At Large

by E. W. Hornung

  XX

  STRANGE HUMILITY

  Dick found his room plainly and scantily furnished but delightfullyfresh, clean, and comfortable. There was but one narrow strip of carpetby the bedside, but the boards were as snowy as an admiral's poop; thenarrow bed stood out into the middle of the room, to the left as youcame in at the door. The ceiling, and the walls, and the blind, and thebed, and the tall new candles, and the dressing-table on which theystood, were all very white indeed. At the foot of the bed Dick found hisportmanteau and gun-case, and the first thing he did was to put togetherhis gun, and stand it in one corner of the room, ready for next day. Hehappened to stand it in the corner nearest the bed head, and farthestfrom the door; but there was no design in that: the whole action wasmechanical.

  He undressed slowly, or rather he was long in beginning. He stood,resting his elbows on the chest of drawers, and his chin in his palms,and watched the candle burn half-way down before he so much as wound hiswatch. It was only the wick's last throes that reminded him to put anend to its flickering and get into bed. But by that time Dick's mind wasmade up. When he lay down to sleep he knew precisely what he was goingto do first thing in the morning, and more or less what he meant tosay. He fell quickly into a dreamless slumber.

  After sleeping like an infant for two or three hours he experiencedsomething very like a dream, and that about the very man of whom hewould certainly have dreamt sooner or later. But this was no dream. Dickwas awakened: he lay still for a moment, peering through the darkness,and listening with all his ears. Then he started up in his bed, andcalled sternly:

  "Who is there? Who are you?"

  At the foot of the bed a tall figure loomed through the darkness. Thechallenge was answered: first with a short, soft laugh, then in themildest tones of the man who had passed himself off as Miles thesquatter.

  "Hush! I have come to explain."

  "Oh, it is you!" though Dick had known who it was from the moment thelight, stealthy step disturbed him.

  "Yes; it isn't a burglar, so lie down again. I tell you I come with afrank explanation. I suppose you will listen to a man?"

  "Why should I? You have broken faith with me!"

  "It amounts to that, I own. It must seem to you that I deserve nofurther consideration at your hands. Very well; all I ask is a hearing."

  The tones were so unlike anything that could have been expected from thelips of this man that Edmonstone was taken aback; they were so low as tobe scarcely audible; they were humble, and they were sad. It was thisvery humility that at first excited Dick's suspicion.

  "I will listen to you now," said he, after a moment's thought, "but itis the last thing I shall do for you. You might first strike a light.There are matches on the dressing-table behind you, and two candles, Ithink."

  Miles complied unsuspectingly with this reasonable request. He was sometime, however, in finding the matches. Yet he heard no sound (Dick's armwas so long, so lithe his movement) until the candles were alight; whentwo loud clicks caused him to wheel suddenly round, throwing onecandlestick with a crash to the floor.

  Dick was sitting up quietly in his bed, as he had been sitting a momentbefore; but in his hands was a double-barrelled gun--cocked--the buttnot six inches from his shoulder, the muzzle not three feet from Miles'sbreast. It could be brought to the shoulder in a small fraction of asecond. It could be fired with sufficient deadliness without beingbrought to the shoulder at all. A finger was upon each of the triggers.The light of the single candle glittered upon the barrels.

  "Now, my friend," said Dick, "I am ready to listen to you as long as youlike."

  Miles stared fixedly at the hammers of the gun. He did not speak, he didnot draw back. He stood there, in his shirt and trousers, motionless andsilent. This was not, as we know, his first interview under arms, but itwas the first in which the arms had been in the hands of the other side;moreover, he had once pressed a pistol to the head of this Edmonstonewhose gun covered him now. The reversal of things was complete--thetables were turned to the last inch. The strange part of it was that theoutwitted bushranger's face showed no trace of cunning baffled, or thefury of an animal at bay, which might have been expected of him. On thecontrary, his countenance gradually filled with quite anotherexpression--one of reproach.

  "I am not a fool," he said, speaking at last. "I was never yet foolenough to tackle a forlorn hope. Therefore, even if I had come into thisroom armed to the teeth to offer you violence, I should not dream ofcompeting against those double-barrels. But as I came empty-handed, andin peace, I, for my part, can say all I have to say comfortably intotheir muzzles--they can make no difference to me, unless you press toohard on those triggers in your anxiety; and if you did, perhaps it wouldbe the best turn you or any man could do me! At the same time you aretreating me like a dog. The only words that have left my lips were assubmissive as any victor need want; I turned my back on you without thesmallest suspicion, yet turn round again to find you pointing a gun atme!"

