Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  Then, memory of past events returning to his wakening mind, the rake had checked himself, blenched a little and looked awesomely about him. The doctor, quivering in every nerve, his teeth rattling in his head, vainly sought to crush himself behind a tallboy, to protect himself from the material, and pattered long-forgotten prayers to heaven for protection against the immaterial — for, scientist though Dr. Blizzard was, he could not here discriminate with which he might have to do.

  ‘Rat me!’ spluttered Sir Geoffrey, still looking about him, ‘and is this hades?’ He shivered, for he was naked. ‘It is colder than I would have credited from what they told me,’ said he. He caught sight of the doctor’s scared, grey face, horn-rimmed spectacles, and wig gone rakishly awry in the efforts the man made to conceal himself.

  ‘Faith!’ he pursued with a chuckle, ‘but it’s a place of surprises. You’ve a monstrous mild look, sir, for Satan — neither tail, nor cloven hoof, nor pitchfork? Gad’s my life! but you’re a disappointment.’

  He swung himself down from the table, and found his limbs so cramped that he howled a second in pain.

  At last, perceiving what manner of resurrection was this, the doctor took heart and came forward. ‘God ‘a mercy!’ said he, ‘I’ve heard of such things, but I’d never have believed it.’

  ‘You’ve an odd turn of speech, old Lucifer. Are you a devil, or are you not?’

  ‘I’m no devil,’ the doctor answered testily.

  ‘Then who the devil are you?’

  ‘Man, you were hanged at Tyburn this morning,’ quoth the doctor a trifle irrelevantly.

  ‘Was I so? Egad! I was coming to think that I had dreamed it.’

  ‘Oh, it was no dream. You were hanged. You are Sir Geoffrey Swayne.’

  ‘Then I’m in hades, after all. But of your pity lend me a cloak, for it seems I’m more in danger of being frozen here than burned.’

  The doctor gave him the garment he craved, and explained the situation. Sir Geoffrey was incredulous. The doctor heaped up arguments, cited precedents.

  ‘It is recorded,’ he said, ‘of a woman, in the reign of Edward III, regaining consciousness after having hanged for four-and-twenty hours, and of another woman at Oxford a hundred years ago who came to life again after having hanged for half-an-hour, besides other instances I’ve read of, yet discredited until now.’

  The doctor was waxing excited, and Sir Geoffrey had much ado to restrain him from running out to tell all London of this resurrection.

  ‘I’m dead,’ he told the doctor, with a grin, ‘and dead you’ll leave me, or, by heaven, it’s dead you’ll be yourself. I was hanged, and there’s an end to it — leastways until I’ve had a talk with that Kentish lout they call Sir Henry Talbury.’

  He told the doctor the true circumstances of his case, and he so succeeded in convincing him of the truth of it that the old man was won over to befriend him, and put him in the way of having justice done him after all. But that night Sir Geoffrey sickened of a fever, and was forced to keep his bed some days, so that a week had passed before he was able to leave the doctor’s house, and make his way to Hurlingston.

  Blizzard lent him ten guineas and made him a present of a suit of black Camlett, a hat, and a brown /roquelaure/, his own clothes having been reduced to rags by the violence that had attended his arrest. Thus equipped, Sir Geoffrey arrived at Maidstone at six o’clock in the evening of the first Monday in April. From Maidstone to Hurlingston was a distance of some four miles, which Sir Geoffrey covered afoot, reaching Hurlingston Manor as dusk was falling.

  He stepped briskly up the long white drive that wound its way between regiments of trees, to the clearing that fronted the grey, severely architected house. From long French windows to the left a shaft of light, emerging through half-drawn curtains, fell with a golden glow upon the lawn. One half of the window itself stood open, for it had been warm as a day of summer. Sir Geoffrey paused, and his eyes roved towards that glowing aperture. He hesitated in his original intention of boldly asking for Sir Henry. He turned aside, and still pondering, he drifted rather than walked, until he was in line with the opening, and able to look into the room. A second he stared with dilated eyes, then with a sharp indrawing of breath he sped forward, nor stopped until he was crouching at the window, peering into the room.

  Within sat the Justice of the Peace, like a toad with its legs wide, and his wig on his knee. He was sucking contentedly at a long-stemmed pipe, and at his elbow was a decanter and a half-filled glass of sparkling yellow wine. His huge dome-like head shone in the light of a pair of candles that stood in their massive silver sticks on either side of the papers spread out in front of him.

