“I will, your Reverence; sure as my name’s Richard Dempsey.”
Idle of him to be thus earnest in promising. He can be trusted to come as if led in a string. For he knows there is a halter around his neck, with one end of it in the hand of Father Rogier.
“Enough!” returns the priest. “If there be anything else I think of communicating to you before Thursday I’ll come again—to-morrow night. So be at home. Meanwhile, see to securing the boat. Don’t let there be any failure about that, coûte que coûte. And let me again enjoin silence—not a word to any one, even your friend Rob. Verbum sapientibus! But as you’re not much of a scholar, Monsieur Coracle, I suppose my Latin’s lost on you. Putting it in your own vernacular, I mean: keep a close mouth, if you don’t wish to wear a necktie of material somewhat coarser than either silk or cotton. You comprehend?”
To the priest’s satanical humour the poacher answers, with a sickly smile,—
“I do, Father Rogier; perfectly.”
“That’s sufficient. And now, mon bracconier, I must be gone. Before starting out, however, I’ll trench a little further on your hospitality. Just another drop, to defend me from these chill equinoctials.”
Saying which he leans towards the table, pours out a stoop of the brandy—best Cognac from the “Harp” it is—then quaffing it off, bids “bon soir!” and takes departure.
Having accompanied him to the door, the poacher stands upon its threshold looking after, reflecting upon what has passed, anything but pleasantly. Never took he leave of a guest less agreeable. True, things are not quite so bad as he might have expected, and had reason to anticipate. And yet they are bad enough. He is in the toils—the tough, strong meshes of the criminal net, which at any moment may be drawn tight and fast around him; and between policeman and priest there is little to choose. For his own purposes the latter may allow him to live; but it will be as the life of one who has sold his soul to the devil!
While thus gloomily cogitating he hears a sound, which but makes still more sombre the hue of his thoughts. A voice comes pealing up the glen—a wild, wailing cry, as of some one in the extreme of distress. He can almost fancy it the shriek of a drowning woman. But his ears are too much accustomed to nocturnal sounds, and the voices of the woods, to be deceived. That heard was only a little unusual by reason of the rough night—its tone altered by the whistling of the wind.
“Bah!” he exclaims, recognising the call of the screech-owl, “it’s only one o’ them cursed brutes. What a fool fear makes a man!”