The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📖

“But the door is locked.”

“There remains the window.”

“The window!” she repeated, trembling.

“You would find it easy enough with my help.”

“Quick, then!” she exclaimed, and held out her hand.

“Wait,” said I, and turned back into my room. Hereupon, having locked the door, I got into my boots, slipped on my coat and knapsack, and, last of all, threw my blackthorn staff out of the window (where I was sure of finding it) and climbed out after it.

The porch I have mentioned, upon which I now stood, sloped steeply down upon two sides, so that I had no little difficulty in maintaining my foothold; on the other hand, it was no great distance from the ground, and I thought that it would be easy enough of descent.

At this moment the lady reappeared at the lattice.

“What is it?” I whispered, struck by the terror in her face.

“Quick!” she cried, forgetting all prudence in her fear, “quick —they are coming—I hear some one upon the stair. Oh, you are too late!” and, sinking upon her knees, she covered her face with her hands. Without more ado I swung myself up, and clambered over the sill into the room beside her. I was looking round for something that might serve me for a weapon, when my eye encountered a tall oak press, a heavy, cumbersome affair, but, save the bed, the only furniture the room possessed. Setting my shoulder to it therefore, I began to urge it towards the door. But it was soon apparent that I could not get it there in time, for the creeping footstep was already close outside, and, next moment, a key was softly inserted in the lock.

“Quick! hide yourself!” I whispered, over my shoulder, and, stepping back from the door to give myself room, I clenched my fists. There was a faint creak as the key turned, the door was opened cautiously, and a man’s dim figure loomed upon the threshold.

He had advanced two or three paces on tiptoe before he discovered my presence, for the room was in shadow, and I heard his breath catch, suddenly, and hiss between his teeth; then, without a word, he sprang at me. But as he came, I leapt aside, and my fist took him full and squarely beneath the ear. He pitched sideways, and, falling heavily, rolled over upon his back, and lay still.

As I leaned above him, however (for the blow had been a heavy one), he uttered a groaning oath, whereupon, pinning him forthwith by the collar, I dragged him out into the passage, and, whipping the key from the lock, transferred it to the inside and locked the door. Waiting for no more, I scrambled back through the casement, and reached up my hand to the lady.

“Come,” said I, and (almost as quickly as it takes to set it down here) she was beside me upon the roof of the porch, clinging to my arm. Exactly how it was managed I am unable to say; all that I remember being the vision of a slender foot and ankle, and an excellently shaped leg.

Our farther descent to the ground proved much more difficult than I had supposed, but, though I could feel her trembling, my companion obeyed my whispered instructions, and yielded herself implicitly to my guidance, so that we were soon standing in the lane before the house, safe and sound except for a few rents to our garments.

“What is it?” she whispered, seeing me searching about in the grass.

“My staff,” said I, “a faithful friend; I would not lose it.”

“But they will be here in a minute—we shall be seen.”

“I cannot lose my staff,” said I.

“Oh, hurry! hurry!” she cried, wringing her hands. And, in a little while, having found my staff, we turned our backs upon the tavern and began to run up the lane, side by side. As we went, came the slam of a door behind us—a sudden clamor of voices, followed, a moment later, by the sharp report of a pistol, and, in that same fraction of time, I stumbled over some unseen obstacle, and my hat was whisked from my head.

“Are you hurt?” panted my companion.

“No,” said I, “but it was a very excellent shot nevertheless!” For, as I picked up my hat, I saw a small round hole that pierced it through and through, midway between crown and brim.

The lane wound away between high hedges, which rendered our going very dark, for the moon was getting low, and difficult by reason of the deep wheel-ruts; but we hurried forward notwithstanding, urged on by the noise of the chase. We had traversed some half mile thus, when my ears warned me that our pursuers were gaining upon us, and I was inwardly congratulating myself that I had stopped to find my staff, and wondering how much execution such a weapon might reasonably be capable of, when I found that my companion was no longer at my side. As I paused, irresolute, her voice reached me from the shadow of the hedge.

“This way,” she panted.

“Where?” said I.

“Here!” and, as she spoke, her hand slipped into mine, and so she led me through a small gate, into a broad, open meadow beyond. But to attempt crossing this would be little short of madness, for (as I pointed out) we could not go a yard without being seen.

“No, no,” she returned, her breath still laboring, “wait—wait till they are past.” And so, hand in hand, we stood there in the shadow, screened very effectively from the lane by the thick hedge, while the rush of our pursuers’ feet drew nearer and nearer; until we could hear a voice that panted out curses upon the dark lane, ourselves, and everything concerned; at sound of which my companion seemed to fall into a shivering fit, her clasp tightened upon my hand, and she drew closer to me. Thus we remained until voices and footsteps had grown faint with distance, but, even then, I could feel that she was trembling still. Suddenly she drew her fingers from mine, and covered her face with her hands.