  Before him stood a woman all in black — a tall, nobly-proportioned woman, with a high nose and a handsome, high-bred face. She was speaking, and her fine eyes were full of supplication. Sir Geoffrey drew nigh and listened as he deemed he had the right to, for the woman was Lady Swayne.

  ‘Sir,’ she was saying, ‘of your charity I do implore you again that you investigate this matter, and as sure as you’re sitting there you shall discover that Sir Geoffrey was no robber, whatever may have been his sins. Sir Henry, you have made a widow of me. Do not make me a beggar also. I ask for justice — tardy justice — that my husband’s estates be not confiscated from me.’

  Sir Henry withdrew his pipe from his gross lips.

  ‘Madam,’ said he, ‘your husband was found guilty by judge and jury. He was “Scudding Tom,” the highwayman — there’s never a doubt of it.’

  The curtain rings rang harshly on the ensuing silence. The woman turned her head and screamed; the man looked up and gasped for breath. His face blenched, the pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers and broke into a dozen fragments on the floor; for there, between the dark green curtains, the lamplight falling full upon his face, which gleamed a ghostly white against the black background of the night, stood the wraith of Sir Geoffrey Swayne.

  He stood there, enjoying the sensation his advent had created, a sardonic grin on his white face, a glitter mighty evil in his bold, black eyes.

  The woman was the first to gather sufficient courage to address the apparition. Sir Henry had a desire to crawl under the table, and if he did not indulge it, it was because his limbs, palsied with fright, refused their office.

  ‘Is that you, Geoffrey?’ the woman whispered hoarsely, craning forward, her face white to the lips. ‘Speak!’

  And then a cunning notion shot through Sir Geoffrey’s subtle mind. Of what avail to protest his innocence? What proofs had he? A judge and jury had found him guilty; the thing was done with. He must play a subtle game if he would retrieve his lands from confiscation, and the nature of it was at once apparent to him.

  He stepped airily forward a pace or two, and the curtains fell together behind him with a shudder.

  ‘My name, madam, is not Geoffrey. It is Jack — Jack Haynes, better known to the vulgar as “Scudding Tom,” gentleman of the road. Your servant, madam, and yours, sir.’ He made a leg first to the lady, and then to the knight.

  Sir Henry’s colour was returning. It came back in a flood until it seemed as if he were doomed to apoplexy. A grunt escaped him. He sought words in which to utter his amazement, his perplexity and his dawning dismay. But the woman was beforehand with him. She had stared a moment at her husband in unbelief. Then, as if convinced — and well she might be, knowing Sir Geoffrey hanged — she swung round upon Sir Henry, her arm dramatically outstretched.

  ‘You have heard him, Sir Henry,’ she cried. ‘You have heard what he says. Will you believe me now, when I tell you again that you were mistaken? Here is the proof I needed. Will you do me justice now?’

  ‘Wait, madam,’ growled the knight. Then to the man: ‘What brings you here?’ he demanded.

  ‘I am tardily come, sir,’ answered the other, ‘but I could not come before. I — I was detained. Yet am I here now, and, it seems, still in time to do some good. I am come to tell you that it was I who robbed you
of your hundred guineas, and not Sir Geoffrey Swayne, whom you have hanged for the deed. ’Tis said that I resemble him, and indeed it must be so since you swore to him as being the man who robbed you. ’Twas an unlucky thing for him that when I held him up he should have knocked me from my mare and bestridden her himself, for the mare was well known — and belike ’twas the mare convinced men so easily that he was “Scudding Tom”. So much for the ways of justice!’

  Sir Henry stared at him with fallen jaw, and his thoughts were far from pleasant. This fellow was indeed the very image of Sir Geoffrey, so like in figure, feature and in voice, that neither he nor the man’s own wife could have sworn that he was not Sir Geoffrey himself, but for the unquestionable fact that Sir Geoffrey was hanged a week ago. The sight of that incredible likeness convinced him of the error there had been. The man he hanged was the very counterpart of this one. Small blame to him, then, for having sworn away the other’s life. Yet a sudden choler stirred the fat old knight, as much against himself for the life he had sworn away, as against this fellow for having been the cause of it.

