It was not a long task, and when the hair had all fallen, to lie around, one glorious ring of glossy black tresses, there were only a few snips to give here and there to finish off notches and too long, untidy spots, and then the girl rose, and with a cold, hard look upon her frowning face she stooped, and stooped, and stooped, and at each rising cast a great tress of hair to where the flames leaped, and seized it, torching the locks, which writhed, and curled, and flared, and crackled as if alive, while, as if to aid the idea that she was destroying something living, a peculiarly pungent odour arose, as of burning flesh, and filled the room.
An hour later, just as the red moon rose slowly above the surface of the sea, a sturdy-looking young man, with a stout stick in one hand – the very stick which had helped to belabour Captain Armstrong – and a bundle tied up in a handkerchief beneath his arm, stepped out of the cottage, changed the key from inside to outside, closed the old door, locked it, dragged out the key, and with a sudden jerk sent it flying far out into deep water beyond the rocks, where it fell with a dull plash! followed by a peculiar hissing sound, as the waves at high water rushed back over the fine shingle at the thrower’s feet.
There was a sharp look round then; but no one was in sight; nothing to be heard but the hissing waters, and the splashing, gasping, and smacking sound, as the tide swayed in and out among the masses of stone. Then the figure turned once more to the cottage, gazed at it fixedly for a few moments, took a step or two away; but sprang back directly with an exceeding bitter cry, and kissed the rough, unpainted woodwork again and again with rapid action, and then dashed off to the foot of the cliff, and climbed rapidly to the sheep-track – the faintly-seen path that led towards Slapton Lea and the old hall, where the captain still stayed with his young wife, and then joined the west road which led to Plymouth town.
The risky part of the track was passed, and the open and down-like pastures beyond the cliffs were reached; and here, with the moon beginning to throw the shadow of the traveller far forward and in weird-looking length, the original of that shadow strode on manfully for another quarter of a mile, when all at once there was a stoppage, for another figure was seen coming from the direction of Torcross, and the moon shining full upon the face showed plainly who it was.
There was no question of identity, for that evening, after more than his customary modicum of wine, Captain James Armstrong – whose journey had been postponed – had snubbed his young wife cruelly, quarrelled with his cousin Humphrey, who had been there to dine, and then left the house, determined to go down to Mary Dell’s solitary cottage.
“I’m a fool,” he said; “I haven’t been firm enough with the handsome cat. She scratched. Well, cats have claws, and when I have taught her how to purr nicely she’ll keep them always sheathed. I’ll bring her to her senses to-night, once and for all.
“Who the devil’s this?” muttered the captain. “Humph! sailor on the tramp to Plymouth. Well, he won’t know me. I won’t turn back.”
He strode on a dozen yards and then stopped short, as the figure before him had stopped a few moments before; and then a change came over the aspect of the captain. His knees shook, his face turned wet, and his throat grew dry.
It was horrible; but there could be no mistake.
“Abel Dell!” he cried, hoarsely, as he leaped at the idea that the brother had returned in spirit, to save his sister from all harm.
“Out of my path!” rang forth in answer, the voice being loud, imperious, and fierce; and then, in a tone of intense hatred and suppressed passion, the one word – “Dog!”
As the last word rang out there was a whistling as of a stick passing through the air, a tremendous thud, and the captain fell headlong upon the rocky ground.
Then there was utter silence as the young sailor placed one foot upon the prostrate man’s chest, stamped upon it savagely, and strode on right away over the wild country bordering the sea.
The figure loomed up once in the moonlight, as the captain rose slowly upon one elbow, and gazed after it, to see that it seemed to be of supernatural proportions, and then he sank back again with a groan.
“It’s a spirit,” he said, “come back to her;” and then the poltroon fainted dead away.
Chapter Eleven
In the Plantation
Someone singing a West Country ditty.
“His sloe-black eyes…”
A pause in the singing, and the striking of several blows with a rough hoe, to the destruction of weeds in a coffee-plantation; while, as the chops of the hoe struck the clods of earth, the fetters worn by the striker gave forth faint clinks.
Then in a pleasant musical voice the singer went on with another line —
“And his curly hair…”
More chops with the hoe, and clinks of the fetters.
“His pleasing voice…”
A heavy thump with the back of the tool at an obstinate clod, which took several more strokes before it crumbled up; and all the time the fetters clinked and clanked loudly. Then the singer went on with the sweet old minor air with its childish words.
“Did my heart ensnare…”
Chop! chop! clink! clink! clank!
“Genteel he was…”
“But no rake like you.”
“Oh, I say, Abel, mate; don’t, lad, don’t.”
“Don’t what?” said Abel Dell, resting upon his hoe, and looking up at big Bart Wrigley, clothed like himself, armed with a hoe, and also decorated with fetters, as he stood wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
“Don’t sing that there old song. It do make me feel so unked.”
“Unked, Bart! Well, what if it does? These are unked days.”
“Ay; but each time you sings that I seem to see the rocks along by the shore at home, with the ivy hanging down, and the sheep feeding, and the sea rolling in, and the blue sky, with gulls a-flying; and it makes me feel like a boy again, and, big as I am, as if I should cry.”
“Always were like a big boy, Bart. Hoe away, lad; the overseer’s looking.”
Bart went on chopping weeds, diligently following his friend’s example, as a sour-looking, yellow-faced man came by, in company with a soldier loosely shouldering his musket. But they passed by without speaking, and Abel continued —
“There’s sea here, and blue sky and sunshine.”
“Ay,” said Bart; “there’s sunshine hot enough to fry a mack’rel. Place is right enough if you was free; but it ar’n’t home, Abel, it ar’n’t home.”
“Home! no,” said the young man, savagely. “But we have no home. She spoiled that.”
There was an interval of weed-chopping and clod-breaking, the young men’s chains clanking loudly as they worked now so energetically that the overseer noted their proceedings, and pointed them out as examples to an idle hand.
“Ah! you’re a hard ’un, Abel,” remarked Bart, after a time.
“Yes; and you’re a soft ’un, Bart. She could always turn you round her little finger.”
“Ay, bless her! and she didn’t tell on us.”
“Yes, she did,” said Abel, sourly; and he turned his back upon his companion, and toiled away to hide the working of his face.
The sun shone down as hotly as it can shine in the West Indies, and the coarse shirts