idea now—to hunt down Marston. He was relentless
in his hate, and he had found an instrument ready to his hand.
Heedless of his own safety, and the use that might be made of the
knowledge, he told George all, How the burglary had been planned; how
it was George had been suspected; how the cheques had been forged by
Smith and Co.; and how the evidence had been built up in order to
secure the conviction of an innocent man.
George was for dragging him away there and then to tell his story; but
Heckett soon showed him what folly that would be. He himself dare not
appear. He could not face the police, he said, for reasons; and,
besides, to exculpate George he would have to accuse himself.
‘You bide a bit, governor, and you’ll see it’ll all come right; but
it’s Marston as must do you justice, not me.’
‘Where is he?’ asked George.
‘I don’t know,’ answered Heckett. ‘I saw him last night for the first
time for five years. I sent word to a man named Preene as I must see
him, and Preene found him and sent him to me. I made the appointment in
the park late, for I didn’t want to be seen by too many people, for I
didn’t know what cursed game he might be up to. Then we had a row, and
he tried to murder me, the blackguard!’
‘It might have been an accident,’ suggested George.
‘No, it was my life against his, and he knew it. I knew too much, and
he feared as I should peach, and so he thought to settle me that way.
You saved me, and it’s the rummest thing as ever was. One ‘ud think it
was to be.’
At last George yielded to Heckett’s solicitation to let him go his own
way to work. So far he was already benefited by the acquaintance. The
house was Heckett’s. For reasons of his own he kept it to himself
entirely, and there George and Bess could remain for a while safe from
pursuit.
Safe until Heckett’s great scheme of vengeance was ripe, and then the
old man swore to George he should stand boldly before the world and
unmask the author of all his misery and sufferings.