XXIX. — DARKE’S PAST LIFE.
Leaning on Nighthawk’s shoulder, I placed my eye at the aperture.
On a broken chair beside the three-legged table sat Darke, booted, spurred, and armed with pistol and sabre. In an old rocking-chair, without arms, the singular woman, who seemed to accompany him everywhere, sat rocking to and fro, and carelessly tapping with a small whip, the handsome gray riding-habit which defined her slender and graceful figure.
Facing them, on an old bed frame, sat the unfortunate Swartz—but I would scarcely have recognized him, if I had not known that it was he. His frame had fallen away almost to nothing. His clothes hung upon him as upon a wooden pole. His cheeks were pale, sunken; his eyes hollow; his bearing, cowed, abject, and submissive beyond expression. Let me spare the reader one horror, however. Hunger was not torturing the unfortunate man at this moment. Beside him, on the floor, lay a piece of meat, and an unfinished loaf—thus it was evident that food had been brought to him; and as some of that food remained uneaten, he must have satisfied his hunger.
From Swartz, my glance passed to Darke. This second survey of the worthy proved to me that he was what is succinctly styled “half-drunk.” But drink appeared not to have exhilarated him. It seemed even to have made him more morose. In the eyes and lips of the heavily bearded Hercules could be read a species of gloomy sarcasm—a something resembling bitter melancholy.
The woman in the gray dress, had never appeared cooler. She rocked to and fro in her chair with an air of perfect insouciance.
The interview had evidently lasted some time before our arrival at the house; but, as the reader will perceive, we came soon enough to overhear a somewhat singular revelation.
As I reached my position near the door, Darke was speaking to Swartz:—
“You ask why you are shut up here to starve,” he said, “and as I have some time on my hands to-night, I am going to tell you. That might be called ‘imprudent.’ No! I am talking to a dead man! You see I hold out no false hopes—you will not leave this house alive probably—I will go back, and tell you something which will serve to explain the whole.”