Jack Harkaway and His Son's Escape from the Brigands of Greece Part 45

"There is something written."

"Yes, yes, so I believe, but it is obscured by that stain--a stain--"

He peered closer into the arm yet, and looked serious, as turning to Hunston, he said--

"Why, it is a blood-stain."

"No, no!" replied Hunston, hurriedly; "impossible. It can not be."

"Impossible or not," said the surgeon, "blood it is, and nothing but blood. Yet I see that, in spite of this stain, the reading is clear enough."

"Scarcely," said Hunston.

"It is, though, and it is in English, I should say, too."

"Yes."

"Can't you read it?"

"No."

"Strange. Yet you are English."

"Yes."

"Well, I have some English friends here to whom I will show it, and--"

Hunston broke in impatiently at this.

"English here!" he exclaimed. "Where do they live?"

"At the villa--"

"What, the Harkaway family, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"And you would take it there?"

"Why not? Mr. Harkaway is a clever man. He is surrounded also by clever people; there is a curious old gentleman there, too, an old gentleman of great learning, and he might be enabled to throw some light upon the secret, which even the closest scrutiny can not penetrate."

Hunston listened to the end, but not without having to exercise a certain amount of self-control.

"How is this old gentleman called--this clever, learned old gentleman?"

"You seem to say that with a sneer, sir," said the surgeon; "but you may rely upon it he is a very great _savant_--a man of great accomplishments--and a warrior who has--"

"Who has lost two legs!"

"Yes. You know him?"

"Slightly; his name is Mole."

"It is."

"And you would take my arm to these people for them to stare and gape at. No, sir; I am foolish enough to seek to conceal my affliction from the world, and by the aid of this wonderful arm I have been hitherto successful."

The doctor bowed.

"So I beg you will keep my secret."

"Rely upon it."

Hunston showed all his old cunning in this speech. Yet all his inquiries, all his researches, availed him nothing.

The work of the dead Robert Emmerson remained as before, an inscrutable mystery. It remained the silent executor of its creator's vengeance.

Slowly, yet surely fulfilling the blood-stained legend on the steel arm.

CHAPTER XV.

HUNSTON AGAIN AT WORK-THE DANCING GARDEN--MARIETTA AND HER GOSSIP-GREAT NEWS--THE ARREST--WHAT CHARGE?--MURDER.

Hunston's infirmity had told in many ways.

He had sunk to be a mere nonent.i.ty in the band.

Now he was but too pleased to be left at peace when in his great suffering; yet no sooner did he recover health and spirits a little than his old interest revived, and with his interest all the old jealousies.

He bitterly resented Toro's a.s.sumption of the command.

"Let the bl.u.s.tering bully fool impose upon them if he will," he said to himself again and again; "he never could take me in. It shall be my task to show them who can render the most real service to the band."

Their programme suited Hunston well.

What could better have accorded with his humour than the devotion of all their time, thought, and energies to the persecution--perhaps to the entire destruction, of the Harkaway family?

It was all gone on with avowedly to avenge the death of Mathias.

Little cared Hunston about the dead brigand chief.

Indeed, but for the presence of his widow in their midst, and the occasional mention of his name, Hunston would, in all probability, have forgotten that he had ever existed.

As it was, he made it his especial task to hang about the parts of the town where the Harkaways were most likely to be met. And never did he appear twice in the same dress.