He flung aside the flap, he leaped from the opening. Spreading his knees, he landed on the convicts, a knee on each back, and then he brought his hands toward each other with all his strength, cuffing their skulls together with a resounding crack. They fell across Britt.
Vaniman was on his feet while Wagg was rising; the guard"s slow mind was operating ineptly on his muscles. The young man felled Wagg with a vicious blow under the ear.
The convicts, knocked senseless, were on their faces, pinning Britt to the ground. The b.u.t.ts of the bulldog revolvers in their hip pockets were exposed. Vaniman s.n.a.t.c.hed out the weapons. He aimed one of the revolvers at Wagg, who had struggled to his knees. "Your knife! Throw it to me!
Quick!"
Under the menace of the gun Wagg obeyed.
The young man pocketed the guns for a moment. He rolled the reviving convicts off Britt and slashed the prisoner"s bonds and tore the towel from his face. It was in his mind to force Britt to crawl into the van.
He was regarding Britt as his chief witness and princ.i.p.al exhibit in the exposure he proposed to lay before the people of Egypt. In the back of Vaniman"s head there may have been some sort of consideration for the man who had ruined him--scruples against leaving him with those renegades who had tortured him. However, the young man was conscious of the more compelling motive--to carry Britt along with him, to force Britt, before the eyes of men, to uncover the hiding place of the treasure.
He trained his guns on the three men, backing away from them in order to have them at a safe distance. Britt was on his knees. He was staring at Vaniman with unblinking eyes in which unmistakable mania was flaming.
The attack on him in his bed that night, the blow that had stunned him so that the a.s.sailants might tie him up, the ride in the strange conveyance, the dreadful uncertainty of what it was all about--these matters had wrought cruelly upon the victim"s wits. The torture by the flame had further unsettled his mind. And at that moment, coming down from the heavens, so it seemed, a dead man had appeared to him.
Britt"s recent experience had rendered him incapable of surveying the thing from a normal viewpoint. He saw the man whom he had disgraced by plot and perjury, the man who was buried under tons of rock, so the state had officially reported, the man to whose return after seven years of punishment Britt had been looking forward with dread. He had slept more peacefully since that tragedy had been enacted at the prison. Britt was not admitting that this was a human being in the flesh. Already partially crazed by the manhandling from which he had suffered, he peered at this apparition, a mystic figure in the aura of the fog--the shade of Frank Vaniman, so his frantic belief insisted--and leaped up, screaming like a man who had gone stark, staring mad.
Before Vaniman had time to issue a command Britt ran away along the lane by which the van had entered the wood. He was an extraordinary figure in flight. His night robe fluttered behind as he ran. For the most part he hopped on one foot; he yelped with pain when he was obliged to set the blistered foot on the ground in order to recover his balance.
Vaniman did not stay to threaten the three men. He had their weapons and he did not fear them.
He ran after Britt.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE FOX WHO WAS RUN TO EARTH
Vaniman"s first impulse was to overtake the fugitive. He wanted to have Britt in his grip, holding to him, forcing him to confess and restore.
But when Britt reached the highway and started in the direction of the village, saner second thought controlled the pursuer. Britt had become a self-operating proposition; Vaniman felt that, although sudden fright were spurring Britt, a fear more inherently characteristic was pulling the usurer on his race to the village--he had betrayed the hiding place of hard cash! He was rushing to protect it. By running to the treasure Britt would be betraying something of more moment to Vaniman than gold.
The young man kept his distance, keeping the quarry in sight, running a few feet behind Britt in the fog.
In the mist the two were like the flitting figures of a fantasy. The road was still well filled with wains and pedestrians, following after those who had gone on ahead. The wains stopped; the pedestrians halted and gaped and gasped. Women cried out shrilly. Vaniman and Britt furnished an uncanny spectacle. The eyes which beheld them saw them only for an instant; the fog"s curtain allowed each observer scant time to determine what these figures were. Britt, hairless, his face sickly white, his night gear fluttering, was as starkly bodeful as if he were newly risen from the grave, garbed in death"s cerements. Vaniman"s presence on the scene added to the terrifying illusion produced by Britt.
This pursuer had been officially proclaimed dead. They who beheld believed they saw a dead man. The face was s.m.u.tched with blood. The eyes were wide and were set straight ahead. Vaniman was taking no chances on losing the man whom he was chasing.
After the first thrill of horror, wild curiosity stung the men of Egypt.
They dropped the reins, those who were driving horses, and joined those who had turned in their tracks and were following the phantoms of the night.
