In a little time, Ben had occasion for a sauce cruet, and reached out his hand mechanically to where it had been a moment before. The bottle was gone; but the stranger saw his movement, and with some indistinct syllables, pushed it towards him. Ben lifted his head and parted his lips to thank him, the stranger smiling pleasantly as Ben moved. But not a sound proceeded from the lips of the latter. Had he been struck suddenly dumb—had he gazed upon the head of the Gorgon, he could not have been more petrified by amazement, by terror, by a chaos of uncontrollable emotions; for the man before him, separated only by the breadth of the narrow table—the man into whose eyes he was looking straight and close—the man who was smiling pleasantly in anticipation of his thanks, was the man who had been his most implacable foe—was none other than the man whom he had last seen lying stark and apparently dead on the banks of a mining pool in Colorado—was Rube Steele!
There was no doubt about it; there was no room for speculating upon a strong accidental resemblance. The man was Rube Steele, his partner at the mine, and no one else.
‘I see you have the New York Beacon there,’ said the stranger, nodding, with another easy smile, to the journal which Ben had been reading. ‘Your own paper, I reckon, as they do not keep it on file here. I should be much obliged, stranger, by a sight of it.’
Ben stretched his hand to the journal, and passed it to the speaker without removing his eyes from his face for an instant; and with the slightest gesture or change of position on the part of the stranger, perpetually recurred the thought: ‘Now he knows me! Now for the plunge!’ But the other moved not from his seat. He took the paper with another easy smile and nod, then, first saying a few words about the great heat of the weather, at once commenced its perusal.
It was worse than any horrible dream or nightmare under which Ben had ever suffered. The certainty that this pleasant civil stranger was Rube Steele, became stronger and stronger, for not only was his whole aspect and his every feature sufficient proof of his identity, but his voice alone would have been enough to convince Ben, had his face been wholly hidden. The tone and certain little peculiarities in his speech, of which every man has some—easily to be recognised by those who know him well, although indescribable in themselves—were there, just as Ben had heard and noticed them, hundreds of times in days gone by, in the voice and manner of his former partner. And yet—and yet he sat opposite to him now, smiling amicably, and without, so far as Ben could see, the faintest recognition of the man with whom he had lived so long in close intimacy—an intimacy which had found its end in a deadly struggle.
The meal was concluded leisurely, and apparently with complete satisfaction on the part of the stranger; but Ben had been unable to swallow a mouthful from the moment he recognised him. Then Rube—if Rube it were—rose, nodded civilly, bade him ‘good-evening,’ as is the western fashion, after early morning is past, and left. By an enormous effort, Ben, on his return to the store, mastered himself sufficiently to avoid questioning on the part of Mr Showle, who nevertheless told him that he was looking somewhat scared.
Ben turned the conversation from his looks, a diversion he was able to effect the more easily as Mr Showle was particularly anxious for him to come round to his house that evening to meet Mr Morede, the new partner, who was certain to be there, and who was most desirous of seeing Mr Creelock. ‘He wants,’ concluded the old merchant, ‘to hear all about the West and the mines. I thought he had once been there himself; but seems not, and he wants to hear all about them.’
Ben returned a dubious answer. He could not pledge himself to go to the merchant’s house that night, as he really felt too unwell. His nerves—articles of which he had not previously had the slightest idea that he was the possessor—had received such a shock, that he felt he was not fit for general company—that the slightest incident would jar and upset them.
He called at the house where Miss Alken boarded, to explain that he should not be at the merchant’s that night, for he knew she was going there; and when he saw her, he was struck by the increased haggardness of her aspect.
‘Say, Ruth, what is the matter?’ began Ben. ‘If you have heard no bad news, and have nothing to upset your mind, it is time we had Doctor Burt to see you; that is so.’