He was preparing to accommodate me in this perfectly humane request when, tightening my fingers on the file, I struck the butt of his pistol with all my strength, and straight the weapon dropped from his hand and clattered ten feet to the stones below. The prisoner at my back was marvellously quick. In almost the same instant as the pistol tinkled on the yard the lad was up. He flew at the astonished Captain like a cat, and struck him full and neat just underneath the jaw. ’Twas a murderous blow, and the horrid thud it made quite turned my stomach over. But it was not a time for niceties. The Captain tumbled backwards down the ladder, neck and heels; his lantern was shattered to a thousand atoms; and in two seconds he, the pistol, broken glass, and much good benzoline were in a heap upon the stones. The prisoner waited for no courtesies. He did not even give his foe the chance of a recovery; for, disdaining to use the ladder, he jumped to the ground in such a calculated way that he descended with his hands and knees upon the Captain’s prostrate person.
Now it was evident that much more than this was required to provide the Captain’s quietus, for so soon as the prisoner fell upon his body he clasped him by the waist and clung to him with the tenacity of a leech. For a full minute they fought and wrestled on the ground and felt for one another’s throats. But the Captain underneath found the arguments of the man on the top too forcible. Thus by the time that I was down the ladder the rebel had managed to extricate himself, and was running away as hard as he was able.
And here it was that Fortune treated him so cruelly. The hours he had passed in prison with limbs cramped up and bound had told too sure a tale. He was unable to move beyond half the pace a healthy and clean-limbed youth should be able to employ. And the Captain was a person of the truest mettle. Despite the several shocks he had undergone and the bruises he had suffered, he was up without a moment’s pause and running the rebel down with rare agility. In his haste, though, there was a highly necessary article that he had failed to regard. That was the pistol lying on the ground beside him. And it will prove to you that I was still playing the prisoner’s game with all my wits when I say that I pounced on it and threw it up into the hay loft, where it could be no use to anybody. Then I sped after the pair of runners to see what the outcome was to be. They were racing through a gate that led into the park, which slept in a pale, cold silence beneath the peaceful moon.
I had not run a hundred yards when, alas! the issue grew too plain. Yard by yard the Captain bore down upon his foe. It was only a matter of minutes ere he once more had him at his mercy. But observing their movements eagerly as I went a thrill of horror trembled through my heart, for I clearly saw the fugitive clap his hand into his coat, and even as he ran, withdraw something from it secretly. He concealed it with his hand. But in a flash it was in my mind that this was the loaded pistol I had given him. And the Captain was unarmed.
If you give rein enough to mischief it may lead you into many and strange things. But I think it should always draw the line at murder. Much as I would have paid for the prisoner’s escape, ’twas more than I could endure to witness a stark and naked murder. Mind, I did not enter into the merits of the case at all. I would have the lad escape at every cost, but none the less, murder must be prevented. And now I saw that the holder of the pistol was tailing off in his speed so palpably that he must soon be overtaken. There was a reason for his tardiness, however. He was waiting till his pursuer should come within a yard or two; then he would whip round and discharge the pistol straight into his body.
This idea, together with the thought that I had armed him for the deed, was more than I could suffer. A wretched sickness overtook me. But it made me the more determined to save the Captain if I could. Therefore, I knit my teeth upon the weak cries of my terror and ran, and ran, and ran till I came within hailing distance of them, for both had now much slackened in their running. Happily the Captain had at last observed the weapon of his enemy and had interpreted his bloody motive. Thus, while the one awaited the coming of his foe, the other warily approached, but with no abatement of his courage: whilst I, profiting by these manœuvres, was soon at the place where they had disposed themselves for their battle.
CHAPTER IV.
OF AN ODD PASSAGE IN THE MEADOW.
“For the love of God, my lad, don’t fire!” I cried to the rebel at the pitch of the little voice that yet was left me.
They had now halted, and stood confronting one another very close in the dewy grass of the open meadow, while the moon wrapped them in her creepy light. For, perhaps, while one might count thirty they stood apart with as little motion as the ghostly trees, in a tense and straining silence. Again I cried:
“Oh, hold your fire, my lad!” more instantly than ever. And as I thus implored him, I made a great effort to overtake and get between them. But the matter was now gone utterly beyond any control of mine. They gave me no more heed than I had been a tuft of grass. And whether ’twas that the sound of me behind him spurred the Captain to a fury, or that he risked his life from calculation, sure, I can never say, for, as I came up, without a word the Captain sprang and the prisoner shot together. At the fierce crack of the pistol the Captain fell from his full height upon the turf, and I recoiled from the report and felt all at once the wet grass tickling my face; whereon a sudden darkness filled my eyes, and I lost the sense of where I was. For some little time I must have been insensible. But soon the blackness that pressed upon my eyelids lifted somewhat, and the buzzing in my ears abated. ’Twas then that I found myself sitting in a most quaint fashion on the grass, though the manner of my falling on that wet sward was a point more than my knowledge. A comic figure I must have cut, and I believe my earliest feeling was one of deep relief that there was but one spectator of my plight—he the Captain, who to tell the truth was in no prettier case. I was at first disposed to attribute my preposterous state to the wrought condition of my nerves, and had half arrived at the conclusion that even this pretext was insufficient for so extreme a situation, when I grew dimly conscious that a sort of fiery pain was throbbing in one shoulder. It was then I knew that I was hit. Meantime poor Captain Grantley was striving hard to rise. Twice he tried and twice he failed and fell back on the grass. The second time he groaned an oath, for his eyes had fallen on the swift figure of the prisoner fading in the dew.