Nothing of all this sees the sot, but lies unconscious, every now and then giving out a snore, regardless of danger, as though everything around were innocent as the pale moonbeams shimmering down upon his cadaverous cheeks.
Possibly he is dreaming, and if so, in all likelihood it is of a grand gas-lighted salon, with tables of tapis vert, carrying packs of playing cards, dice cubes, and ivory counters. Or the mise en scène of his visionary vagaries may be a drinking saloon, where he carouses with boon companions, their gambling limited to a simple tossing of odd and even, “heads or tails.”
But if dreaming at all, it is not of what is near him. Else, far gone as he is, he would be aroused—instinctively—to make a last struggle for life. For the thing so near is death!
The fiend who sits regarding him in this helpless condition—as it were holding Lewin Murdock’s life, or the little left of it, in his hand—has unquestionably determined upon taking it. Why he does not do so at once is not because he is restrained by any motive of mercy, or reluctance to the spilling of blood. The heart of the ci-devant poacher, counterfeiter, and cracksman, has been long ago steeled against such silly and sensitive scruples. The postponement of his hellish purpose is due to a mere question of convenience. He dislikes the idea of having to trudge over miles of meadow in dripping garments!
True, he could drown the drunken man, and keep himself dry—every stitch. But that would not do. For there will be another coroner’s inquest, at which he will have to be present. He has escaped the two preceding; but at this he will be surely called upon, and as principal witness. Therefore he must be able to say he was wet, and prove it as well. Into the river, then, will he go, along with his victim; though there is no need for his taking the plunge till he has got nearer to Llangorren.
So ingeniously contriving, he sits with arms mechanically working the oars; his eyes upon the doomed man, as those of a cat having a crippled mouse within easy reach of her claws, at any moment to be drawn in and destroyed!
Silently, but rapidly, he rows on, needing no steerer. Between Rugg’s Ferry and Llangorren Court he is as familiar with the river’s channel as a coachman with the carriage-drive to and from his master’s mansion; knows its every curve and crook, every purl and pool, having explored them while paddling his little “truckle.” And now, sculling the larger craft, it is all the same. And he pulls on, without once looking over his shoulder; his eyes alone given to what is directly in front of him; Lewin Murdock lying motionless at his feet.
As if himself moved by a sudden impulse—impatience, or the thought it might be as well to have the dangerous work over—he ceases pulling, and acts as though he were about to unship the oars.
But again he seems suddenly to change his intention; on observing a white fleck by the river’s edge, which he knows to be the lime-washed walls of the widow Wingate’s cottage, at the same time remembering that the main road passes by it.
What if there be some one on the road, or the river’s bank, and be seen in the act of capsizing his own boat? True, it is after midnight, and not likely any one abroad—even the latest wayfarer. But there might be; and in such clear moonlight his every movement could be made out.