  He heaved himself to his feet, acting upon a sudden impulse. His neglected wig tumbled from his knee and lay on the ground beside the pieces of his shattered pipe, whilst its owner lurched across the room in the direction of the bell-rope.

  ‘Whither away, Sir Henry?’ came Sir Geoffrey’s voice suavely; and, moved to look over his shoulder, the knight’s progress was arrested, and his heavy underlip shuddered in affright against his teeth, for he was staring into a levelled pistol. ‘I have not walked into the lion’s maw without precautions, sir,’ said he. ‘I’ll trouble you to sit.’

  But the woman, who had been considering him with scrutinizing eyes, raised a hand and waved it imperiously to Sir Henry.

  ‘Ring the bell, sir,’ she bade him briskly.

  ‘Madam,’ smiled Sir Geoffrey, ‘be not harsh with me. Besides, upon what charge would you have me taken?’

  ‘Upon the charge of highway robbery,’ thundered the knight. Nevertheless he sat down, as he was bidden. ‘By your own confession, it was you who robbed me on Streatham Hill.’

  ‘Bloodthirsty tyke,’ returned the other. ‘Have you not hanged one man already for that deed? Gads, my life, sir, you may not hang two men in England for one man’s offence.’

  Sir Henry considered him a moment, writhing under the insolence of the fellow’s tone. ‘Your resemblance to the late Sir Geoffrey is very thorough,’ said he drily. ‘It is little blame to me for my mistake. But if we have hanged one man for your robbery of me, yet there are counts enough besides, against you on which to hang you as well.’

  ‘Maybe; but you’ll drop the subject, or there’ll be one count more — the death of Sir Henry Talbury.’

  His lips smiled, but his tone was resolute, his eyes alert. Sir Henry, finding the subject as little to his own taste as it was objectionable to his visitor, dropped it there and then. Sir Geoffrey crossed to the door and turned the key.

  ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘and you, madam — for Sir Geoffrey I am sorry, though the world has it he was a nasty rogue. But I am here to prove that, at least, he was not the thing for which they hanged him. He was no robber. Restitution must be made to his widow. I have his death upon my conscience. I’ll not have more.’

  ‘Why, there we are at one,’ Sir Henry agreed. ‘Since I have seen and heard you, it is my wish, no less than yours, that Lady Swayne should not suffer more than already she has done. Will you depose?’

  ‘Let me have pen, ink and paper, and it shall be done at once.’

  Sir Henry supplied his needs, and Sir Geoffrey sat down to write.

  ‘You’ll be so good as to sit there — as far from the bell as the width of the room will allow,’ he bade the knight. ‘Make an attempt to have me apprehended, and I shall take a look at the colour of your brains — if so be you have any.’

  ‘Damme, you knave — —’

  ‘Peace, sir. Do you not see that I write?’

  They left him to it, Sir Henry and Lady Swayne sitting silently in his presence, whilst his quill scratched its way across a sheet of paper, his pistol beside him on the table ready to his hand.

  At last the confession that should save Sir Geoffrey’s lands, now that it could no longer save his life, was accomplished. When it was done, he rose and went to ring the bell, then admitted the servant who answered the summons, and relocked the door when he was inside. In the presence of the magistrate, the lady, and the lackey, he swore to and signed his depositions, and they appended their signatures as witnesses. He emptied the sand-box over it, and, bowing to them, his bearing grave, his lips mocking, he strode off in the direction of the window by which he had entered. He paused, his hand upon the curtains, and looked back over his shoulder.

  ‘Lady Swayne,’ said he, ‘I have done you some service this night. Let your gratitude see to it that I may go my ways without fear of pursuit.’

  She nodded her assurance. His roving eye smiled a moment on the knight.

  ‘Good-night, old beer-barrel,’ said he, and so leapt out into the darkness, and was gone.

  Lady Swayne shivered a little, and, moving to the table, took up the paper he had written and studied it a while. The bewildered lackey unlocked the door and departed at a curt nod from his master. A thin smile parted the lips of the woman, it was almost as a faint reflection of the smile that had haunted Sir Geoffrey’s face.

