"It's all I could do, m'lady," creaked Moffatt. "Very difficult—'s time of the evening. Did m' best, m'lady."
They climbed inside and were soon rising and sinking in a grey dusk, whilst boxes, bags and packages surged around them. There was complete silence, and at last Lady Bell-Hall went to sleep on Henry's shoulder, to his extreme physical pain, because a hatpin stuck sharply into his shoulder, and spiritual alarm, because he knew how deeply she would resent his support when she woke up. Strange thoughts flitted through his head as he bumped and jolted to the rattle of the wheels. They were dead, stumbling to the Styx, other coaches behind them; he could fancy the white faces peering from the windows, the dark coachman and yet other grey figures stealing from the dusky hedges and climbing in to their fore-destined places. The Styx? It would be cold and windy and the rain would hiss upon the sluggish waters. An exposed boat as he had always understood, the dim figures huddled together, their eyes straining to the farther shore. He nodded, nodded, nodded—Millie, Christina . . . Mrs. Tenssen . . . a strange young man called Baxter whom he hated at sight and tried to push from the Coach. The figure changed to Tom Duncombe, swelling to an enormous size, swelling, ever swelling, filling the coach so that they were breathless, crushed . . . a sharp pricking awoke him to a consciousness of Lady Bell-Hall's hatpin and then, quite suddenly, to something else. The noise that he heard, not loud, but in some way penetrating beyond the rattle and mumble of the cab, was terrifying. Some one in great pain—grr—grr—grr—Ah! Ah!—grr—the noise compressed between the teeth and coming in little gasps of agony.
"What is it?" he said, in a whisper. "Is that you, sir?" He could see very little, the afternoon light faint and green behind the rain-blurred panes, but the black figure of Duncombe was hunched up against the cab-corner.
"What is it? Oh, sir, what is it?"
Then very far away a voice came to him, the words faltering from clenched teeth.
"It's nothing. . . . Pain bad for a moment——"
"Shall I stop the cab, sir?"
"No, no. . . . Don't wake my—sister."
The sound of agonizing pain behind the words was like something quite inhuman, unearthly, coming from the ground beneath the cab.