Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  He added it, however, to the other contents of his bag, and closed the cupboard door. His knife had left little or no trace upon the wood-work, which was soft and yielded pliantly; and this Gordon looked upon as an important detail. Since, when the room was searched, as it would be afterwards, any fresh marks or scratches about the lock might, he thought, draw attention to himself, and suggest the possibility of an ulterior motive for his visit beyond the mere inditing of a note. As to the lock itself, in all probability no one but Hawke knew that it had been fastened, and Hawke’s knowledge, he reflected, with a smile, would then be a matter of no importance. So he only stayed to scribble a hasty line — an invitation to dinner that evening was the somewhat gruesome device on which his ingenuity had hit — and then set out upon his way, following the path which he had ascended in the early hours of the morning.

  Nothing so clearly showed the change which had taken place in Gordon as his indifference in retraversing this ground. For although he recollected with perfect completeness every feature of that previous journey, he recollected it with no shadow of emotion, and almost without interest. The facts recurred to him, but devoid of personal application. Gordon remembered them much as a man may remember vividly the details of a death which he has mourned, when he has well-nigh lost the memory of his regret.

  It was barely one when he reached the cairn upon Styhead Pass, and realising that he had five hours still to wear away, he turned to the right along Esk House and ascended the central gully in the cliffs of Great End. The sky had darkened since the morning, and the air was growing heavy and still with a prophecy of a storm; so that he was not surprised, when he came out on the summit of the crags, to find the clouds brooding angrily about the tops of the fells. Far away, it is true, from one broad solitary rift, he could see the sunlight pouring on to Helvellyn and tinting its white slopes to a sheet of gold. But there were black masses clustered close above it, as if jealous of its glow, and even as he watched, the rift closed up and the snow was discoloured to a dull, cheerless grey.

  From that point Gordon doubled back along the edge, descended slowly to the gloomy fissure of Piers Gill, crossed the depression at its head and the neck of land between Scafell Pikes and Lingmell, and turned up to the left towards Mickledoor, the sunken ridge between the former mountain and Scafell. It was half-past five when he stood finally upon the top of the gap, and already growing rapidly dark. The cold, moreover, had become intense; so that that silent wilderness of stones, overhung by black crags, seemed to him in the dim light the most desolate spot in all the world. On both sides the ridge sloped steeply down in an incline of scree and shattered boulders, the debris of the cliffs above. Below that were rounded promontories of brown grass strewn here and there with soiled patches of snow. But as far as the eye could see there was no trace of a living thing; for the village of Wastdale itself was excluded from view by the intervening barrier of Lingmell.

  Gordon strained his eyes in the opposite direction to catch a glimpse of Hawke mounting from Eskdale. But there was no sign of his coming, not even the clatter of a dislodged stone. “It is early yet,” he muttered to himself, though with the chill of a misgiving. For the first time that day his confidence began to fail him. If Hawke should have abandoned his intention of making the circuit of the hills, and gone quickly home! He would discover the note, find that Gordon had come to his rooms, and ascertain the disappearance of the shawl. He would know the game was up, and, worse still, would have time to get clear away. Gordon tried to banish the supposition; he dared not face it, the mere utterance of it seeming to accuse him of a breach of trust. None the less, however, it clung to his back and thrashed him into an aimless activity. He descended the ridge towards Wastdale in hot haste. There, to add to his dismay, he beheld a mist floating quickly up the valleys in tongues of smoke, and he knew that the moment it swept across Mickledoor, adding its thick confusion to the increasing gloom, his chances of discovering Hawke, even if he, came that way, were practically destroyed. He turned on his steps in a panic and raced back to the top of the ridge. The same stagnant silence enveloped it. There was not even a stir of the wind. Looking back, he saw the mist was already licking the boulders at the bottom of the steep incline. It would pour over the gap in a minute, he thought, and, without stopping to reason, he ran down the slope from it on the Eskdale side. It occurred to him, upon subsequent thought, that this action was the most ill-advised he could have adopted, for the gap on both sides widens rapidly from its summit. Had he calculated chances with any approach to accuracy, he would have remained where he was on the apex and narrowest part of the ridge. And yet to this mistake he owed the completion of his design. For he kept close to Scafell as he went and he had not moved many yards when he heard right above his head the metallic clink of an ice-axe. He was standing by a narrow cleft in the rocks known as “the Chimney,” which, for a climber, affords an issue on to the actual summit of Scafell. Hawke, then, was crossing the mountain itself. The sound told Gordon that he was as yet not far up the side. He must have entered the cleft after Gordon’s arrival, and while the latter was on the farther side of the ridge.

