"But it's not so evident that one of us ought not to have followed the man and woman," said Quarles. "They may have gone to do the warning."
"I think not," I answered. "If you have noted our direction you will find we have traveled a pretty circuitous route. He'll wait until he thinks he is safe from pursuit, and then take a bee line for his destination."
As if he would prove my words Squires mended his pace, swinging down one street and up another as if he had suddenly become definite. At corners he gained on us, I think he must have run the moment he was out of sight, and in one short street we were only just in time to see him disappear round a corner.
"I'm going to give this up soon, Wigan," said Quarles as we hurried in pursuit. "I don't care how many jewels the chalice had in it."
We were round the corner. Squires had disappeared, but we could hear running feet in the distance.
"That settles it," said Quarles, coming to halt a dozen yards from the corner. "Go on if you like, Wigan, but—"
I heard no more. Something struck me, enveloped me, and there was an end. I am not very sure when a new beginning happened. Perhaps it is only an after consideration which makes me remember a whirring sound in my ears, and a certain swinging motion, and a murmur which was soothing. I am quite sure of the pain which subsequently came to me. My head was big with it, my limbs twisted with it. I was conscious of nothing else for a period to which I cannot place limits. Then there was fire in my throat.
I was sitting in the angle of a wall, on the floor; at a little distance from me was a light which presently resolved itself into a candle stuck in the neck of a bottle. There were moving shadows—I saw them, I think, before I was conscious of the man and woman who made them. The man had just poured brandy down my throat, the girl, with her arms akimbo, watched him.
"He'll do now," said the man.
"Can't see why we take such trouble to keep death away," was the woman's answer.