The Man from Jericho

by Edwin Carlile Litsey

He feinted, dropped the bridle, and pretended to draw aside. But the next moment he took a rapid step forward, threw up his arm, and sent the revolver flying through the air. It alighted on the thick grass, without exploding. It happened that the gaunt hound which had disputed Julia's passage at the beginning of her call, having finished the roast of beef in a further corner of the yard, was passing that moment on his way back to the kitchen porch, his hunger doubtless still unappeased. He was a brute used to sudden foray and quick brawls, and this movement of his master towards the horsewoman seemed to him a signal—a call to battle. So, as Marston deftly disarmed Julia, the dog promptly leaped at The Prince's front with a savage roar. The wonder is the poor girl kept her senses, but this attack of the dog was her salvation. The sensitive animal which she rode reared and swerved with the agility of a cat, eluding the hound's spring and colliding with Marston, who was sent sprawling upon the ground. The way to safety was clear! She touched The Prince's side with her heel, drew up her reins, and told him to go in a low voice of entreaty. But he needed no urging. Down the yard they flew, and Julia put him at the fence, for there was no time to be lost with the narrow gate. He went over the barrier with the ease and grace of a swallow, and on towards the road. The farm gate letting onto the pike she had left open, and as she dashed through it she almost ran into a buggy coming from the direction of town, with a man in it. The Prince swerved around the obstacle—he was running at last, and his rider made no attempt to restrain him—and was gone down the white limestone road like a greyhound in chase.

The top of the buggy which the man drove was down flat, for it was a summer morning, and he loved sunshine and air. He drew his horse up to a standstill, and turning in his seat looked back at the fleeing twain, now rapidly diminishing in a cloud of gray dust. The glimpse which he had caught of the two as they passed was almost as brief as that one gets of a landscape on a night of storm during a lightning flash. He thought he knew the colt—surely there was none other like it anywhere, and he was confident he knew the rider, although her face was white, terror-stricken, tear-stained. Whether she had recognized him or not he could not say. Her haunting eyes had looked straight at him for a moment, but no gleam of understanding had lighted them. Now they were gone; the distant hoof-beats had died. The man turned half way around, and looked again. This time his eyes swept the home of Devil Marston and its vicinity. As he looked his mouth grew hard, his eyes drooped at the corners, and the muscles of his cheeks ridged themselves under his skin. He understood. He slowly and deliberately got out, led his horse to the roadside and carefully hitched it, then passed through the open farm gate and strode briskly on. Two minutes later John Glenning, with folded arms, stood fronting Devil Marston between the cedars. The hound had disappeared. The two men were absolutely alone. There was no word of greeting exchanged between them. Each knew that civilities would be superfluous and out of place. They simply met as two things of primeval creation might meet, and the feelings which governed each of them in that moment were wholly savage. In every one this old strain is running: animal first, then soul, and mind, and heart. Mere being first; then civilization, with its accessories of education and refinement. Two animals met between the cedars; the mask had been flung aside. They had come face to face moved entirely by the world-old battle lust. The one naturally evil; the other made so because he knew that in some way the woman he loved had been mistreated and abused. Words were out of place and unnecessary, but a sense of right and decency crept into Glenning's seething brain, and made him speak.

"I want to apologize for striking you on the street in Macon."

The sentence was cold as ice, and formal. There was no feeling in it. The man to whom it was addressed stood with arms hanging loosely at his sides, his face sullen and crafty. He did not reply.

"You know I had to do it," went on the steel-like voice. "I regret the necessity more than I apologize for the blow. You deserved that. Let it pass."

Marston spoke.

"What in the devil do you want here? Begone, before I put the dogs on you!"

"I am here to give you a thrashing you won't forget as long as you live! You are a coward and a cur!"

The stinging words brought no added colour to Marston's face. They did not hurt him; his sensibilities were hardened, and were difficult to reach. But he cast an involuntary look of longing towards the revolver lying partly concealed in the long grass a rod or more away. The sombre eyes watching him with hawk-like intentness noticed the glance, and instantly turned in the same direction. Glenning saw.

"Don't you wish you had that in your hand?" he said. "I know you haven't one on your person, or you would have shot me before now. To relieve you of any apprehension I don't mind telling you that I am totally unarmed. How did that come there?"