  Gordon wondered how it was that he had not originally noticed his approach. At that moment the mist swept over Mickledoor, and a plan shaped itself in his mind. Parallel to the chimney, but some yards to the west of it, the cliffs offer a simpler route, called “Broad Stand,” and after a certain height is attained by that way, a man may reach by an easy traverse a spot where Hawke must leave his gully and climb out on to the face of the rock. This latter manœuvre is always attended with a certain difficulty, since the walls of the gully afford no foothold and give only on to a shelving slab. Gordon, therefore, had little fear that Hawke would outstrip him, and determined to join him by way of Broad Stand. So he turned back once more and reascended the incline, treading cautiously and feeling along the mountain as he went, lest in the darkness he should pass the point at which the climb began. After proceeding in this manner for about a minute, he came to a narrow vertical slit in the rock, which was just discernible. It was the spot of which he was in search, and he entered it, appearing to be swallowed up in the cliff, A walk of a few yards brought him to some huge blocks piled one above another, and shaped in pyramidal steps. These formed the pathway of his ascent. They present no great difficulty as a rule, but now they were coated with a thin glaze of ice, and as Gordon had brought no axe with him, purposely, in order to sustain the supposition that he had spent the afternoon in crossing the Styhead Pass towards Rosthwaite, he was compelled at each step that he took to clear out the next footing above, with the sole aid of his numbed fingers. Consequently he made his way but slowly. An overpowering dread that his enemy might escape while he was yet struggling below the traverse began to creep over him and strung his nerves to more strenuous efforts. His hatred, tantalised by the possibility, took a renewed life and sent the blood spinning through his veins like fire. He forgot the cold in his limbs, and the ice on the rocks, and clambered up in a reckless fury.

  Meanwhile the mist was thickening continually, and by the time Gordon had completed his ascent and reached the point from which he had to diverge along the cliff’s face, the night had fallen pitch-dark. He stood still for a moment, with his head bent forward, listening eagerly for a sound. Was he too late? Then he heard the scrabbling of boot-nails upon the slab, and a minute after the stamping of feet a few yards away to his left. The noise drove all his thoughts of averting suspicion from his mind. The mere knowledge that his enemy was there filled him; a cry of exultation rose up to his lips and he barely checked it, and crept silently forwards. A thin buttress of rock ran down shoulder-high between the two men, and this Gordon had forgotten. He came upon it unawares as he was moving with outstretched hands, and, understanding that he had traversed the space diagonally instead of in a direct line, he descended a little to round it. As he was doing this he heard the spirt of a match. There was not a breath of wind, and the tiny flame burnt steadily, throwing
out a brown light upon the mirky gloom. To Gordon it seemed blood-red. He paused and waited for the match to blow out. Instead of that, however, it grew brighter, and he remembered that Hawke carried a lanthorn. For a second he was staggered as by an unexpected blow, and stood thinking. Then he continued his stealthy descent to the end of the buttress. As he turned the corner he drew his knife and crouched like an animal. Hawke was some fifteen feet away, kneeling on the ground by the light and fumbling a small bottle clumsily in his frozen hands. Gordon measured the intervening space with his eye, and chose the point between Hawke’s shoulders, where he meant to strike, gently swaying his body to and fro the while in preparation for a spring. As he threw his weight backwards, however, for the last time, his heel slipped on a loose stone and sent it echoing behind him down the crags.

