Her cheeks began to glow, her eyes were sparkling with the joy of this dance. Her breath came panting through her parted lips.
Aye! mad were they both! what else? Their madness was the intoxication which man alone can feel when his joy equals that of the G.o.ds! Quicker, shepherd! quicker! let thy pipe wake all the fairy echoes of this mystic, ghostlike Moor! Let all the ghouls and gnomes come running hither, let the stars pale with envy, let fairies and sprites clap their hands for joy, since one man in all this world was happier than all the spirits in heaven!
How long it lasted neither of them could tell. The honey-coloured moon lighted them all the while, the blue mist wrapped them as in a mystic veil. Still they danced on; at times she almost lay in his arms, hot, panting, yet never weary, then she would slip away, and with eyes aglow, cheeks in rosy flame, beckon to him, evade, advance, then once more put her hand in his and madden him with the touch.
Oh! that heaven-born hour! why did it ever cease?
A wild shriek, twice repeated, brought them both to a standstill.
She, with heart beating, and hand pressed to her panting bosom, was unable to stir. Whilst the excitement kept her up she had danced, but now, with that piercing shriek, the dream had vanished and she was back on earth once more.
"What was that?"
Thomas and Timothy, attracted by the strange spectacle, had gradually crept up to the clearing, and through a clump of gorse and bracken had been watching the weird, midnight dance. On the further side, and close to Jock Miggs, John Stich had been standing in the shadow of a thorn bush. He had been running all the way, ever since he heard the two pistol-shots. Amazed at the strange sight that met his honest eyes, he had not dared to interfere. Perhaps his honest faithful heart felt with, even if it did not altogether comprehend, the wayward, half-crazy mood of his friend.
Betty alone, terrified and not a little sulky, had remained in the coach. It was her shriek that roused the spectators and performers of this phantasy on the Heath.
"My lady! my lady!" screamed Betty once more at the top of her voice.
Then, all of a sudden, Patience understood. Fairyland had indeed vanished. The awful reality came upon her with appalling cruelty.
"My letters!" she gasped, and started running towards the coach.
But already Jack Bathurst had bounded across the clearing, closely followed by John Stich. Patience"s cry of mad, terror-stricken appeal had gone straight to his brain, and dissipated in the fraction of a second the reckless excitement of the past hour.
The wild creature of one moment"s wayward mood was in that same fraction of time re-transformed into the cool and daring dweller of the Moor, on whose head the law had set a price, and who in revenge had made every law his slave.
His keen, quick eye had already sighted the smith.
"After me, John!" he commanded, "and run for your life."
When the two men had fought their way through the clumps of gorse and bracken which screened the clearing from the road, they were just in time to see a man quickly mounting a dark brown horse, which stood some twenty yards in front of the coach.
The carriage door nearest to them was open, and poor Mistress Betty lay on the ground close beside it, still screaming at the top of her voice.
With one bound Beau Brocade had reached Jack o" Lantern, who, accustomed to his unfettered life on the Heath, had quietly roamed about at will, patiently waiting for his master"s call. The young man was unarmed, since he had placed his pistols awhile ago at Patience"s feet, but Jack o" Lantern was swift-footed as the deer, and would overtake any strange horseman easily.
Beau Brocade"s hand was on his horse"s bridle and there were barely a few yards between him and the mysterious horseman, who was preparing to gallop away, when the latter turned, and suddenly pointing a pistol at his pursuer, fired two shots in rapid succession.
The young man did not stop at once. He clutched Jack o" Lantern"s bridle and tried to mount, but he staggered and almost fell.
"After him, John," he cried in a hoa.r.s.e voice, as, staggering once more, he fell upon one knee. "After him! quick! take Jack o" Lantern, don"t mind me!"
John had no need to be told twice. He seized the horse"s bridle and swung himself into the saddle as quickly as he could.
But these few seconds had given the horseman a sufficient start.
Although the moon was bright the mist was thick, and the bracken and thorn bushes very dense on the other side of the road. Already he had disappeared from view, and John"s ears and eyes were not so keen as those of Beau Brocade, the highwayman, the wounded monarch of the Heath.
