The Wild Geese Part 20

"There's one, and that's the young lady's brother," Bale answered darkly, "would not pull us out by the feet! I'll swear to that. Your honour's too much in his way, if what they say in the house is true."

"Pooh!" the Colonel answered again. "We're of one blood."

"Cain and Abel," Bale said. "There's example for it." And he chuckled.

The Colonel scolded him anew. But having done so he could not shake off the impression which the man's words had made on him. While he lived he was a constant and an irritating check upon James McMurrough. If the young man saw a chance of getting rid of that check, was he one to put it from him? Colonel John's face grew long as he pondered the question; he had seen enough of James to feel considerable doubt about the answer. The fire on the height above the lake had died down, the one on the strand was a bed of red ashes. The lake lay buried in darkness, from which at intervals the cry of an owl as it moused along the sh.o.r.e rose mournfully.

But Colonel John was not one to give way to fears that might be baseless. "Let us sleep," he said, shrugging his shoulders. And he lay down where he was, pillowing his head on a fis.h.i.+ng-net. Bale said nothing, but examined the door before he stretched himself across the threshold.

Half an hour after dawn they were roused. It was a heavy trampling on the stairs that awakened them. The door was quickly unlocked, it was thrown open, and the hairy face of O'Sullivan Og, who held it wide, looked in. Behind him were two of the boys with pikes--frowsy, savage, repellent figures, with drugget coats tied by the sleeves about their necks.

"You'll be coming with us, Colonel, no less," Og said.

Colonel John looked at him. "Whither, my man?" he asked coolly. He and Bale had got to their feet at the first alarm.

"Och, sure, where it will be best for you," Og replied, with a leer.

"Both of us?" the Colonel asked, in the same hard tone.

"Faith, and why'd we be separating you, I'd be asking."

Colonel John liked neither the man's tone nor his looks. But he was far above starting at shadows, and he guessed that resistance would be useless. "Very good," he said. "Lead on."

"Bedad, and if you'll be doing that same, we will," O'Sullivan Og answered with a grin.

The Colonel and Bale found their hats--they'd been allowed to bring nothing else with them--and they went down the stairs. In the gloom before the door of the tower waited two st.u.r.dy fellows, barefoot and shock-headed, with musquetoons on their shoulders, who seemed to be expecting them. Round the smouldering embers of the fire a score of figures lay sleeping in the open, wrapped in their frieze coats. As many others sat with their backs against the wall, and their chins sunk on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The sun was not yet up, and all things were wrapt in a mist that chilled to the bone. Even within the narrow bounds of the forecourt, objects at a distance put on queer shapes and showed new faces. Nothing in all that was visible took from the ominous aspect of the two men with the firearms. One for each, Bale thought. And his face, always pallid, showed livid in the morning light.

Without a word the four men formed up round their prisoners, and at once O'Sullivan Og led the way at a brisk pace towards the gate.

Colonel John was following, but he had not taken three steps before a thought struck him, and he halted. "Are we leaving the house at once?"

he asked.

"We are. And why not, I'm asking."

"Only that I've a message for the McMurrough it will be well for him to have."

"Sure," O'Sullivan Og answered, his manner half wheedling, half truculent, "'tis no time for messages and trifles and the like now, Colonel. No time at all, I tell you. Ye can see that for yourself, I'm thinking, such a morning as this."

"I'm thinking nothing of the kind," the Colonel answered, and he hung back, looking towards the house. Fortunately Darby chose that minute to appear at the door. The butler's face was pale, and showed fatigue; his hair hung in wisps; his clothes were ill-fastened. He threw a glance of contempt, the contempt of the indoor servant, at the sleeping figures, lying here and there in the wet. Thence his eyes travelled on and took in the group by the gate. He started, and wrung his hands in sudden, irrepressible distress. It was as if a spasm seized the man.

The Colonel called him. "Darby," he cried. "Come here, my man."

O'Sullivan Og opened his mouth; he was on the point of interposing, but he thought better of it, and shrugged his shoulders, muttering something in the Erse.

"Darby," the Colonel said gravely, "I've a message for the young master, and it must be given him in his bed. Will you give it?"

"I will, your honour."

"You will not fail?"

"I will not, your honour," the old servant answered earnestly.

"Tell him, then, that Colonel Sullivan made his will as he pa.s.sed through Paris, and 'tis now in Dublin. You mind me, Darby?"

The old man began to shake--he had an Irish man's superst.i.tion. "I do, your honour. But the saints be between us and harm," he continued, with the same gesture of distress. "Who's speaking of wills?"

"Only tell him that in his bed," Colonel John repeated, with an urgent look. "That is all."

"And by your leave, it is now we'll be going," Og interposed sharply.

"We are late already for what we've to do."

"There are some things," the Colonel replied with a steady look, "which it is well to be late about."

Having fired that shot, he turned his eyes once more on the house.

Then, without further remonstrance, he and Bale, with their guard, marched out through the gate, and took the road along the lake--that same road by which the Colonel had come some days before from the French sloop. The men with the firelocks walked beside them, one on either flank, while the pikemen guarded them behind, and O'Sullivan Og brought up the rear.

They had not taken twenty paces before the fog swallowed up the party; and henceforth they walked in a sea of mist, like men moving in a nightmare from which they cannot awake. The clammy vapour chilled them to the bone: while the unceasing wailing of seagulls, borne off the lough, the whistle of an unseen curlew on the hillside, the hurtle of wings as some ghostly bird swept over them--these were sounds to deepen the effect, and depress men who had reason to suspect that they were being led to a treacherous end.