  “Who is that?” cried Hawke, lifting the lanthorn and standing upright.

  Gordon stepped forward on the instant, slipping his knife with its open blade into his pocket, and the flame of the lanthorn encircled them both in a little ring of light.

  CHAPTER IX

  “YOU!” CRIED HAWKE.

  The wall of the rock made a right angle behind him, and he backed into the corner of it, fronting Gordon with the lanthorn held aloft between them. There was a ring of terror in his voice, and his eyes glanced rapidly round with a hunted look.

  Gordon saw the look and smiled; for the little platform on which they stood was open only upon two sides, of which the gully guarded one and himself the other.

  He did not answer Hawke’s exclamation at once, for the sudden check had aroused him to the need of wariness. A struggle had to be avoided at all costs, he thought; for it would land them both, locked together, on the screes below. It was very pleasant to him, besides, to watch the shrinking fear visible in his enemy’s attitude. The very lanthorn was rattling in his unsteady grasp, and the sound of it was music to Gordon’s ears.

  “You did not expect to see me, did you, Austen?” he said at last, purring the words.

  “You did rather startle me, I own. You came along so quietly.”

  “One needs to be careful when it is as dark as this. As it was, I lost my way. If you had not lit that lanthorn I should have been over the cliffs. I may thank you for my life,” and Gordon laughed cheerfully.

  His words and the familiarity of his voice helped Hawke back to some portion of his confidence. But he still held the lanthorn above their heads.

  During these last days he had lived in a constant dread of detection, Gordon’s unforeseen visit to the dale wearing to him almost the appearance of a fatality. He cursed the infatuation which had led him to summon Kate Nugent, and each fresh sight of the man he had wronged awakened in him a shudder of alarm. It is true that he had voluntarily sought Gordon’s company at the farm-house the night before and again this morning. But the inconsistency of the proceeding was purely on the surface. He had felt compelled to that course by the urgency of his dread, which shook him chiefly when alone. And it was the effect of these solitary cogitations which produced his inexpressible terror on each occasion that he met the man. Once in his presence, however, the feeling wore off. He had always been accustomed to regard Gordon somewhat contemptuously in the light of an unpractical dreamer, and as he listened to his voice and watched his gestures, this habit reasserted itself from an association of ideas. He came to the conclusion that there were no grounds for his fears, crediting Gordon with no great powers of self-repression.

  Viewed generally, this latter judgment of Hawke’s was correct. The fatal mistake, however, which he committed was to make no allowance for a possible concentration of his entire faculties upon a single aim, under the influence of an overmastering passion, such as the lust for revenge which absorbed Gordon now.

  On this particular occasion, however, Hawke had been more than usually startled. He had intended to leave Wastdale Head early the next morning, and had planned this expedition in order to avoid meeting Gordon again — nay, more, had actually given him a false description of his route. Consequently his sudden appearance from the surrounding darkness and the silence of his approach had intensified his feeling of alarm and betrayed it unmistakably to his companion.

  “You have made the circuit quickly,” Gordon resumed.

  “I gave up the idea of Eskdale when the sky clouded,” Hawke replied, “and came straight across from the Pillar.”

  “I wonder we did not meet before.”

  Gordon was speaking at random, watching keenly for a chance; but Hawke still faced him, with his back to the rock.

  “Oh! I have been on the mountain for some time. You have only just come, I suppose.”

  “I came with the mist.”

  “It’s a poor companion,” Hawke resumed. “I found rather a good glissade just behind these cliffs running into Eskdale. I spent most of the afternoon on that. You ought to try it.”

  “I will.”

  “It lands you out close to Mickledoor and not far below the chimney. So I thought I would go home this way. But if I had known it was going to grow as cold and dark as this I would have seen myself damned first.”

  “It is cold,” Gordon assented, although his senses gave him no knowledge of the fact. He was wondering whether Hawke would ever move. If only he would set the lanthorn down!

  “Suppose that we move,” he went on. “You have got the lanthorn, so you had better go first.”

