Servants of Sin: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

"What should he do? What? What? What?" he asked himself, as he recognised this rider's presence and its nearness to him and observed that he could hear the horse's blowings, as well as the great gusts emitted from its nostrils and the way it shook itself on slackening its pace on the other side of the back panel of his carriage. What? He could not get out and fight him in his diseased, enfeebled state, brought on by a year of hot and fiery debauch in Paris following on years of coarser debauches when he had been a poor man; he would have no chance--one thrust and he would be disarmed, a second and he would be dead, run through and through. Yet he knew that, if the man outside but caught a glimpse of his face, death must be his portion. They had met often at Vandecque's and at the demoiselle's Montjoie; almost he thought that the Englishman had recognised him as he concealed himself in the porch of the house in the Rue des Saints Apostoliques--if he saw his features now, he would drag him forth from the carriage, throttle him, stab him to the heart. Doubtless he would do that at once--these English were implacable when wronged!--doubtless, too, he was in pursuit of him, had sought him in Paris, followed him to Eaux St. Fer, was following him to Marseilles. For, that he should be here endeavouring to find his wife he deemed impossible. She had been almost spirited away to the prison of St. Martin-des-Champs and there were but one or two knew what had become of her; while those who did so know had been--had been--well--made secure.

He had followed him, and--now--he had found him! Now! and there was but an inch, a half inch of carriage panel between them; at any moment he might hear the man's summons to him to come forth and meet his doom. And he would be powerless to resist--he was ill, he repeated to himself again, and his servants were poltroons; they could not assist him.

Thinking thus--glancing round the confined spot in which he was cooped up--wondering what he should do, his eyes lighted on the pistol box upon the shelf.

The pistol box! The pistol box! Whereon, seeing it, he began to muse as to whether a shot well directed through that small window--not now, in full daylight, but later, in some gloomy copse they might pass through--would not be the shortest way to end all and free himself from the enemy whom he had already so bitterly wronged.

[CHAPTER XXII]

THE STRICKEN CITY

Whatever effect such musings might have brought forth, even to bloodshed, had Walter Clarges continued to ride close behind the carriage containing his enemy--of which fact he was, in actual truth, profoundly unconscious--cannot be told, since, scarcely had Desparre given way to those musings, than events shaped themselves into so different a form that the idea with regard to the pistols was at once abandoned.

For, ere the summit of the ascent, which was in itself a trifling one, had been reached by both the berceuse and the rider following it, Desparre was surprised--nay, startled--to discover that the man he dreaded so much was not by any possibility tracking him; that the pursuit of him was not his object.

Clarges had ridden past the carriage almost immediately after coming up with it; he had gone on ahead of it--and that rapidly, too--directly after reaching level ground once more.

"Startled" is, indeed, the word most fitting to express the feelings of the man who had but a moment before been quivering with excitement--with nervous fear--within his carriage, not knowing whether his end was close at hand or not. He had felt so sure that the presence of that other, in this region so remote from where they had ever met before, could only be due to the fact that Clarges was in search of and in pursuit of him, that, when he discovered such was not the case, his amazement was extreme. Since, if Clarges sought not him, for whom did he look? Was it the woman who had become his wife? Yet, if so, how did he know that she was, had been, near this spot, even if, by now, already gone far away across the sea whose nearest waters sparkled by this time in the morning sun. For Marseilles was close at hand; another league or so, and Desparre would have reached that city--would know the worst. He would know whether his child had departed to that distant, remote colony, or had died on the roadside ere reaching the city. But his freedom from the presence of that man, of that avenger--even though it might be only momentary--even though the Englishman might only have taken a place in front of the horses instead of riding behind the carriage--enabled him to reflect more calmly now on what the future would probably bring forth when he came into contact with his enemy--as come he must. In those reflections he began to understand that vengeance could scarcely be taken upon him, sinner though he was. Clarges had married the daughter--he could not slay the father. No! not although that father had plotted to slay him--had in truth, nearly slain him by the hands of others. Not although he had himself taken such hideous vengeance on that daughter, not knowing who she was.