In this fashion, with the rout and rabble behind and Vaniman close on his heels, Tasper Britt arrived at Britt Block--and even the statue in its niche seemed to goggle with amazed stare.
Britt did not stop to lift the loop of the leather thong over his head; with a fierce tug he broke the cord. He unlocked the door and rushed in.
After Vaniman followed, the men outside hesitated only momentarily.
Their numbers gave them courage. They crowded into the corridor. Some of them were carrying the lanterns which they had used to light the way of the procession of carts.
Britt did not enter his office; he ran the length of the corridor and flung open the door which led to the bas.e.m.e.nt. The pursuers kept on at the heels of Vaniman. But they took the precaution to allow the men with the lanterns to go ahead.
Britt went frantically at his work, paying no attention to anybody. In fact, he did not seem to realize that others were present. There was a heap of furnace wood in one corner of the bas.e.m.e.nt; he began to heave that wood in all directions. One of the lanterns was smashed by a billet. The men in the place were obliged to dodge the flying sticks.
Britt worked as if he were alone in the place. He talked to himself.
"Demons are after it. Demons and dead men! The demons sha"n"t have it.
I told "em where it was. But I"ll take it away. The demons brought h.e.l.l fire to make me tell. They brought a dead man. But they sha"n"t have it."
"He"s gone raving crazy!" cried an onlooker in shrill tones.
"Come on, men! Let"s catch him and tie him up," suggested somebody else.
But they were prevented by fears which were made effective by influences which did not seem to partake wholly of human qualities.
In their concentrated interest in the active Britt they had been disregarding Vaniman, who was restraining himself, standing outside the radiance of the lanterns.
The next instant he leaped into the sight of all of them. He stood between them and Britt. He pulled his weapons. His blood-spotted face seemed a vision of the unreal; but the guns were unmistakably the agents which a human being would employ in an emergency. And there was a businesslike click in his tone. "Stand back, the whole of you! This is a show-down. Tasper Britt is confessing that he is a thief and a liar. Use your eyes."
They cowered back from the threat of the guns and did use their eyes.
They saw Britt uncover a section of the bas.e.m.e.nt floor of concrete. They saw him locate an iron ring that was cunningly concealed under a little square of concrete which he pried up with his finger nails. He tugged at the ring and lifted a slab. The men with the lanterns raised them high.
The light glinted on gold--gold coins in bulk, naked of sacks.
A man had come thrusting through the crowd in the bas.e.m.e.nt, hurrying in from the outside. It was Squire Amos Hexter. It was hard to determine from his expression which spectacle he found the more astounding--Frank Vaniman at bay, in the flesh, or the gold coins that Tasper Britt was dipping with both hands, sluicing them upon the concrete in jingling showers.
Squire Hexter did find his voice. "Good G.o.d!" he shouted.
"G.o.d is good!" said Vaniman. He threw the weapons into a far corner of the bas.e.m.e.nt. "Squire Hexter, take charge of this thing. Here are plenty of witnesses."
The Squire went forward slowly. His lips moved without the sound of spoken word. He set the clutch of his hands on Vaniman"s arms. He stared long and earnestly into the young man"s eyes.
"I can"t talk now," Vaniman quavered.
And the Squire seemed to know, out of his sympathy with men, that there was something for that case better than words. He put his arms around Vaniman and kissed him. "Come along home with me to Xoa, sonny."
Britt struggled to his feet, and groaned when his weight came on the tortured flesh. He looked about as if searching for something. "A basket!" he muttered. "I must find a basket."
He started forward and saw Vaniman in the hook of the Squire"s arm.
Whether increase of his mania or some sort of remorse prompted his utterance was not clear. "Take it back to Tophet with you! I didn"t mean to keep it. I didn"t know how to give it back. I took it so that they"d pen you up, out from under my feet. But even a thousand tons of rock can"t pen you. I"m done trying. If this is what you"re chasing me for, take it! Keep away from me."
He went through the crowd, beating his way with his fists.
"Shall we hold him, Squire?" called a man.
"Let him alone for just now! He can"t go far in that shape. We"ll attend to him after a little while." The Squire pulled himself together with the air of one who saw that the situation needed a commander. He singled responsible men from the crowd and ordered them to take charge of the coin.
"Come away with me," he urged Vaniman. "This is no place for our talk."
When they walked out of the building they saw no sign of Britt. "We"ll let him alone," insisted the Squire. "There"ll be no use in asking him questions till he"s in his right mind. He"ll probably get back his wits when he gets back his clothes."
"Squire Hexter, what"s happening in this town to-night. What--"
"All in good time, sonny! Let"s get home where Xoa is."