  "You call that bad treatment!" Edmonstone sneered. "You forget, perhaps,that you have no business to be loose in the world; you forget that Ifound you out and shielded you, wrongly enough, on certain terms, whichyou have broken! Well, I am reminding you; but I am not likely to giveyou a second chance of playing me false. That is why I keep the sight ofmy gun in a line with your stud--so; that is why, if you come a stepnearer, I won't answer for consequences."

  "Considering," said Miles, "how I treated you a few years ago, and whatyou owe to that treatment, I should have thought you might behave ratherdifferently to-night; you might have shown a little generosity, outlawas I am."

  "You remind me," said Dick, "that in '82, in the scrub near Balranald,you stuck up me and my mate, and took almost everything we had--exceptour money. I didn't require to be reminded of that forbearance of yours.I haven't forgotten it, and I know pretty well its worth by now, thoughhitherto I have overvalued it. But that old account--supposing it to beone, for argument's sake--was squared last month; you have been foolenough to open a new one."

  "It is a pity," said Miles, bitterly, "that I didn't let Jem Pound knifeyou!"

  "On the contrary, through saving me then you found one man in Englandactually ready to screen you from justice. If you had not broken faithwith him that man would screen you still; but as it is--Steady! don'tmove! I am pressing the trigger."

  "Do you mean that you are going to betray me after all?" cried Miles, ina quick gasp of dismay, yet drawing back--he had taken a step forward inhis agitation.

  "What else would you have me do? Give you another chance? Honestly,"cried Dick, with honesty in his tone, "I wish that I could! But can youexpect it?"

  "Listen to me!" cried Miles, in a deep faltering voice. "Listen to me!"

  "I am listening."

  "The other day, then--I mean the night you found me out, you and thoseblood-suckers--I was on the brink of a new life! You smile--but beforeHeaven it is the truth! I had lived for weeks as I never livedbefore--among good people. Bad as I was, they influenced me, at firstwithout my knowing it. It was a new side of life to me. I found it wasthe best side. I grew--well, call it happy. Then I looked back andloathed the old days. I began to map out a better life for myself. I wasa new man, starting afresh. I thanked God for my escape, for it seemedlike His act."

  "If the fellow isn't in earnest," thought Dick, "this is the worstblasphemy I ever heard. I half think he means what he says, poorwretch."

  "It was you that blotted out that new existence--just as it opened outbefore me! It was you that drove me from my haven! It was you thatturned me adrift in a city full of foes! So much for your side of thebalance between us!"

  Dick was half-carried away by the man's rough eloquence, and the note ofpathos in his deep tones. But he was only half-carried away; he was aman hard to shift when his stand was once taken. His answer was shrewd:

  "That city is the safest place in the world for such as you--safer eventhan the
bush. As to your friends, did you expect to live on themforever?"

  The other's vehemence was checked.

  "Perhaps you intended to become one of the family!" said Edmonstonescornfully, pursuing his advantage.

  Miles pulled himself together, and dismissed this keen question with asmile and a wave of the hand; but the smile faded quickly; nor had itbeen anything better than a ghastly mockery.

  "You do not appreciate my position," said Miles presently, fetching adeep sigh; "you cannot put yourself in my place. No honest man could, Isuppose! And you shut me off from all decent living; you made me bidgood-bye to the people who had befriended me, and somehow--well, made mewish I was a little less the ruffian! I became an outcast! I tried tomake new friends, but failed. I had lost my nerve somehow--that was theworst of it! I resolved to throw it up, and quit England. I took mypassage for New York, and--"

  "Do you mean what you say? Have you actually done that?"

  "Yes. The ticket is in my room, which is opposite this room." He pointedto the door. "I can bring it to show you."

  "No; stay where you are; I believe you. When do you sail?"

  "In a week--next Tuesday."

  Dick breathed more freely. Here was an extenuating circumstance of thebroken compact. On the whole, Dick was glad to find one.

  "Go on," said Dick, in a slightly less hostile tone: "tell me the rest,and what it was that induced you to come up here."

  "Surely you can see the rest for yourself? Surely you can put yourselfin my place at this point? I own that hearing you were not to be of theparty finally induced me to come--I thought you would not hear of ittill afterwards; but I came to bid my friends good-bye! to get one moreglimpse of a kind of life I had never seen before and shall never seeagain! for one more week in a pure atmosphere."