CHAPTER XIX
HIS OATH
Patience"s first thought as soon as she reached the road was for Betty; she helped the poor girl to her feet and tried to get some coherent explanation from her.
"I was listening to the tune, my lady, and leaning my head out of the window," moaned Mistress Betty, who was more frightened than hurt, "when suddenly the carriage door was torn open, I was dragged out and left screaming on the ground.... That"s all I know."
But one glance at the interior of the coach had revealed the whole awful truth. It had been ransacked, and the receptacle beneath the cushions, where had lain the all-important letters, was now obviously empty.
"The letters! oh, the letters!" moaned Patience in an agony of misery and remorse. "Philip, my dear, dear one, you entrusted your precious life in my hands, and I have proved unworthy of the trust."
Her spirit wholly broken by the agony of this cruel thought, she cowered on the step of the carriage, her head buried in her hands, in a pa.s.sion of heart-broken tears.
"My lady..."
She looked down, and by the dim light of the moon she saw a figure on its knees, dragging itself with a visibly painful effort slowly towards her.
In a moment she was on her feet, tall, haughty, a world of scorn in her eyes; she looked down with horror at the prostrate figure before her.
"Nay, sir," she said with icy contempt, "an you have a spark of honour left in you, take off that mask, let me at least see who you are."
The agony of shame was more than she could bear. She who had deemed herself so proud, so strong, that she should have been thus fooled, duped, tricked, and by this man! this thief! this low cla.s.s robber who had dared to touch her hand! All the pride of race and caste rose in revolt within her. Who was he that he should dare to have spoken to her as he did? Her cheeks glowed with shame at the memory of that voice which she had loved to hear, the tender accent in it, and oh! she had been his plaything, his tool, for this infamous trick which had placed her dear, dear brother"s life in peril worse than before.
Meekly he had obeyed her, his own proud spirit bent before her grief.
His face-ashy pale now and drawn with pain and weakness-looked up in mute appeal for forgiveness.
"A poor wretch," he murmured feebly, "whose mad and foolish whim..."
But she turned from him in bitter loathing, drawing herself up to her full height, trying by every means in her power to show the contempt which she felt for him. So absorbed was she in her grief and humiliation, in her agony of remorse for her broken trust, that she did not realise that he was hurt, and fainting with loss of blood.
"You ... you..." she murmured with horror and contempt. "Nay! I pray you do not speak to me.... You ... you have duped and tricked me, and I ... I ... Oh!" she added with a wealth of bitter reproach, "what wrong had I or my dear brother done to you that you should wish to do him so much harm? What price had his enemies set upon his head that you should _sell_ it to them?"
He tried to interrupt her, for her words hurt him ten thousand times more than the wound in his shoulder: with almost superhuman effort he dragged himself to his feet, clinging to the bracken to hold himself upright. He would not let her see how she made him suffer. She! his beautiful white rose, whom unwittingly he had, it seemed, so grievously wronged. Her mind was distraught, she did not understand, and oh! it was impossible that she _could_ realise the cruelty of her words, more hard to endure than any torture the fiendish brain of man could devise.
"I"d have given you gold," she continued, whilst heavy sobs choked the voice in her throat, "if "twas gold you wanted.... Here is the purse you did not take just now! Two hundred guineas for you, sir, an you bring me back those letters!"
And with a last gesture of infinite scorn she threw the purse on the ground before him.
A cry escaped him then: the terrible, heart-rending cry of the wild beast wounded unto death. But it was momentary; that great love he bore her helped him to understand. Love is never selfish-always kind. Love _always_ understands.
He could scarcely speak now, and the seconds were very precious, but with infinite gentleness he contrived to murmur faintly,-
"Madam! I swear by those sweet lips of yours now turned in anger against me that you do me grievous wrong. My fault, alas! is great! I cannot deny it, since in this short, mad hour of the dance my eyes were blind and mine ears deaf to all save to your own dear presence."
"Aye! "twas a clever trick," she retorted, lashing herself to scorn, wilfully deaf to the charm of that faint voice, turning away from the tender appeal of his eyes: "a trick from beginning to end! Your chivalry at the forge! your _role_ of gallant gentleman of the road! the while you plotted with a boon companion to rob me of the very letters that would have saved my brother"s life."