“Yes, Squire Learmont, you thirst for my blood! You would hunt me to death could you do so with safety to yourself! Beware! I say, and give up the chance!“
Learmont attempted to sheath his sword, but his hand trembled so excessively, that it was several moments before he could accomplish it. When, however, he had succeeded, he turned to Gray, and said—
“At what hour—are—you to meet the boy?”
Gray smiled, as he said—
“Perhaps your next question, sir, may be where I am to meet him?”
“I—I merely asked the hour.”
“Whatever the appointed hour may be,” said Gray, “be assured I shall not meet him, let the consequences be what they may, until I am assured that you and this angry smith are not dogging my footsteps.”
“Let—us—go, Britton,” said Learmont.
“Jacob Gray,” said Britton, striding up to him, and grinding his words through his set teeth, “there will come a time for vengeance.”
“Exactly,” said Gray, calmly.
“An hour will come when I shall have the pleasure, and I would pay dearly for it, of cutting your throat.”
“You shall pay dearly for it when you do,” said Gray; “and, in the meantime cunning, clever, extremely artful Master Britton, I bid you good morning.”
“Wretch!” cried Britton.
“Oh very cunning Britton,” sneered Gray; “amazingly clever, artful, deep Master Britton—Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“Now, if I dared!” cried Britton, half drawing a knife from his breast.
“But you dare not,” cried Gray.
“You are too cunning, far too cunning, clever Britton—Ha! Ha!”
“Away! Away!” said Learmont. “Come, Britton, we waste time.”
“Ay, and precious time, too,” added Gray, “only Master Britton is so very—so extremely cunning and clever.”
“Come, come,” cried Learmont, seizing Britton by the arm.
“Nay, do not hurry away,” sneered Gray. “Shall I offer you refreshments? ’Tis some distance to Westminster. Will you go by water, cunning Britton?”
Britton’s passion was too great for utterance, and he walked to the door, which he kicked open with a violence that split it from top to bottom.
“You will like to hear, Squire Learmont,” said Gray, “that all is right. I will do myself the honour of paying you a visit to-morrow.”
Learmont turned at the door, and cast a glance at Gray, that even he quailed under, and then, followed Britton down the staircase.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Morning.—The Body of the Murdered Man.—The Old Inn.—Jacob’s Reflections.
When Learmont and the smith had left the house, and Jacob Gray felt that his great and inevitable danger was over, he sunk into a chair, and a fit of trembling came over him that he was many minutes in recovering from.
“They are foiled this once,” he muttered; “but they may not be again—’twas a rare chance, a most rare chance, I—I must leave her now. I am hunted—hunted like a wild animal, from den to den. Oh! How they would have rejoiced in my destruction. This is a sad life to lead—and—and if, before they came, I had taken her life, I should even now be lying a stiffened corpse on these boards—yet, what can I do? She is my torment; she will be my destruction!”
He then rose, and paced the room for some time with hasty and unequal steps. Suddenly pausing, he trembled again with the same awful intensity that he had done before, and in a hoarse, husky whisper, said—
“What if she come not back? She suspects me. It is time she were here again. Oh! If she should seek protection elsewhere! More danger!—More danger!—Into what a tangled web of horrors am I placed! Can I fly? What money have I? A large sum, but yet not enough. Oh! If Learmont would give me at once a sum of money which would suffice me in a foreign land, and trust my word to go, and if I could trust him to let me live to go. Ah! There it is!—There it is! We cannot trust each other—not for a moment—no, not for a moment.”
Jacob Gray muttered these gloomy meditations in a low, anxious tone, and almost at every word he paused to endeavour to detect some token of the return of Ada. None, however, met his ears, and, after two hours of mental agony of mind had thus passed over the head of Jacob Gray, he crept down the staircase, and stood at the door looking anxiously about him by the dim morning light that was beginning, with its cold grey tints, to struggle through the darkness of the sky.
“She does not come,” he muttered—“she does not come. What shall I do—whither seek her? Yet—I—I must endeavour to find her.”
He now turned his attention to the broken lock of the door, and after some time, succeeded in closing it after him tolerably securely, then searching in the road till he found a piece of chalk, he wrote on the door—
“Wait—J.G.”
“Should she return during my absence,” he thought, “she will recognise my writing and initials to wait my return. She is most probably near at hand, waiting for me to search for her.”
Casting again a cautious, scrutinising glance around him, Jacob Gray walked slowly down the ruined street, peering into each doorway as he went, with the hope of seeing Ada.
His search was unsuccessful. He could see no trace of Ada; and a thousand feelings of alarm and suspicion began to crowd upon his mind. He paused irresolutely at the end of the street, uncertain which way he should shape his course. At last, with a sudden resolution, he walked in the direction of Westminster Bridge.
As he neared Lambeth, he observed that the watermen, who plied at the different stairs by the side of the river, seemed particularly engrossed by some subject of importance, for they were congregated together in knots of two, three, and four, discoursing earnestly and vehemently.
He approached one, and touching his arm, said—
“What is the matter, friend?”
“Murder’s the matter,” replied the man.
“Murder!”
“Ay, murder. There has been a murder done in the Bishop’s Walk.”
“In the Bishop’s Walk?”
“Yes; the body was found cold and stiff—the body of a waterman; but we will have justice.”
“What was his name?” said Gray.
“Sheldon. He plied at the bridge stairs opposite.”
“I thank you, friend,” said Gray, as he walked on muttering to himself—
“Now, I’d lay my life this murder is Britton’s doing. Oh, if I could fix him with it—and yet there might be danger. At the gallows he might denounce me—yes, he would. It must have been by means of this man somehow that my retreat was so quickly discovered—yet how, I cannot divine.”
He now observed a small public-house, at the door of which was a throng of persons, and pressing forward, he soon learned that there the body of the murdered man lay.
Impelled by a curiosity that he could not resist, Gray entered the house, and calling for some liquor, commenced a conversation with the landlord, which somewhat altered his opinion concerning the murderer.