He is soon within the shadow of the rock, still riding towards it.
It is just then that Clancy loses sight of him, as of the moon. But he is now also near enough to distinguish the huge stone; and, while scanning its outlines, he sees the chased horseman turn around it, so rapidly, and at such distance, he withholds his shot, fearing it may fail.
Between pursued and pursuer the chances have changed; and as the latter reins up to consider what he should do, he sees something glisten above the boulder, clearly distinguishable as the barrel of a gun. At the same instant a voice salutes him, saying:—
“I don’t know who, or what you are. But I warn you to come no nearer. If you do, I’ll send a bullet—Great God!”
With the profane exclamation, the speaker suddenly interrupts himself, his voice having changed from its tone of menace to trembling. For the moonlight is full upon the face of him threatened; he can trace every feature distinctly. It is the same he late saw on the sun ice of the plain!
It can be no dream, nor freak of fancy. Clancy is still alive; or if dead he, Darke, is looking upon his wraith!
To his unfinished speech he receives instant rejoinder:—
“You don’t know who I am? Learn then! I’m the man you tried to assassinate in a Mississippian forest—Charles Clancy—who means to kill you, fairer fashion, here on this Texan plain. Dick Darke! if you have a prayer to say, say it soon; for sure as you stand behind that rock, I intend taking your life.”
The threat is spoken in a calm, determined tone, as if surely to be kept. All the more terrible to Richard Darke, who cannot yet realise the fact of Clancy’s being alive. But that stern summons must have come from mortal lips, and the form before him is no spirit, but living flesh and blood.
Terror-stricken, appalled, shaking as with an ague, the gun almost drops from his grasp. But with a last desperate resolve, and effort mechanical, scarce knowing what he does, he raises the piece to his shoulder, and fires.