Across the Cameroons Part 4

"Well," asked the Judge, "and then what happened?"

"I was unable to find the man in the woods, until I heard a noise in the direction of the bungalow. To the bungalow, accordingly I went, as quickly as I could. I got there in time to see him break open the door with a crowbar. There is the crowbar in his hand."

Everyone in the room caught his breath. Such an accusation against Jim Braid was almost incomprehensible. The boy was believed to be perfectly honest and trustworthy; and yet, as Captain von Hardenberg had said, there was the crowbar in his hand.

"And then?" prompted the judge.

"And then," the Prussian continued, "I watched him enter the room. I could see him through the window. He went straight to your desk, took the cash-box, and burst it open with the crowbar. There is the box lying on the floor. If you examine it, you will see that I speak the truth."

The judge picked up the box and looked at it.

"You are prepared to swear to this?" he asked.

"In a court of law," said the other--and never flinched.

It was the Judge himself who emptied Jim's pockets, and there sure enough he found the sovereigns which had been taken from the cash-box.

"I would never have believed it!" he exclaimed. "It's terrible to think that one of my own servants should have treated me thus!"

It was then that Harry Urquhart spoke for the first time. He could not stand by and see his old friend so basely accused and not offer a word in his defence.

"It's a lie!" he cried, his indignation rising in a flood. "A base, unmitigated lie! Uncle," he pleaded, "you don't believe it, surely?"

The Judge shook his head.

"It would be very foolish for me," said he, "to give an opinion one way or the other, before the boy has had a chance to speak in his own defence. I must admit, however, that the evidence is very strong against him."

A hurdle was fetched, upon which a mattress was laid; and upon this the wounded boy was carried to the house, which was nearer to the bungalow than his father's cottage. By a strange coincidence, it was one of the very hurdles that Jim had been setting up that afternoon.

The doctor, who lived at some distance, did not arrive for an hour.

After a short examination of the patient he was able to give a satisfactory report. The gun had gone off at too close a range to allow the shot to scatter, and only about a quarter of the pellets had entered the boy's side, the rest tearing a great hole in his coat and waistcoat.

The wound was large and gaping, but no artery was touched, and before they reached the house, and Jim had been laid upon the bed in Harry's room, the patient had recovered consciousness.

For all that, it was several days before the doctor would allow him to see anyone. He was to be kept perfectly quiet, and not excited in any way. During that time he was attended with the greatest care, not only by the housekeeper and Harry Urquhart, but by Mr. Langton himself.

At the end of a week, a naturally strong const.i.tution, and the good health resulting from a life that is lived in the open air, had done their work, and Jim was allowed to get up. It was soon after that that the Judge heard the case in his dining-room, where, seated at the head of the table, pen in hand, he might have been back in his old place in the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone.

Jim Braid--who, in very truth, was the prisoner in the dock--was seated on a chair, facing the Judge. On either side of the table were those whom Mr. Langton proposed to call as witnesses--namely, Captain von Hardenberg, John Braid, and the under-gamekeeper.

The face of the prisoner in the dock was white as a sheet. Harry Urquhart stood behind his uncle's chair, regarding his old friend with commiseration in his eyes and a deep sympathy in his heart.

Von Hardenberg's evidence differed in no material points from what he had said before. Indeed, he played his cards with almost fiendish cunning. The circ.u.mstantial evidence was all against the boy. The Judge had not yet discovered that the Sunstone was missing. There was no doubt that both the door of the bungalow and the cash-box had been broken open by the crowbar--moreover, the very crowbar which the Judge himself had seen in Jim's hands on the afternoon of the crime. Neither John Braid nor any other gamekeeper could do anything but bear out the testimony of von Hardenberg. When they entered the bungalow the boy's guilt had seemed manifest.

In his own defence Jim could state as much of the truth as he knew. He said that he had seen von Hardenberg break into the bungalow; he swore that he had lent him the crowbar that very day. Asked why he supposed the Judge's nephew had become a burglar, he was unable to give an answer. From his position he had not been able to see into the room; he had not the slightest idea what von Hardenberg did immediately after entering.

