with him. I approved of that, but in the meantime I resolved to do something on my own account that night. I was getting anxious, for I felt that my time was growing desperately short; it was now the 25th of April and I was due back in London on the 29th, and, if I failed to turn up, Medina would make inquiries at Fosse Manor and suspect. I had made up my mind to go alone that night to Snaasen and do a little pacific burgling.
I set out about eleven, and I put my pistol in my pocket, as well as my flask and sandwiches and electric torch, for it occurred me that anything might happen. I made good going across the bridge and up the first part of the track, for I wanted to have as much time as possible for my job. My haste was nearly my undoing, for instead of reconnoitering and keeping my ears open, I strode up the hill as if I had been walking to make a record. It was by the mercy of Heaven that I was at a point where an out-jutting boulder made a sharp corner when I was suddenly aware that someone was coming down the road. I flattened myself into the shadow, and saw Newhover.
He did not see or hear me, for he, too, was preoccupied. He was descending at a good pace, and he must have started in a hurry, for he had no hat. His longish blond locks were all tousled, and his face seemed sharper than usual with anxiety.
I wondered what on earth had happened, and my first notion was to follow him downhill. And then it occurred to me that his absence gave me a sovereign chance at Snaasen. But if the house hold was astir there might be other travellers on the road and it behoved me to go warily. Now, near the top of the ravine, just under the edge of the tableland, there was a considerable patch of wood—birches, juniper, and wind-blown pines— for there the torrent flowed in a kind of cup, after tumbling off the plateau and before hurling itself down to the valley. Here it was possible to find an alternative road to the path, so I dived in among the matted whortleberries and moss-covered boulders.
I had not gone ten yards before I realised that there was somebody or something else in the thicket. There was a sound of plunging ahead of me, then the crack of a rotten log, then the noise of a falling stone. It might be a beast, but it struck me that no wild thing would move so awkwardly. Only human boots make that kind of clumsy slipping.
If this was somebody from Snaasen, what was he doing off the track? Could he be watching me? Well, I proposed to do a little stalking on my own account. I got down on all4ours and crawled in cover in the direction of the sound. It was very dark there, but I could see a faint light where the scrub thinned round the stream.
Soon I was at the edge of the yeasty water. The sounds had stopped but suddenly they began again a little farther up, and there was a scuffle as if part of the bank had given way. The man, whoever he was, seemed to be trying to cross. That would be a dangerous thing to do, for the torrent was wide and very strong. I crawled a yard or two up-stream, and then in an open patch saw what was happening.
A fallen pine made a crazy bridge to a great rock, from which the rest of the current might conceivably be leaped. A man was kneeling on the trunk and beginning to move along it… But as I looked the rotten thing gave way and the next I saw he was struggling in the foam. It was all the matter of a fraction of a second, and before I knew I was leaning over the brink and clutching at an arm. I gripped it, braced one leg against a rock, and hauled the owner close into the edge out of the main current. He seemed to have taken no hurt, for he found a foothold, and scarcely needed my help to scramble up beside me.
Then to my surprise he went for me tooth and nail. It was like the assault of a wild beast, and its suddenness rolled me on my back. I felt hands on my throat, and grew angry, caught the wrists and wrenched them away. I flung a leg over his back and got uppermost, and after that he was at my mercy. He seemed to realise it, too, for he lay quite quiet and did not struggle.
What the devil do you mean?’ I said angrily. ‘You’d have been drowned but for me, and then you try to throttle me.’
I got out my torch and had a look at him. It was the figure of a slight young man, dressed in rough homespun such as Norwegian farm lads wear. His face was sallow and pinched, and decorated with the most preposterous wispy beard, and his hair was cut roughly as if with garden shears. The eyes that looked up at me were as scared and wild as a deer’s.
‘What the devil do you mean?’ I repeated, and then to lily surprise he replied in English.
‘Let me up,’ he said, ‘I’m too tired to fight. I’ll go back with you.’
Light broke in on me.
‘Don’t you worry, old chap,’ I said soothingly. ‘You’re going back with me, but not to that infernal saeter. We’ve met before, you know. You’re Lord Mercot, and I saw you ride “Red Prince” last year at the “House” Grind.’
He was sitting up, staring at me like a ghost. ‘Who are you? Oh, for God’s sake, who are you?’ ‘Hannay’s my name. I live at Fosse Manor in the Cotswolds.
You once came to dine with us before the Heythrop Ball’ ‘Hannay!’ He repeated stumblingly—‘I remember—I think—remember—remember Lady Hannay. Yes— and Fosse. It’s on the road between—He scrambled to his feet.
‘Oh, sir, get me away. He’s after me—the new devil with the long face, the man who first brought me here. I don’t know what has happened to me, but I’ve been mad a long time, and I’ve only got sane in the last days. Then I remembered— and I ran away. But they’re after me. Oh, quick, quick! Let’s hide.’
‘See here, my lad,’ I said, and I took out my pistol. ‘The first man that lays a hand on you I shoot, and I don’t miss. You’re as safe now as if you were at home. But this is no place to talk, and I’ve the devil of a lot to tell you. I’m going to take you down with me to my lodging in the valley. But they’re hunting you, so we’ve got to go cannily. Are you fit to walk? Well, do exactly as I tell you, and in an hour you’ll be having a long drink and looking up time-tables.’
I consider that journey back a creditable piece of piloting. The poor boy was underfed and shaking with excitement, but he stepped out gallantly, and obeyed me like a lamb. We kept off the track so as to muffle our steps in grass, and took every corner like scouts in a reconnaissance. We met Newhover coming back, but we heard him a long way off and were in good cover when he passed. He was hurrying as furiously as ever and I could hear his laboured breathing. After that we had a safe road over the meadow, but we crossed the bridge most circumspectly, making sure that there was no one in the landscape. About half-past one I pushed open Gaudian’s bedroom window, woke him, and begged him to forage for food and drink.
‘Did you get into Snaasen?’ he asked sleepily.
‘No, but I’ve found what we’ve been looking for. One of the three hostages is at this moment sitting on your cabin-box.’
XII.
I RETURN TO SERVITUDE
We fed Mercot with tinned meats and biscuits and bottled beer, and he ate like a famished schoolboy. The odd thing was his terror had suddenly left him. I suppose the sight of me, which had linked him up definitely With his past, had made him feel a waif no more, and, once he was quite certain who he was, his natural courage returned; He got great comfort from looking at Gaudian, and indeed I could not imagine a better sedative than a sight of that kind, wise old face. I lent him pajamas, rubbed him down to prevent a chill from his ducking, put him in my bed, and had the satisfaction of seeing him slip off at once into deep slumber.
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