"What was that?" she demanded.
Bill had heard a noise too. It was impossible to be within a dozen yards of Mr Pickering, when on the trail, and not hear a noise. The suspicion that someone was following them did not come to him, for he was a man rather of common sense than of imagination, and common sense was asking him bluntly why the deuce anybody should want to tramp after them through a wood at that time of night. He caught the note of panic in Elizabeth"s voice, and was soothing her.
"It was just a branch breaking. You hear all sorts of rum noises in a wood."
"I believe it"s the man with the pistol following us!"
"Nonsense. Why should he? Silly thing to do!" He spoke almost severely.
"Look!" cried Elizabeth.
"What?"
"I saw someone dodge behind that tree."
"You mustn"t let yourself imagine things. Buck up!"
"I can"t buck up. I"m scared."
"Which tree did you think you saw someone dodge behind?"
"That big one there."
"Well, listen: I"ll go back and-"
"If you leave me for an instant I shall die in agonies." She gulped. "I never knew I was such a coward before. I"m just a worm."
"Nonsense. This sort of thing might frighten anyone. I read a story once-"
"Don"t!"
Bill found that his heart had suddenly begun to beat with unaccustomed rapidity. The desire to soothe, comfort, and protect Elizabeth became the immediate ambition of his life. It was very dark where they stood. The moonlight, which fell in little patches round them, did not penetrate the thicket which they had entered. He could hardly see her. He was merely aware of her as a presence. An excellent idea occurred to him.
"Hold my hand," he said.
It was what he would have said to a frightened child, and there was much of the frightened child about Elizabeth then. The Eustace mystery had given her a shock which subsequent events had done nothing to dispel, and she had lost that jauntiness and self-confidence which was her natural armour against the more ordinary happenings of life.
Something small and soft slid gratefully into his palm, and there was silence for a s.p.a.ce. Bill said nothing. Elizabeth said nothing. And Mr Pickering had stopped treading on twigs. The faintest of night breezes ruffled the tree-tops above them. The moonbeams filtered through the branches. He held her hand tightly.
"Better?"
"Much."
The breeze died away. Not a leaf stirred. The wood was very still.
Somewhere on a bough a bird moved drowsily "All right?"
"Yes."
And then something happened-something shattering, disintegrating. It was only a pheasant, but it sounded like the end of the world. It rose at their feet with a rattle that filled the universe, and for a moment all was black confusion. And when that moment had pa.s.sed it became apparent to Bill that his arm was round Elizabeth, that she was sobbing helplessly, and that he was kissing her. Somebody was talking very rapidly in a low voice.
He found that it was himself.
"Elizabeth!"
There was something wonderful about the name, a sort of music. This was odd, because the name, as a name, was far from being a favourite of his. Until that moment childish a.s.sociations had prejudiced him against it. It had been inextricably involved in his mind with an atmosphere of stuffy schoolrooms and general misery, for it had been his misfortune that his budding mind was const.i.tutionally incapable of remembering who had been Queen of England at the time of the Spanish Armada-a fact that had caused a good deal of friction with a rather sharp-tempered governess. But now it seemed the only possible name for a girl to have, the only label that could even remotely suggest those feminine charms which he found in this girl beside him. There was poetry in every syllable of it. It was like one of those deep chords which fill the hearer with vague yearnings for strange and beautiful things. He asked for nothing better than to stand here repeating it.
"Elizabeth!"
"Bill, dear!"
That sounded good too. There was music in "Bill" when properly spoken. The reason why all the other Bills in the world had got the impression that it was a prosaic sort of name was that there was only one girl in existence capable of speaking it properly, and she was not for them.
"Bill, are you really fond of me?"
"Fond of you!"
She gave a sigh. "You"re so splendid!"
Bill was staggered. These were strange words. He had never thought much of himself. He had always looked on himself as rather a chump-well-meaning, perhaps, but an awful a.s.s. It seemed incredible that any one-and Elizabeth of all people-could look on him as splendid.
And yet the very fact that she had said it gave it a plausible sort of sound. It shook his convictions. Splendid! Was he? By Jove, perhaps he was, what? Rum idea, but it grew on a chap. Filled with a novel feeling of exaltation, he kissed Elizabeth eleven times in rapid succession.
He felt devilish fit. He would have liked to run a mile or two and jump a few gates. He wished five or six starving beggars would come along; it would be pleasant to give the poor blighters money. It was too much to expect at that time of night, of course, but it would be rather jolly if Jess Willard would roll up and try to pick a quarrel. He would show him something. He felt grand and strong and full of beans. What a ripping thing life was when you came to think of it.
