Within the Maze: A Novel, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Karl walked on, through the intricacies of the maze. Adam stood listening for a moment, and, then turned to retrace his steps. As he did so, the sharp dart of pain he was growing accustomed to went through him, turning him sick and faint. He seized hold of a tree for support, and leaned against it.

"What on earth can be the matter with me?" ran his thoughts after it had subsided, and he was getting out his handkerchief, to wipe from his brow the cold drops of agony that had gathered there. "As Ann Hopley says, I ought to see a doctor: but it is not to be thought of; and less than ever now, with this new bother hanging over the house. Hark! Oh, it's only the wind rustling the leaves again."

He stayed listening to it. Listening in a dreamy kind of way, his thoughts still on his malady.

"I wonder what it is? If the pain were in a different direction I might think it was the heart. But it is not that. When my father was first taken ill of his fatal illness, he spoke of some such queer attacks of agony. I am over young for his complaint, though. Does disease ever grow out of anxiety, I wonder? If so----"

A whirl and a rustle just over his head, and Sir Adam started as though a blow had struck him. It was but a night owl, flying away from the tree above with her dreary note and beating the air with her wings; but it had served to startle him to terror, and he felt as sick and faint again as he did just before from the physical pain. What nerves he possessed were on the extreme tension to-night. That Adam Andinnian, the cool-natured equable man, who was the very opposite of his sensitive brother Karl, and who had been unable to understand what nerves were, and to laugh at those who had them--that he could be thus shaken by merely the noise of a night bird, will serve to show the reader what his later life had been, and how it had told upon him. He did not let this appear, even to those about him; he kept up his old rôle of cool carelessness--and in a degree he was careless still, and in ordinary moments most incautious from sheer want of thought--but there could be no doubt that he was experiencing to the full all the bitter mockery, the never ceasing dread and hazard of his position. In the early days, when the attempted escape from Portland Island was only in contemplation, Karl had foreseen what the life must be if he did escape. An existence of miserable concealment; of playing at hide and seek with the law; a world-wide apprehension, lying on him always, of being retaken. In short, a hunted man who must not dare to approach the haunts of his fellowmen, and of whom every other man must be the necessary enemy. Even so had it turned out: Adam Andinnian was realizing it to the full. A great horror lay upon him of being recaptured: but it may be questioned whether, had the choice been given him, he would not rather have remained a prisoner than have escaped to this. Even as he stood there now, in the damp still night, with all the nameless, weird surroundings of fancy that night sometimes brings when the spirit is in tune for it, he was realizing it unto his soul.

The glitter of the stars, twinkling in their dusky canopy, shone down upon him through the interstices of the trees, already somewhat thinning their leaves with the approach of autumn; and he remained on, amid the gloom, lost in reflection.

"I should be better off there," he murmured, gazing upwards in thought at the Heaven that was beyond; "and it may be that Thou, O my God, knowest that, in Thy pitiful mercy. As Thou wilt. Life has become but a weary one here, full of pains and penalties."

"Master!" came to him in a hushed, doubtful voice at this juncture. "Master, are you within hearing? My mistress is feeling anxious, and wants the door bolted."

"Ay, bolt and bar it well, Ann," he said, going forward. "But barred doors will not keep out all the foes of man."

Meanwhile Karl had got through the maze; and cautiously, after listening, let himself out at the gate. No human being, that he could discern, was within sight or hearing; and he crossed the road at once. Then, but not before, he became aware that his agent, Mr. Smith, was in that favourite spot and attitude of his, leaning his arms on the little garden gate, his green glasses discarded--as they generally were after sunset.