CHAPTER XVII.
"DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES."
"So, Master Sheriff," muttered Rumsey, as he stood coolly watching the thin stream of blood trickling slowly from the prostrate body of his victim, "that is one of you ticked off, at all events. It was such a pity you should be calling names for nothing, wasn't it? and wasps like you are mightily troublesome, not to say dangerous; for who's to guess where you mightn't go buzzing our plans? Not dead yet, aren't you?" he went on scowlingly, as a low groan broke from Goodenough's lips. "Why, you yelled out loud enough for a dozen men. I swear I could almost have fancied 'twas a woman's screech, 'twas so shrill;" and he looked round as he spoke. "But then one might fancy anything in this charnel hole of a place;" and again he cast covert glances at the shadows thrown upon the wainscotting by the flicker of the expiring lamp; and crossing to one of the windows, he looked out through the murky darkness, towards a light gleaming steadily in the far distance. "Cold as charity it is too. I'd give a gold piece to be out of this, and drying before the kitchen fire over at the Thatched House at Hoddesdon yonder, with a cup of mulled sack and a tender cut.—The mischief seize you!" he growled on, as a deep groan from the wounded man arrested his speculations, and turning sharply on him he saw Goodenough feebly move his right hand towards his breast. "Not still yet? Hang it! Richard Rumsey never pinned a jerkin so clumsily before. Want it pulled out, do you?" he continued, with a brutal laugh, as he came close up beside his victim, and stooping over him, plucked the poignard from his breast. "Have your way, then. But don't be saying it's my fault, if your last gasp comes with it." Then with savage indifference he saw the ebbing thread of life-blood swell into a stream let loose by the removal of the weapon, and the limbs relax, while the face grows gray and fixed. "So, I thought as much. Well, go your ways friend, to your journey's end, and keep yourself ready when you get there, to welcome the Blackbird and the Chaffinch when they knock. And now I think I'll be going my road;" and Rumsey glanced meditatively towards the window. "Another time will serve to explain to Captain Hannibal how you got yourself into this coil. Stay," and he slowly lifted the blood-stained poignard still dangling in his fingers. "A mighty excellent notion!"
The assassin.
Kneeling down by the wounded man's side, he wrenched open the clenched fingers of his right hand, and thrust the hilt of the dagger between them. "Yes," he muttered; "that will tell its own tale. And now for the Thatched House."
Returning to the window, and craning out his neck, Rumsey spent several minutes, first in consideration of the projecting corbels and cornices, and the stout web work of ivy covering the walls; then drawing his head back again, he fell to scowling contemplation of his lamed foot. Once on terra firma, nothing, he knew, was easier than to find the postern; and if by ill luck it should be locked, the trees bordering the walls on their inner side would assist him to scale them, and so away across the Rye by the bridges.
Only the first step was the hard one; but the guilty man knew there was no choice for him but to grapple with it; and after one or two clumsy failures, he succeeded in at last obtaining a firm footing on the window ledge.
An unexpected appearance.
Scarcely had he accomplished this feat, than a flash of light broke across his eyes, with such startling suddenness that it caused him to sway forward, and he would have dropped headlong into the moat, had he not stretched out both hands, clinging for dear life to the stout old ivy trails; and by a wrench and a twist that for some hours afterward he did not forget, held on by the jutting stone-work of the window, staring helplessly into the room at the figure of a man, who stood lantern in hand, in the arch of the door facing him. "Hullo!" he cried.
"The same to you, colonel," laughingly returned the voice of Lawrence Lee. "What in the name of Fortune are you about there? Marry! 'Tis an odd time of night to be practising gymnastics!"
"Lend me a hand for mercy's sake!" gasped Rumsey, "or I shall fall and break my neck."