  "Oh! not to make up to Miss Bristo, then?"

  Blunt though the words were, each one was a self-inflicted stab to theheart of the man that spoke them.

  "No!" cried Miles, and his voice was turned suddenly hoarse; "no, beforeHeaven!"

  "If I believed it was that, I think I should pull this trigger on thespot."

  "It is not," cried Miles; "I swear it is not," he whispered.

  And Dick believed him then.

  "Why, man," the bushranger went on, more steadily, "you have got meunder the whip here. Down with the lash and cut me to ribbons the firsttime you see me playing false. Keep your eye on me; watch me all day; Ican do nothing up here without your knowledge; I cannot speak but youwill hear what it is I say. As to Miss Bristo, I will not go nearher--but this is a small part of the whole. In my whole conduct you willfind me behave like--like a changed man. Only let me stay this week out.But one other thing--a thing I would go down on my knees to you for, ifthat would do any good: don't open their eyes when I am gone. There willbe no need to; they will forget me as Miles the squatter if you letthem. Then let them. They think well of me because I saved the old manfrom drowning. Edmonstone, you can let me keep their good opinions ifyou will. God help me! they are the only good opinions I ever honestlyearned, because I got them entirely through that simple, paltry affairat the seaside. Do not rob me of them, now or afterwards. That is all Iask."

  Dick was beginning to waver.

  There was an honest ring in Ned Ryan's asseverations; and after all itwas just possible that a villain, who had shown a soft side at leastonce before, might be softened right through by the gracious influenceof an English home. Then Sundown, the bushranger, desperado though hehad been, had preserved hands unstained by blood; and Sundown thebushranger had saved him, Edmonstone, from death and ruin in theAustralian wilds, and Colonel Bristo from drowning. Such acts could notbe made light of or forgotten, no matter who was their author.

  Dick was relenting, and the other saw it.

  "Stay!" said Miles, suddenly. "You have my word only so far. I can showyou a better pledge of good faith if you will let me."

  "Where is it?"

  "In my room."

  Edmonstone nodded. Miles left the room, and returned immediately with apaper, which he handed to Edmonstone.

  "Why, this is a receipt of passage-money for two!" said Edmonstone,looking up. "You are not going out alone, then?"

  "No," said Miles. His voice was low. His back was to the window, throughwhich grey dawn was now stealing. It was impossible to see theexpression on his face--its outline was all that was visible.

  "Who is going with you?"

  "My wife!" whispered Miles.

  Dick was taken aback, glad, incredulous.

  "Your wife!" he said. "Then you admit that she is your wife? When didyou see her?"

  "Yesterday."

  "But not until then!" Dick meant to put a question; he did not succeedin his excitement--his tone was affirmative.

  "No, not until then," said Miles quietly; "because, though I have beenwatching her as closely as I dared, it was the first chance I got ofseeing her without seeing Pound. He thinks she has not seen me since thenight in Bushey Park. She must not escape him until the very day ofjoining me on board the steamer. If she did, he would find her sooner orlater; and then he would find me, which is all he is living for. Thatman would murder me if he got the chance. Do you understand now?"

  Dick made no reply, but it all seemed clear and intelligible to him;Pound's hold upon Mrs. Ryan, and the false position in which that fiendplaced the woman at the meeting of husband and wife, which accounted forRyan's misunderstanding and heartless treatment of his wife on thatoccasion; the reconciliation of husband and wife; their projecteddeparture for America; the necessity of deceiving Pound meanwhile, andgetting away without his knowledge. All these things seemed naturalenough; and, told in the desperately earnest tones of a strong manhumbled, they carried conviction with them. Nor were they pleaded invain.

  The way in which Dick finally put the matter was this:--

  "Remember," he said, "that it is for my friends' sake as much as foryours; that this is our second treaty; and that if you break oneparticle of it there are always four men in the house here, andvillagers in plenty within a cooee of us."

  "I know all these things," said Miles, very humbly, "and will forgetnone of them."

  And so the interview ended.

  When Miles was gone, Dick lifted his gun, which had lain long upon thecounterpane, pressed the lever, bent down the barrels, and aimed them atthe glimmering window-blind. The early morning light shone right throughthe gleaming bores--the gun had been empty all the time! Dick feltashamed of the part that it had played in the interview.