For a long while after they had ceased to talk Lawless lay still,
staring wide-eyed into the darkness, until by the continued silence,--
the heavy soundlessness that enwrapped the house like some listening
mystery, he judged the two men were asleep. Nevertheless, it was very
warily he slipped his stockinged feet to the floor and then stood up.
Noiselessly, one step at a time, feeling his way in the darkness with
the unerring judgment of a man who has already in the light measured the
distance carefully from wall to wall, he crept towards the door.
Cautiously as he proceeded, his hand came in contact with the rickety
washstand, and in the general hush the noise he made, though slight
enough, sounded tremendous in his imagination. It brought him up all
standing, the pulses in his ears beating like so many hammers. He
remained quite still and almost held his breath while he listened for
the faintest movement from the next room, where Van Bleit and Denzil lay
in the dark waiting, as he waited, until they felt the time was ripe for
discussing certain plans of their own.
Perfect silence reigned.
Lawless drew a slow breath of relief. There was no sound in the
stillness other than that dull hammering of pulses in his ears. The
noise he had made, he rightly conjectured, was not so audible as he had
feared. But he did not mean running any risks; and so he remained where
he was, rigid, waiting, listening, while the minutes slipped away, and
the silence, heavy, portentous of lurking evil, remained absolutely
unbroken.
He was about to advance a further step when an extraordinary
interruption occurred. Stealthily, as though the striker sought to
stifle the sound, a match was rubbed lightly against its box, and the
next instant a light shone through the chinks in the partition, and from
the sounds Lawless judged that someone was getting off the bed, and that
in so cautious a manner as to suggest that whoever it was he was anxious
not to be heard. For a few moments Lawless suspected that his own
movements had aroused attention, and he waited, quiet-eyed and grim, for
the next move in the game. But after a while he began to think that he
was altogether mistaken. The occupants in the next room were as anxious
as he had been not to be overheard. They were whispering together, and
one of them moved stealthily across the floor, and a sound that was like
the crackle of paper reached Lawless' ears.
With even greater caution than he had used to cross the floor to the
door he now retraced his steps and softly advanced towards the glimmer
of light that showed through the chinks in the partition. He put his
eye to the biggest crack. Van Bleit stood in his pyjamas beside the bed
facing Lawless, a sealed packet, the sight of which gave the watcher a
queer start, in his hand. He was speaking to Denzil, who, sitting up in
bed, listened attentively with his eyes on the speaker. Van Bleit spoke
in so low a tone that had he been facing the other way it was doubtful
that Lawless could have heard. As it was he only made out part of what
was said.
"I daren't risk it," Van Bleit was murmuring. "I don't trust him...
ride this morning... If it hadn't been that I was armed he would...
letters must be got out of this..."
He began to speak more slowly and with greater distinctness.
"We'll wait for the dawn... there's no hurry. If he hears you, I'll say
you have gone for a ride before breakfast... out of the window... no
need to make a noise... ride slowly for the first half-mile, and keep
going towards the bush. If he should happen to catch sight of you, he'd
never suppose you were making for the town. I may be quite out in this,
of course, but I have my suspicions... satisfied when those letters are
safely out of..."
Lawless caught nothing more. But he had heard enough. He saw Denzil
take charge of the packet, and he caught sight of the butt of a revolver
sticking out obliquely from beneath the pillow.
He drew back softly, and smiled grimly to himself in the dark. Van
Bleit in his eagerness to save the letters from falling into his hands
was deliberately placing them there. The wily scoundrel had overreached
himself.
He stepped softly back to the bed, and lying down, waited for the dawn.
It seemed long in coming. And when at last the first pale glimmer of
light showed wanly in the sky he began to think that sleep had overcome
his companions. There was no stir from within. He lay quite still,
listening. After a while he fancied, but could not be sure, that he
heard someone moving. He listened more attentively. Without a doubt
someone was pattering about the floor in bare feet while he struggled
into his clothes as noiselessly as possible. He heard the window-sash
slide open, and raising himself and looking out, saw Denzil drop from
the low sill and pass beneath his window. He gave him time to reach the
stable and saddle a horse. Then he got up quietly and made his careful
exit by the door.
Once outside his movements were less cautious. He hurried to the
stable, and saddling the second horse, started in pursuit. He rode
behind the house, trusting that Van Bleit if he heard would ascribe the
sounds to Denzil, and followed the directions he had heard given in the
whispered instructions of the previous night.
It was not long before he descried his quarry. Denzil was riding
easily, as a man rides for exercise with no particular object in view.
He did not once turn his head to look back, but jogging quietly on his
way made steadily for the dense cover behind the hut. Lawless quickened
his pace and overtook him about a mile from the house. On hearing
someone behind him Denzil looked round, and reining in his horse waited
for him to come up.
"Hallo!" he said, a trifle uneasily, it seemed to Lawless. "You're
early astir. I thought I had the day to myself."
