"Yes, yes," answered d.i.c.k as he dismounted and threw the reins of his horse to David. "They are like the rest of Dunwich--asleep."
So they entered and began to search the house by the dim light of the moon. First they searched the lower chambers, then those where Hugh"s father and his brothers had slept, and lastly the attics. Here they found the pallets of the serving-folk upon the floor, but none at rest upon them.
"The house is deserted," said Hugh heavily.
"Yes, yes," answered d.i.c.k again, in a cheerful voice; "doubtless Master de Cressi and your brothers have moved away to escape the pest."
"Pray G.o.d they have escaped it!" muttered Hugh. "This place stifles me,"
he added. "Let us out."
"Whither shall we go, master?"
"To Blythburgh Manor," he answered, "for there I may win tidings. David, bide you here, and if you can learn aught follow us across the moor. The manor cannot be missed."
So once more Hugh and d.i.c.k mounted their horses and rode away through the town, stopping now and again before some house they knew and calling to its inmates. But though they called loudly none answered. Soon they grew sure that this was because there were none to answer, since of those houses many of the doors stood open. Only one living creature did they see in Dunwich. As they turned the corner near to the Blythburgh Gate they met a grey-haired man wrapped up in tattered blankets which were tied about him with haybands. He carried in his hand a beautiful flagon of silver. Doubtless he had stolen it from some church.
Seeing them, he cast this flagon into the snow and began to whimper like a dog.
"Mad Tom," said d.i.c.k, recognizing the poor fellow. "Tell us, Thomas, where are the folk of Dunwich?"
"Dead, dead; all dead!" he wailed, and fled away.
"Stay! What of Master de Cressi?" called Hugh. But the tower of the church round which he had vanished only echoed back across the snow, "What of Master de Cressi?"
Then at last Hugh understood the awful truth.
It was that, save those who had fled, the people of Dunwich were slain with the Sword of Pestilence, and all his kin among them.
They were on the Blythburgh Marshes, travelling thither by the shortest road. The moon was down and the darkness dense, for the snow-clouds hid the stars.
"Let us bide here a while," said Grey d.i.c.k as their horses blundered through the thick reeds. "It will soon be sunrise, and if we go on in this gloom we shall fall into some boghole or into the river, which I hear running on our left."
So they halted their weary horses and sat still, for in his wretchedness Hugh cared not what he did.
At length the east began to lighten, turning the sky to a smoky red.
Then the rim of the sun rising out of the white-flecked ocean, threw athwart the desolate marsh a fierce ray that lay upon the snows like a sword of blood. They were standing on the crest of a little mound, and d.i.c.k, looking about him, knew the place.
"See," he said, pointing toward the river that ran near by, "it is just here that you killed young Clavering this day two years ago. Yonder also I shot the French knights, and Red Eve and you leapt into the Blythe and swam it."
"Ay," said Hugh, looking up idly, "but did you say two years, d.i.c.k? Nay, surely "tis a score. Why," he added in a changed voice, "who may that be in the hollow?" and he pointed to a tall figure which stood beneath them at a distance, half-hidden by the dank snow-mists.
"Let us go and see," said d.i.c.k, speaking almost in a whisper, for there was that about this figure which sent the blood to his throat and cheeks.
He drove the spurs into his tired horse"s sides, causing it to leap forward.
Half a minute later they had ridden down the slope of the hollow. A puff of wind that came with the sun drove away the mist. d.i.c.k uttered a choking cry and leapt from his saddle. For there, calm, terrible, mighty, clothed in his red and yellow cap and robe of ebon furs, stood he who was named Murgh the Fire, Murgh the Sword, Murgh the Helper, Murgh, Gateway of the G.o.ds!
They knelt before him in the snow, while, screaming in their fright, the horses fled away.
"Knight and Archer," said Murgh, in his icy voice, counting with the thumb of his white-gloved right hand upon the hidden fingers of his left. "Friends, you keep your tryst, but there are more to come. Have patience, there are more to come."
Then he became quiet, nor dared they ask him any questions. Only at a motion of his arm they rose from their knees and stood before him.
A long while they stood thus in silence, till under Murgh"s dreadful gaze Hugh"s brain began to swim. He looked about him, seeking some natural thing to feed his eyes. Lo! yonder was that which he might watch, a hare crouching in its form not ten paces distant. See, out of the reeds crept a great red fox. The hare smelt or saw, and leaped away. The fox sprang at it, too late, for the white fangs closed emptily behind its scut. Then with a little snarl of hungry rage it turned and vanished into the brake.
The hare and the fox, the dead reeds, the rising sun, the snow--oh, who had told him of these things?
Ah! he remembered now, and that memory set the blood pulsing in his veins. For where these creatures were should be more besides Grey d.i.c.k and himself and the Man of many names.
He looked toward Murgh to see that he had bent himself and with his gloved hand was drawing lines upon the snow. Those lines when they were done enclosed the shape of a grave!
"Archer," said Murgh, "unsheath your axe and dig."
As though he understood, d.i.c.k obeyed, and began to hollow out a grave in the soft and boggy soil.
Hugh watched him like one who dreams, wondering who was destined to fill that grave. Presently a sound behind caused him to turn his head.
Oh! certainly he was mad, for there over the rise not a dozen yards away came the beautiful ghost of Eve Clavering, clad in her red cloak. With her was another ghost, that of old Sir Andrew Arnold, blood running down the armour beneath his robe and in his hand the hilt of a broken sword.
Hugh tried to speak, but his lips were dumb, nor did these ghosts take any heed of him, for their eyes were fixed elsewhere. To Murgh they went and stood before him silent. For a while he looked at them, then asked in his cold voice:
"Who am I, Eve Clavering?"
"The Man who came to visit me in my dream at Avignon and told me that I should live," she answered slowly.
"And who say you that I am, Andrew Arnold, priest of Christ the G.o.d?"
"He whom I visited in my youth in far Cathay," answered the old knight in an awed whisper. "He who sat beside the pool behind the dragon-guarded doors and was named Gateway of the G.o.ds. He who showed to me that we should meet again in such a place and hour as this."
"Whence come you now, priest and woman, and why?"
"We come from Avignon. We fled thence from one who would have done this maiden grievous wrong. He followed us. Not an hour gone he overtook us with his knaves. He set them on to seize this woman, hanging back himself. Old as I am I slew them both and got my death in it," and he touched the great wound in his side with the hilt of the broken sword.
"Our horses were the better; we fled across the swamp for Blythburgh, he hunting us and seeking my life and her honour. Thus we found you as it was appointed."
Murgh turned his eyes. Following their glance, for the first time they saw Hugh de Cressi and near him Grey d.i.c.k labouring at the grave. Eve stretched out her arms and so stood with head thrown back, the light of the daybreak shining in her lovely eyes and on her outspread hair. Hugh opened his lips to speak but Murgh lifted his hand and pointed behind them.
They turned and there, not twenty paces from them, clad in armour and seated on a horse was Edmund Acour, Count de Noyon, Seigneur of Cattrina.
He saw, then wheeled round to fly.
"Archer, to your work!" said Murgh, "you know it."
Ere the words had left his lips the great black bow was bent and ere the echoes died away the horse, struck in its side by the keen arrow, sank dying to the ground.
Then Murgh beckoned to the rider and he came as a man who must. But, throwing down the bow, Grey d.i.c.k once more began to labour at the grave like one who takes no further heed of aught save his allotted task.