“Oh, that man!” she exclaimed, in a whisper, “I didn’t quite realize till now—what I have escaped. Oh, that beast!”

“Sir Harry Mortimer?” said I.

“You know him?” she cried.

“Heaven forbid!” I answered, “but I have seen him once before at ‘The Chequers’ inn at Tonbridge, and I never forget names or faces—especially such as his.”

“How I hate him!” she whispered.

“An unpleasant animal, to be sure,” said I. “But come, it were wiser to get as far from here as possible, they will doubtless be returning soon.”

So we started off again, running in the shadow of the hedge. We had thus doubled back upon our pursuers, and, leaving the tavern upon our left, soon gained the kindly shadow of those woods through which I had passed in the early evening.

Borne to us upon the gentle wind was the haunting perfume of hidden flowers, and the sinking moon sent long shafts of silvery light to pierce the leafy gloom, and make the shadows more mysterious.

The path we followed was very narrow, so that sometimes my companion’s knee touched mine, or her long, silken hair brushed my brow or cheek, as I stooped to lift some trailing branch that barred her way, or open a path for her through the leaves.

So we journeyed on through the mysteries of the woods together.

CHAPTER XX

CONCERNING DAEMONS IN GENERAL AND ONE IN PARTICULAR

In certain old books you shall find strange mention of witches, warlocks, succubae, spirits, daemons, and a thousand other powers of darkness, whose pronounced vocation was the plague of poor humanity. Within these books you may read (if you will) divers wondrous accounts, together with many learned disquisitions upon the same, and most minute and particular descriptions of witch-marks and the like.

Aforetime, when a man committed some great offence against laws human or divine, he was said to be possessed of a daemon—that is to say, he became the medium and instrument through, and by which, the evil was wrought; thus, when in due season he came to be hanged, tortured, or burned, it was inflicted not so much as a punishment upon him, the man, as to exorcise, once and for all, the devil which possessed him.

In these material, common-sense days, we are wont to smile the superior smile at the dark superstitions and deplorable ignorance of our forefathers; yet life is much the same now as then, the devil goeth up and down in the world, spirits, daemons, and the thousand powers of darkness abide with us still, though to-day they go by different names, for there is no man in this smug, complacent age of ours, but carries within him a power of evil greater or less, according to his intellect. Scratch off the social veneer, lift but a corner of the very decent cloak of our civilization, and behold! there stands the Primal Man in all his old, wild savagery, and with the devil leering upon his shoulder. Indeed, to-day as surely as in the dim past, we are all possessed of a devil great or small, weaker or stronger as the case may be; a demon which, though he sometimes seems to slumber, is yet watchful and ever ready to spring up and possess us, to the undoing of ourselves and others.

Thus, as I followed my companion through the wood, I was conscious of a Daemon that ran beside me, leaping and gambolling at my elbow, though I kept my eyes straight before me. Anon, his clutching fingers were upon my arm, and fain I would have shaken him off, but could not; while, as I watched the swing and grace of the lithe, feminine body before me, from the little foot to the crowning glory of her hair, she seemed a thousand times more beautiful than I had supposed. And I had saved her tonight—from what? There had been the fear of worse than death in her eyes when that step had sounded outside her chamber door. Hereupon, as I walked, I began to recall much that I had read in the old romances of the gratitude of rescued ladies.

“Truly,” said I to myself, “in olden days a lady well knew how to reward her rescuer!”

“Woman is woman—the same to-day as then—try her, try her!” chuckled the Daemon. And now, as I looked more fully at this Damon, he seemed no daemon at all, but rather, a jovial companion who nodded, and winked, and nudged me slyly with his elbow. “What are pretty faces for but to be admired?” said he in my ear; “what are slender waists for but to be pressed; and as for a kiss or two in a dark wood, with no one to spy—they like it, you dog, they like it!”

So we traversed the alleys of the wood, now in shadow, now in moonlight, the Lady, the Daemon, and I, and always the perfume of hidden flowers seemed sweeter and stronger, the gleam of her hair and the sway of her body the more alluring, and always the voice at my ear whispered: “Try her, you dog, try her.”

At last, being come to a broad, grassy glade, the lady paused, and, standing in the full radiance of the dying moon, looked up at me with a smile on her red lips.

“They can never find us now!” she said.

“No, they can never find us now,” I repeated, while the