"Any objection," Lawless asked, "to a companion on your ride?"
Denzil laughed awkwardly.
"On the contrary," he said. "I hate riding alone. But I thought you
chaps were dead asleep. This to my thinking is the best time of the
day."
"Yes," Lawless agreed. "I usually ride before the sun is up."
They drew abreast, and walked their horses alongside the dense bush.
Denzil talked continuously as a man might who was ill at ease and
anxious to gain time. It was evident to Lawless that he scented danger,
and would gladly have been without his companionship. Once or twice he
looked about him furtively, as though some idea of flight possessed his
mind; but either his nerve was not equal to the attempt or the
possibility of being mistaken in his deductions suggested the prudence
of awaiting developments.
The development, when it came, was startling and unpleasant.
He had been looking about him in his furtive, shifty, nervous way, as
though wishful yet fearful of attempting escape, when suddenly facing
about, impelled by some force other than conscious volition, he found
himself staring blankly into the shining barrel of a revolver.
"If you so much as lift a finger," Lawless said coolly, "I'll blow your
brains out. Halt!"
The horses came to a standstill. Lawless, still covering the other man,
freed his foot from the stirrup and swung himself out of the saddle.
"Dismount!" he said, standing with the rein over his left arm, the right
raised with the revolver gripped in his hand.
Denzil reddened, but complied with the curt command.
"What's your game?" he stuttered, as he stood on the veld facing that
business-like weapon at uncomfortably close quarters. "What are you up
to?"
"Hands up!" Lawless said. And Denzil, alarmed and reluctant, held his
hands high above his head.
"I'll not keep you in that undignified and uncomfortable position longer
than necessary," Lawless went on. "It depends upon yourself how long
you have to endure the annoyance. You have in your possession a packet
of letters which it is my intention to relieve you of. You will save me
trouble, and yourself continued inconvenience, by telling me in which
pocket I shall find what I require."
"Oh! that's it, is it?" Denzil smiled uneasily. "You might have spared
yourself trouble. Van Bleit has the packet. He wouldn't trust it with
me."
Lawless dropped the rein, leaving it hanging down in front of the
forelegs after the Colonial custom with standing horses, and advanced
upon the speaker.
"If you waste my time by lying," he said, "I'll shoot you. Which pocket
is it in?"
Denzil's eyes snapped; but he was too genuinely alarmed at the cold feel
of the revolver against his temples to attempt further procrastination.
"Breast... right-hand side," he answered shortly.
"This spells ruin for me," he muttered, as Lawless plunged his left hand
inside his coat and drew out the sealed packet Van Bleit had given into
his charge in the bedroom a few hours before. "I don't know how I'll
face Karl. He'll be for shooting me himself."
"He's had one escape from hanging," Lawless responded drily; "he'll not
risk a second."
He withdrew to a short distance, briefly examined the packet, and
slipped it into his own breast pocket with an extraordinary sense of
exultation. He had succeeded where others had failed. He had boasted
to Colonel Grey that he would get the letters or kill his man, and here
were the letters that had cost so much safely in his possession...
He walked to where he had left his horse standing, and putting his foot
in the stirrup, vaulted into the saddle. Then he gathered up his rein,
and caught at the rein of the other horse.
"You can lower your hands," he said; "but be careful what you do with
them; I'm not uncovering you yet."
Denzil dropped his hands to his sides, and watched with considerable
interest the movements of the man who had so completely outwitted him.
"You are leaving me to tramp it, I suppose?" he said.
"I'm depriving you and Van Bleit of the means of following me," was the
brief answer.
"Van Bleit will never believe how entirely you surprised me," Denzil
returned dejectedly. "He'll think I ought to have stuck to the packet
at all costs. Man, I wonder if you know the value of what you've got
there? Look here! ... Stop a bit!" ... His manner became eager and
confidential. "Can't we do a deal, you and I? ... Let me stand in with
you--or, better still, give me a sum down, and I'll let you into the
know how to work those letters to the best advantage... What do you
say, eh?"
"What I have to say won't interest you," Lawless replied. "If I hadn't
passed my word, I wouldn't touch the damned letters, and the first thing
I mean to do with them is to get rid of their charge... But not to
you... If you had your deserts you would find yourself on the
breakwater. Now, march!" he added. "Turn your back, and keep going."
He had hardly issued the order when something happened that put an
altogether different aspect upon the face of things. Inexplicably, he
saw Denzil grinning as he abruptly turned about, and the next moment
something hurtled through the air and fell about his shoulders,
tightening with a suddenness that pinned his arms to his sides. The
revolver flew from his hand, and simultaneously he was jerked violently
out of the saddle. He fell heavily to the accompaniment of raucous
laughter, and, lying on the veld, straining impotently at the cords that
held him, he realised with bitter mortification that Karl Van Bleit had
securely lassoed him by a cowboy trick he was an adept in.