"This," he said, "is perfectly extraordinary!" And time stood still.
A sense of something incongruous jarred upon Bill. Something seemed to be interfering with the supreme romance of that golden moment. It baffled him at first. Then he realized that he was still holding Eustace by the tail.
Dudley Pickering had watched these proceedings-as well as the fact that it was extremely dark and that he was endeavouring to hide a portly form behind a slender bush would permit him-with a sense of bewilderment. A comic artist drawing Mr Pickering at that moment would no doubt have placed above his head one of those large marks of interrogation which lend vigour and snap to modern comic art. Certainly such a mark of interrogation would have summed up his feelings exactly. Of what was taking place he had not the remotest notion. All he knew was that for some inexplicable reason his quarry had come to a halt and seemed to have settled down for an indefinite stay. Voices came to him in an indistinguishable murmur, intensely irritating to a conscientious tracker. One of Fenimore Cooper"s Indians-notably Chingachgook, if, which seemed incredible, that was really the man"s name-would have crept up without a sound and heard what was being said and got in on the ground floor of whatever plot was being hatched. But experience had taught Mr Pickering that, superior as he was to Chingachgook and his friends in many ways, as a creeper he was not in their cla.s.s. He weighed thirty or forty pounds more than a first-cla.s.s creeper should. Besides, creeping is like golf. You can"t take it up in the middle forties and expect to compete with those who have been at it from infancy.
He had resigned himself to an all-night vigil behind the bush, when to his great delight he perceived that things had begun to move again. There was a rustling of feet in the undergrowth, and he could just see two indistinct forms making their way among the bushes. He came out of his hiding place and followed stealthily, or as stealthily as the fact that he had not even taken a correspondence course in creeping allowed. And profiting by earlier mistakes, he did succeed in making far less noise than before. In place of his former somewhat elephantine method of progression he adopted a species of shuffle which had excellent results, for it enabled him to brush twigs away instead of stepping flatfootedly on them. The new method was slow, but it had no other disadvantages.
Because it was slow, Mr Pickering was obliged to follow his prey almost entirely by ear. It was easy at first, for they seemed to be hurrying on regardless of noise. Then unexpectedly the sounds of their pa.s.sage ceased.
He halted. In his boyish way the first thing he thought was that it was an ambush. He had a vision of that large man suspecting his presence and lying in wait for him with a revolver. This was not a comforting thought. Of course, if a man is going to fire a revolver at you it makes little difference whether he is a giant or a pygmy, but Mr Pickering was in no frame of mind for nice reasoning. It was the thought of Bill"s physique which kept him standing there irresolute.
What would Chingachgook-a.s.suming, for purposes of argument, that any sane G.o.dfather could really have given a helpless child a name like that-have done? He would, Mr Pickering considered, after giving the matter his earnest attention, have made a detour and outflanked the enemy. An excellent solution of the difficulty. Mr Pickering turned to the left and began to advance circuitously, with the result that, before he knew what he was doing, he came out into a clearing and understood the meaning of the sudden silence which had perplexed him. Footsteps made no sound on this mossy turf.
He knew where he was now; the clearing was familiar. This was where Lord Wetherby"s shack-studio stood; and there it was, right in front of him, black and clear in the moonlight. And the two dark figures were going into it.
Mr Pickering retreated into the shelter of the bushes and mused upon this thing. It seemed to him that for centuries he had been doing nothing but retreat into bushes for this purpose. His perplexity had returned. He could imagine no reason why burglars should want to visit Lord Wetherby"s studio. He had taken it for granted, when he had tracked them to the clearing, that they were on their way to the house, which was quite close to the shack, separated from it only by a thin belt of trees and a lawn.
They had certainly gone in. He had seen them with his own eyes-first the man, then very close behind him, apparently holding to his coat, the girl. But why?
Creep up and watch them? Would Chingachgook have taken a risk like that? Hardly, unless insured with some good company. Then what? He was still undecided when he perceived the objects of his attention emerging. He backed a little farther into the bushes.
They stood for an instant, listening apparently. The man no longer carried the sack. They exchanged a few inaudible words. Then they crossed the clearing and entered the wood a few yards to his right. He could hear the crackling of their footsteps diminishing in the direction of the road.
A devouring curiosity seized upon Mr Pickering. He wanted, more than he had wanted almost anything before in his life, to find out what the d.i.c.kens they had been up to in there. He listened. The footsteps were no longer audible. He ran across the clearing and into the shack. It was then that he discovered that he had no matches.