All this the Judge flatly refused to believe. He protested that it was ridiculous to suppose that a young man of von Hardenberg's position would rifle a cash-box, containing about twenty pounds. In Mr.

Langton's opinion, the case was proved against the boy; he could not doubt that he was guilty. He said that he would refrain from prosecuting, since John Braid had served him faithfully for many years, but he was unwilling any longer to employ Jim on the estate.

When Mr. Langton had finished, John Braid asked for permission to speak, and then turned upon his son with a savage fierceness that was terrible to see. He disowned him; he was no longer a son of his. He pointed out the benefits Jim had received at the hands of Mr. Langton, and swore that he had never dreamed that such ingrat.i.tude was possible. As far as he was concerned, he had done with his son, once and for all. He would blot out his memory. Henceforward Jim could fend for himself.

Still weak from his wounds, and with a far greater pain in his heart than ever came from physical hurt, the boy rose to his feet and slowly and in silence left the room. He went to his father's cottage, and there saw his mother, from whom he parted in tears. Then, shouldering the few belongings he possessed, done up in a bundle that he proposed to carry on the end of a stick, he went his way down the drive of Friar's Court.

He had not gone far before he heard footsteps approaching, and, turning, beheld Harry Urquhart, running forward in haste. The boy waited until his friend had come up with him. He tried to speak, but found that impossible. Something rose in his throat and choked his power of utterance.

"You believe in me?" said he at last.

"I do," cried Harry, "and I always will! I know that you are innocent!"

"Thank you for that, sir!" said Jim. "I can go my way with a lighter heart."

"Where are you going?" asked Harry.

"I don't know, sir, and I don't think I care. Anywhere, so long as I can get away from this place where I am suspected and despised!"

"Have you any money?" asked Harry.

Jim shook his head.

"Here you are. Take this. It's all I have." And Harry thrust into his friend's hand a five-pound note.

Jim hesitated to take it; but in the end he did so, folding it carefully and putting it into his waistcoat pocket.

"G.o.d bless you, sir!" said he.

"I'll make it my life's work," cried Harry, "to prove your innocence.

I'm confident I will succeed in the end. For the present, good-bye!"

"Good-bye!" said the other. He dared not look young Urquhart in the face, for his eyes were filling fast with tears.

Then he went his way, throwing himself upon the mercy of the world, with life before him to be started all anew. Under his own name, and with his old surroundings, he was disinherited, disowned, and dishonoured.

He must find some new employment. He must endeavour to forget and to live down the past.

At the gate of the drive he came into the highroad, and, turning his face towards London, set forward, walking as quickly as he could.

CHAPTER V--The Eleventh Hour

The following day Captain von Hardenberg left Friar's Court. He had more reasons than one to be anxious to return to London.

The robbery and the outrage at the bungalow had sadly interrupted Mr.

Langton's studies. Nearly a month elapsed before the Judge took up his old researches, and then it was that for the first time he discovered that the Sunstone was missing. Search where he might, he could find it nowhere. The evidence was against Jim Braid, and there was no one to speak up on his behalf, for by then Harry Urquhart had returned to school. On the night Braid was wounded, only his coat pockets had been emptied, and, since the whole of the money had been recovered, no further search had been made. The Judge had little doubt in his mind that, as well as the contents of the cash-box, the boy had stolen the Sunstone, though poor Jim could have had no idea as to its value.

Mr. Langton was determined to recover the relic at all costs. He spent a great deal of money on advertis.e.m.e.nts, and gave a full description of Braid to the police; but no trace of the boy could be found. It was not until Christmas had come, and Harry Urquhart was again at Friar's Court, that the Judge told his nephew of his suspicions.

And though Harry was sure of Braid's innocence, he could not convince the Judge. Mr. Langton's mind was the mind of a lawyer; he based his conclusions upon the testimony of facts, and never allowed his personal opinions to influence him in the least.