The moon now began to break through the mist in fierce red over the far horizon. A streak of crimson, that glowed without illuminating anything, showed through the distant cloud close along the level of the heath. Even this was a cheer, like a red ember or two in a pitch-dark room. Very far away he thought now he heard the tread of a horse. One can hear miles away over that level expanse of death-like silence. He pricked his ears, he raised himself on his hands, and listened with open mouth. He lost the sound, but on leaning his head again to the ground, that vast sounding-board carried its vibration once more to his ear. It was the canter of a horse upon the heath. He was doubtful whether it was approaching, for the sound subsided sometimes; but afterwards it was renewed, and gradually he became certain that it was coming nearer. And now, like a huge, red-hot dome of copper, the moon rose above the level strips of cloud that lay upon the horizon of the heath, and objects began to reveal themselves. The stunted fir, that had looked to
the fancy of the solitary watcher like a ghostly policeman, with arm and truncheon raised, just starting in pursuit, now showed some lesser branches, and was more satisfactorily a tree; distances became measurable, though not yet accurately, by the eye; and ridges and hillocks caught faintly the dusky light, and threw blurred but deep shadows backward.
The tread of the horse approaching had become a gallop as the light improved, and horse and horseman were soon visible. Paul Davies stood erect, and took up a position a few steps in advance of the blighted tree at whose foot he had been stretched. The figure, seen against the dusky glare of the moon, would have answered well enough for one of those highwaymen who in old times made the heath famous. His low-crowned felt hat, his short coat with a cape to it, and the leather casings, which looked like jack-boots, gave this horseman, seen in dark outline against the glow, a character not unpicturesque. With a sudden strain of the bridle, the gaunt rider pulled up before the man who awaited him.
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"What are you doing there?" said the horseman roughly. "Counting the stars," answered he.
Thus the signs and countersigns were exchanged, and the stranger said-- "You're alone, Paul Davies, I take it."
"No company but ourselves, mate," answered Davies.
"You're up to half a dozen dodges, Paul, and knows how to lime a twig; that's your little game, you know. This here tree is clean
enough, but that 'ere has a hatful o' leaves on it."
"I didn't put them there," said Paul, a little sulkily.
"Well, no. I do suppose a sight o' you wouldn't exactly put a tree in leaf, or a rose-bush in blossom; nor even make wegitables grow.
More like to blast 'em, like that rum un over your head."
"What's up?" asked the ex-detective.
"Jest this--there's leaves enough for a bird to roost there, so this won't do. Now, then, move on you with me."
As the gaunt rider thus spoke, his long red beard was blowing this way and that in the breeze; and he turned his horse, and walked him towards that lonely tree in which, as he lay gazing on its black outline, Paul had fancied the shape of a phantom policeman.
"I don't care a cuss," said Davies. "I'm half sorry I came a leg to meet yer." "Growlin', eh?" said the horseman.
"I wish you was as cold as me, and you'd growl a bit, maybe, yourself," said Paul. "I'm jolly cold."
"Cold, are ye?" "Cold as a lock-up."
"Why didn't ye fetch a line o' the old author with you?" asked the rider--meaning brandy. "I had a pipe or two."
"Who'd a-guessed we was to have a night like this in summer-time?"
"I do believe it freezes all the year round in this queer place."
"Would ye like a drop of the South-Sea mountain (gin)?" said the stranger, producing a flask from his pocket, which Paul Davies took with a great deal of good-will, much to the donor's content, for he wished to find that gentleman in good-humour in the conversation that was to follow.
"Drink what's there, mate. D'ye like it?"
"It ain't to be by no means sneezed at," said Paul Davies.
The horseman looked back over his shoulder. Paul Davies remarked that his shoulders were round enough to amount almost to a deformity. He and his companion were now a long way from the tree whose foliage he feared might afford cover to some eavesdrop-per.
"This tree will answer. I suppose you like a post to clap your back to while we are palaverin'," said the rider. "Make a finish of it, Mr. Davies," he continued, as that person presented the half-emptied flask to his hand. "I'm as hot as steam, myself, and I'd rather have a
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smoke by-and-by."
He touched the bridle here, and the horse stood still, and the rider patted his reeking neck, as he stooped with a shake of his ears and a snort, and began to sniff the scant herbage at his feet.
"I don't mind if I have another pull," said Paul, replenishing the goblet that fitted over the bottom of the flask.
"Fill it again, and no heel-taps," said his companion.
Mr. Davies sat down, with his mug in his hand, on the ground, and his back against the tree. Had there been a donkey near, to personate the immortal Dapple, you might have fancied, in that uncertain gloom, the Knight and Squire of La Mancha overtaken by darkness, and making one of their adventurous bivouacs under the boughs of the tree.
"What you saw in the papers three days ago did give you a twist, I take it?" observed the gentleman on horseback, with a grin that made the red bristles on his upper lip curl upwards and twist like worms.
"I can't tumble to a right guess what you means," said Mr. Davies.
"Come, Paul, that won't never do. You read every line of that there inquest on the French cove at the Saloon, and you have by rote every word Mr. Longcluse said. It must be a queer turning of the tables, for a clever chap like you to have to look slippy, for fear other dogs should lag you."
"'Tain't me that 'ill be looking slippy, as you and me well knows; and it's jest because you knows it well you're here. I suppose it ain't for love of me quite?" sneered Paul Davies.
"I don't care a rush for Mr. Longcluse, no more nor I care for you; and I see he's goin' where he pleases. He made a speech in yesterday's paper, at the meetin' at the Surrey Gardens. He was canvassin' for Parliament down in Derbyshire a week ago; and he printed a letter to the electors only yesterday. He don't care two pins for you."
"A good many rows o' pins, I'm thinkin'," sneered Mr. Davies.
"Thinkin' won't make a loaf, Mr. Davies. Many a man has bin too clever, and thought himself into the block-house. You're making too fine a game, Mr. Davies; a playin' a bit too much with edged tools, and fiddlin' a bit too freely with fire. You'll burn your fingers, and cut 'em too, do ye mind? unless you be advised, and close the game where you stand to win, as I rather think you do now."
"So do I, mate," said Paul Davies, who could play at brag as well as his neighbour.
"I'm on another lay, a safer one by a long sight. My maxim is the same as yours, 'Grab all you can;' but I do it safe, d'ye see? You are
in a fair way to end your days on the twister."
"Not if I knows it," said Paul Davies. "I'm afeared o' no man livin'. Who can say black's the white o' my eye? Do ye take me for a child? What do ye take me for?"