CHAPTER XVI.
OF A DEED OF TREACHERY.
Gervase had not forgotten the promise he had made to Dorothy, but in the intervals of his duty had watched the house narrowly, and so far as he was able to discover, Jasper had not attempted to repeat his visits to the enemy. He had begun to think that his thinly-veiled threat had had a salutary effect, and that Jasper knowing himself to have been discovered, would not again rashly put his safety in peril. The task was not one for which he had any great relish, but he had determined, however irksome and unpleasant it might prove, that he would save Dorothy from a public exposure and from the pain that such exposure must necessarily inflict upon her. Had it not been for her he would have taken a summary method with the traitor, but his long vigils were rendered light by the thought that they were undertaken for her sake. While he stood in the dark street in the shadow of the opposite doorway, his heart was stirred when he caught sight of her crossing the window of her chamber, and so long as her light burned there he felt that he was not altogether alone. For matter-of-fact as he was, his love had waked whatever of the pathetic and the heroic there was in his nature; and he felt that this service was a link that bound them more closely together. Macpherson who knew something of his solitary watching, had laughed in his own fashion, and told him that no woman could be won in such a fashion, for while one was sitting sad outside another was fiddling in the chamber. But Gervase had kept his post, though nothing came of it and though he had not spoken to Dorothy for days.
To-night he had been ordered with his company to the lines. The enemy who had been waiting in sullen patience for the famine-stricken garrison to surrender, had made some show of movement, and it was believed they meditated another night attack. The guards had therefore been doubled, and precautions were taken to prevent a surprise. Gervase went the more willingly since he believed his services in the city were no longer needed, as a fortnight had elapsed and Jasper had made no sign of renewing his intrigue; and it was a relief once more to find an outlet for his feelings in vigorous action. He felt that he had lost his youth and that he was growing old in witnessing the sights he saw every day--the gaunt hollow-eyed wretches who came tottering from their ruined houses in search of food; the men stricken down with hunger where they stood on duty at the walls; women who had lost their children; children motherless and fatherless, and left without a protector; the want, the sorrow, and the death that increased every day. If they might but have fought out the fight upon the open field, and in one brave struggle have decided their fate, how willingly he would have taken his part! But half the fighting men had fallen since they closed the gates, and of the other half many of them could hardly shoulder their muskets and drag themselves to the walls.
It was a relief to pass out of the gates, and the sight and sound of so much misery, into the quiet night with the cool air blowing about him and the new moon lifting itself slowly through the summer haze. In the distance he could see the gleam of the watch-fires of the enemy, but there was a great and unbroken silence round them, as the company made its way along the path that had been beaten into white dust with frequent marching. Macpherson was in command of the outpost that night, and Gervase found him seated by himself in the bastion on the carriage of a gun that had been brought up from the city. He was quietly communing with himself while he drew consolation from his favourite pipe. Of late days the old soldier had been foremost in attack and counsel. Hard work and scanty fare had had no effect upon him, but his spirits seemed to have risen the higher as their privations and hardships increased. In all expeditions of danger he was among the foremost to volunteer, and on more than one occasion his coolness and resource had been of immense service to the besieged. Walker´s antipathy he had long since overcome, for though they had serious differences on points of doctrine, they had each come to recognize the excellent qualities of the other.
When Gervase had completed the arrangement of his company, he joined the old soldier in the bastion. He made the usual inquiries as to the movement in front, but Macpherson, apparently in a fit of abstraction, had answered his questions in monosyllables. There was in the face of the latter the hardness and solemnity that Gervase had seen early in their acquaintance, but which had disappeared of recent days. Then he rose up and laid his hand on the young fellow´s shoulder.
“Let us walk down the rampart,” he said, as if awaking from his reverie, “my legs have grown stiff, and there is something that I would say to you. Our lads are veterans in the service now and stand up unwinking without the need of a ramrod.”
With his hand resting on Gervase´s shoulder, they walked along the trench down the hill. There was no need for speech between them now, for Gervase had come to understand his friend´s varying moods, and had long since ceased to resent the fits of silence into which the other was accustomed to fall. “Here is another day gone,” he said, “and no move from the Tangier Butcher. Whether he come by Inch or by the river, he will come too late, if he come at all. I have been thinking that I might hurry him.”
"You are not serious?
“Faith! the man who drops into the river, and floats himself clear of the lines yonder till he reaches the ships by the good guidance of God, would need to have a serious mind. I have been thinking it all over, as I sat there to-night, and of the poor souls in their tribulation yonder. If I was a year or two younger I would try it blithely, and I think Kirke would listen to his old comrade. There were certain passages between us once--however, as I say, this might be done by one who took his life in his hand, and I think I am the man. Do you believe in omens, lad?”
“I know not.” Gervase answered; “I think they are but an idle superstition.”