The Colonel, though he masked his apprehensions under an impenetrable firmness, began to fear no less than that--and with cause. He observed that O'Sullivan Og's followers were of the lowest type of kerne, islanders in all probability, and half starved; men whose hands were never far from their skenes, and whose one orderly instinct consisted in a blind obedience to their chief. O'Sullivan Og himself he believed to be The McMurrough's agent in his more lawless business; a fierce, unscrupulous man, prospering on his lack of scruple. The Colonel could augur nothing but ill from the hands to which he had been entrusted; and worse from the manner in which these savage, half-naked creatures, shambling beside him, stole from time to time a glance at him, as if they fancied they saw the winding-sheet high on his breast.

Some, so placed, and feeling themselves helpless, isolated by the fog, and entirely at these men's mercy, might have lost their firmness. But he did not; nor did Bale, though the servant's face betrayed the keenness of his anxiety. They weighed indeed, certainly the former, the chances of escape: such chances as a headlong rush into the fog might afford to unarmed men, uncertain where they were. But the Colonel reflected that it was possible that that was the very course upon which O'Sullivan Og counted for a pretext and an excuse. And, for a second objection, the two could not, so closely were they guarded, communicate with each other in such a way as to secure joint action.

After all, The McMurrough's plan might amount to no more than their detention in some secret place among the hills. Colonel John hoped so.

Yet he could not persuade himself that this was the worst that was intended. He could not but think ill of things; of O'Sullivan Og's silence, of the men's stealthy glances, of the uncanny hour. And when they came presently to a point where a faintly marked track left the road, and the party, at a word from their leader, turned into it, he thought worse of the matter. Was it his fancy--he was far from nervous--or were the men beginning to look impatiently at one another?

Was it his fancy, or were they beginning to press more closely on their prisoners, as if they sought a quarrel? He imagined that he read in one man's eyes the question "When?" and in another's the question "Now?"

And a third, he thought, handled his weapon in an ominous fas.h.i.+on.

Colonel John was a brave man, inured to danger and trained to emergencies, one who had faced death in many forms. But the lack, of arms shakes the bravest, and it needed even his nerve to confront without a quiver the fate that, if his fears were justified, lay before them: the sudden, violent death, and the black bog-water which would swallow all traces of the crime. But he did not lose his firmness or lower his crest for a moment.

By-and-by the track, which for a time had ascended, began to run downward. The path grew less sound. The mist, which was thicker than before, and shut them in on the spot where they walked, as in a world desolate and apart, allowed nothing to be seen in front; but now and again a ragged thorn-tree or a furze bush, dripping with moisture, showed ghostlike to right or left. There was nothing to indicate the point they were approaching, or how far they were likely to travel; until the Colonel, peering keenly before them, caught the gleam of water. It was gone as soon as seen, the mist falling again like a curtain; but he had seen it, and he looked back to see what Og was doing. He caught him also in the act of looking over his shoulder. Was he making sure that they were beyond the chance of interruption?

It might be so; and Colonel John wheeled about quickly, thinking that while O'Sullivan Og's attention was directed elsewhere, he might take one of the other men by surprise, seize his weapon and make a fight for his life and his servant's life. But he met only sinister looks, eyes that watched his smallest movement with suspicion, a point ready levelled to strike him if he budged. And then, out of the mist before them, loomed the gaunt figure of a man, walking apace towards them.

The meeting appeared to be as little expected by the stranger as by Og's party. For not only did he spring aside and leave the track to give them a wider berth, but he went by warily, with his feet in the bog. Some word was cried to him in the Erse, he answered, for a moment he appeared to be going to stop. Then he pa.s.sed on and was lost in the mist.

But he left a change behind him. One of the firelock-men broke into hasty speech, glancing, the Colonel noticed, at him and Bale, as if they were the subjects of his words. O'Sullivan Og answered the man curtly and harshly; but before the reply was off his lips a second man broke in vehemently in support of the other. They all halted; for a few seconds all spoke at once. Then, just as Colonel John was beginning to hope that they would quarrel, O'Sullivan Og gave way with sullen reluctance, and a man ran back the way they had come, shouting a name.

Before the prisoners could decide whether his absence afforded a chance of escape, he was back again, and with him the man who had pa.s.sed in the bog.

Colonel John looked at the stranger, and recognised him; and, a man of quick wit, he knew on the instant that he had to face the worst. His face set more hard, more firm--if it turned also a shade paler. He addressed his companion. "They've called him back to confess us," he muttered in Bale's ear.

"The devils!" Bale exclaimed. He choked on the word and worked his jaw, glaring at them; but he said no more. Only his eyes glanced from one to another, wild and full of rage.

Colonel John did not reply, for already O'Sullivan Og was addressing him. "There's no more to it," The McMurrough's agent said bluntly; "but you've come your last journey, Colonel, and we'll go back wanting you.

There's no room in Ireland from this day for them that's not Irish at heart! nor safety for honest men while you're walking the sod. But----"

"Will you murder us?" Colonel John said. "Do you know, man," he continued sternly, "what you do? What have we done to you, or your master?"

"Done?" O'Sullivan Og answered with sudden ferocity. "And murder, say you? Ay, faith, I would, and ten thousand like you, for the sake of old Ireland! You may make your peace, and have five minutes to that--and no more, for time presses, and we've work to do. These fools would have a priest for you"--he turned and spat on the ground--"but it is I, and none better, know you are black Protestants, and 'twould take the Holy Father, G.o.d bless him, and no less, to make your souls!"