  ‘Madam,’ said Sir Henry, with a rough attempt either at seeking or at giving consolation, ‘you’ll bear me no deep ill-will for my error. I deplore it grievously. I shall ne’er forgive myself. And yet, madam, the estates shall remain yours — have no doubt of that; and if all they say be true, belike you’ll enjoy them better alone than in Sir Geoffrey’s company. He was no over-pleasant mate for any woman; a bullying, drunken, wife-beating scoundrel, who — —’

  ‘Sir,’ she broke in, ‘he was my husband. Will you be so good as to ring? I’ll be departing now.’

  It was a week before Sir Geoffrey found his way home to Guildford. He had tarried by the way until the last of Dr Blizzard’s guineas was exhausted. One night, at last, he strode, as bold and debonair as ever, across the threshold of his home and bade a servant, who was new to him, to conduct him at once to Lady Swayne.

  He stood in his wife’s presence, the door closed; they two alone.

  ‘Helen, my girl,’ he cried — for on occasions he could be a very lover to the wife he had so often beaten— ‘you played your part bravely at Hurlingston. It is as much to you, sweetheart, as to myself that I owe this re-unition. I’m with you again, my girl; and if I may not safely live in England, we’ll sell the old home and begin life anew in a new world.’

  She let him say no more. She had risen, and was regarding him from under knitted brows, her lips compressed, her bosom heaving under its black satin bodice.

  ‘Mr. Haynes,’ said she, at last, ‘have your wits deserted you?’

  His jaw fell, the boldness left his air and glance. ‘God ‘a mercy!’ he gasped. ‘Were you deluded too, then? Did you not recognize me? Helen, I am Geoffrey Swayne.’

  ‘Go tell it to fools, man,’ said she. ‘Geoffrey Swayne was hanged at Tyburn, as all the world knows.’

  ‘Aye, hanged was I, and yet I came to life again.’

  ‘A likely story — such things are common happenings,’ she smiled ironically.

  He took a step forward, his brow black as thunder now. ‘Madam,’ he snarled, ‘you are fooling me. You know me, yet will not own to me. Saw you not the writing of my depositions? Knew you not the hand? And if that were not enough to convince you, look you on this.’ He thrust back the hair from his brow, revealing a long livid scar above the temple. But the sight of that identifying mark left her unmoved.

  ‘Sir Geoffrey had just such another scar,’ said she quietly. ‘He came by it in this very room, one night when he was drunk. He had raised his whip to strike me, but lost his balance and fell, cracking his head against that hand-iron. A
ye, your likeness to Sir Geoffrey is very amazing, yet are you not Sir Geoffrey,’ she continued. ‘You are Mr Haynes, known to the vulgar as “Scudding Tom”, gentleman of the road, against whom there remains sufficient to hang you. Bear you that in mind,’ she added impressively, ‘nor push me too far, lest I forget my gratitude.’

  He was upon her like a panther. He caught her wrist until it seemed he must snap it, all the blackguard in him risen like scum to the surface of his vile nature.

  ‘Madam, you shall be whipped,’ he promised her through his teeth. But the bell-rope was within her reach. Too late he sought to drag her from it. She had caught it in her free hand, and his dragging her sent a clanging peal reverberating through the house.

  He let her go, and fell back quivering with rage, his face ashen. She recovered, and spoke coldly to him.

  ‘Mr Haynes,’ said she, ‘I will forgive you this out of consideration for the service you have rendered me. I will even do more. You spoke just now of seeking your fortune in the New World. I counsel you to follow so excellent an intention. In England you go hourly in danger of capture, and “Scudding Tom” will unquestionably hang if he be taken.’

  The door opened, and a servant stood before her. She bade him wait outside until she summoned him again. Then, to her husband, she continued:

  ‘So follow my advice, and get you to America, as you proposed. In return for the service you did me by your depositions, I’ll pay you half-yearly the sum of fifty pounds for life, so long as you remain out of England; and here you have your first six months’ pension, which will enable you to get you beyond seas. Go now, and God be with you, and lead you into better ways of life. You have widowed me by your evil courses, and a widow I’m like to remain.’ Her tone was full of a meaning he did not miss. He stared a moment, then his eyes moved to the roll of notes on the table before him, where she had placed them.

  Fury had failed him; he sought to cajole.

  ‘Helen, my girl,’ he began. But the heart of the too-often beaten wife had been broken overlong ago to be still sensible to prayers of his.