“I have no brother.”
“I am the son of James Huish and Mary Riversley!” cried the other with starting eyes; and then, as the young man loosed him once more, he cried: “It is true, I call God to witness—it is true!”
John Huish clasped his forehead with his hands, and tried to comprehend the fact thus suddenly brought before his clouded brain.
“You—my brother?”
“Ask in the other world!” yelled the other, as, with a stroke like lightning, he struck Huish full in the shoulder with a long keen-bladed knife, and, with a low groan, the young man fell over sidewise, and lay motionless amongst the heath.
“Curse him!” hissed the man savagely, as he rose to his feet, and then sank down feeling faint and giddy. “I’m sick as a dog. I’m torn to pieces. Curse him, it was time to strike!”
He wiped the blood from his hands, sought for and picked up the revolver that had fallen before the struggle began, and came back to think.
“Not room for two John Huishes,” he said, with a coarse laugh.
“Shall I go on with the game?” he said at last. “Yes? No? Too late. I shall be hunted down for this. The Baillestone people must know of the jump from the train. He will be found here to-morrow. I must get back.”
He bent over the prostrate man for a few moments, gazing at his calm, placid face, which now in the twilight seemed sleeping.