  He drew to one side as he spoke, and made room for Hawke to pass. But at the very moment that he was taking the step, Hawke suddenly placed the lanthorn on the ground, and cried —

  “Wait a moment!”

  The next instant he stood upright, and that opportunity was gone.

  “I have got a bottle of brandy here,” said Hawke. “We had better open it. Has your knife got a corkscrew?”

  Gordon thrust his hand quickly into his pocket and felt the sharp blade cut into his flesh. But he drew his hand out again empty, and said —

  “I haven’t got a knife at all. I left mine at home.”

  “We must use mine, then, and knock the neck off. They have jammed the cork in so tightly, that there is no other way. Here! hold the bottle.”

  Hawke handed him the bottle and searched in his pocket for his knife. He was perfectly defenceless at the moment, but the memory of Arkwright’s accident had suddenly flashed upon Gordon and suggested to him a safer plan.

  He added another item to his supposed new knowledge. He understood now, he fancied, why the recollection of that night in the Alps had so persistently mingled with his thoughts yesterday, and he laughed gleefully.

  “What is the matter?” Hawke asked. “You seem pleased.”

  “I am,” he replied. “It is the brandy warming me through the cork.”

  Hawke laughed. “It wasn’t a bad suggestion, was it?”

  “It was the best I ever heard from you.”

  Hawke found his knife and held it out to Gordon, saying —

  “You had better do it! My fingers are so cursedly numbed, I should only cut myself or drop the bottle.”

  Gordon took the knife with his right hand, and Hawke exclaimed —

  “What on earth have you done to your hand? It is covered with blood.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Gordon answered quickly. “I cut it on a pointed piece of rock, that’s all.”

  For a moment he stood with the bottle poised in one hand and the knife in the other, thinking. Then he said —

  “Just take this while I open the blade,” and he handed the bottle back.

  “The handle will serve,” said Hawke.

  “The blade will do it cleaner.”

  Hawke took the bottle back while Gordon opened the knife. It was of a strong and heavy make, with a long, powerful blade. Gordon ran his thumb along the edge and found it sharp and even.

  “Now if you will hold the bottle out,” he said, “I will operate. Not that way! We shall spill it all;” and he readjusted the bottle in Hawke’s hands, settling the base in h
is upturned palms, with the cork pointing towards himself.

  “That’s right,” he said, and struck the neck on the side nearest to Hawke, slipped the blade on the glass, and drove it with all his force down into his left arm where it showed white below his sleeve.

  The bottle crashed on the ground.

  Hawke reeled against the rock wall behind him, clutching the injured wrist with his disengaged hand.

  “God!” he shrieked. “It’s an artery.”

  Gordon could see the blood spurting in quick jets, and said, quietly —

  “It reminds me of Arkwright. That was an accident, too.”

  “Don’t stand there, man — dreaming! Do something!”

  Gordon laughed at the words — a low, happy laugh, which struck a new horror into Hawke.

  “You meant to do it?”

  Gordon nodded to him, knowingly.

  “Damn you!” Hawke hissed and sunk down upon the platform beside the lanthorn, concentrating all his strength into the oath. He was still vainly endeavouring to stop the bursts from the vein by the pressure of his fingers.

  Gordon knelt by his side.

  “Let me look,” he said.

  Hawke dragged himself a few inches farther away, with an inarticulate snarl, and turned his back.

  “Won’t you let me help you?” Gordon asked, in a tone of gentle remonstrance.

  The other shot a quick glance across his shoulder, and replied, with a beaten air —

  “I could believe it was myself said that.”

  “But I mean it. There’s the difference. Won’t you let me bind up your arm?”

  Hawke looked at him again and rolled over to face him, his eyes alive with hope.

  “Oh, if you will,” he said. “But be quick! quick! Use my scarf! Only be quick!”

  Something in his manner recalled vividly to Gordon Kate’s appeal to Hawke of the night before; but he unwound the scarf from the neck of the wounded man. The latter could not repress a convulsive shiver as he felt the touch of his fingers.