Chapter XVI.
Fifteen Hours
Sarah flew to Rex. “Rouse yourself, John, for Heaven’s sake. We have not a moment.” John Rex passed his hand over his forehead wearily.
“I cannot think. I am broken down. I am ill. My brain seems dead.”
Nervously watching the prostrate figure on the floor, she hurried on bonnet, cloak, and veil, and in a twinkling had him outside the house and into a cab.
“Thirty-nine, Lombard Street. Quick!”
“You won’t give me up?” said Rex, turning dull eyes upon her.
“Give you up? No. But the police will be after us as soon as that woman can speak, and her brother summon his lawyer. I know what her promise is worth. We have only got about fifteen hours start.”
“I can’t go far, Sarah,” said he; “I am sleepy and stupid.”
She repressed the terrible fear that tugged at her heart, and strove to rally him.
“You’ve been drinking too much, John. Now sit still and be good, while I go and get some money for you.”
She hurried into the bank, and her name secured her an interview with the manager at once.
“That’s a rich woman,” said one of the clerks to his friend. “A widow, too! Chance for you, Tom,” returned the other; and, presently, from out the sacred presence came another clerk with a request for “a draft on Sydney for three thousand, less premium”, and bearing a cheque signed “Sarah Carr” for £200, which he “took” in notes, and so returned again.
From the bank she was taken to Green’s Shipping Office. “I want a cabin in the first ship for Sydney, please.”
The shipping-clerk looked at a board. “The Highflyer goes in twelve days, madam, and there is one cabin vacant.”
“I want to go at once–to-morrow or next day.”
He smiled. “I am afraid that is impossible,” said he. Just then one of the partners came out of his private room with a telegram in his hand, and beckoned the shipping-clerk. Sarah was about to depart for another office, when the clerk came hastily back.
“Just the thing for you, ma’am,” said he. “We have got a telegram from a gentleman who has a first cabin in the Dido, to say that his wife has been taken ill, and he must give up his berth.”
“When does the Dido sail?”
“To-morrow morning. She is at Plymouth, waiting for the mails. If you go down to-night by the mail-train which leaves at 9.30, you will be in plenty of time, and we will telegraph.”
“I will take the cabin. How much?”
“One hundred and thirty pounds, madam,” said he.
She produced her notes. “Pray count it yourself. We have been delayed in the same manner ourselves. My husband is a great invalid, but I was not so fortunate as to get someone to refund us our passage-money.”
“What name did you say?” asked the clerk, counting. “Mr. and Mrs. Carr. Thank you,” and he handed her the slip of paper.
“Thank you,” said Sarah, with a bewitching smile, and swept down to her cab again. John Rex was gnawing his nails in sullen apathy. She displayed the passage-ticket. “You are saved. By the time Mr. Francis Wade gets his wits together, and his sister recovers her speech, we shall be past pursuit.”
“To Sydney!” cries Rex angrily, looking at the warrant. “Why there of all places in God’s earth?”
Sarah surveyed him with an expression of contempt. “Because your scheme has failed. Now this is mine. You have deserted me once; you will do so again in any other country. You are a murderer, a villain, and a coward, but you suit me. I save you, but I mean to keep you. I will bring you to Australia, where the first trooper will arrest you at my bidding as an escaped convict. If you don’t like to come, stay behind. I don’t care. I am rich. I have done no wrong. The law cannot touch me–Do you agree? Then tell the man to drive to Silver’s in Cornhill for your outfit.”
Having housed him at last–all gloomy and despondent–in a quiet tavern near the railway station, she tried to get some information as to this last revealed crime.
“How came you to kill Lord Bellasis?” she asked him quietly.
“I had found out from my mother that I was his natural son, and one day riding home from a pigeon match I told him so. He taunted me– and I struck him. I did not mean to kill him, but he was an old man, and in my passion I struck hard. As he fell, I thought I saw a horseman among the trees, and I galloped off. My ill-luck began then, for the same night I was arrested at the coiner’s.”
“But I thought there was robbery,” said she.
“Not by me. But, for God’s sake, talk no more about it. I am sick–my brain is going round. I want to sleep.”
“Be careful, please! Lift him gently!” said Mrs. Carr, as the boat ranged alongside the Dido, gaunt and grim, in the early dawn of a bleak May morning.
“What’s the matter?” asked the officer of the watch, perceiving the bustle in the boat.
“Gentleman seems to have had a stroke,” said a boatman.
It was so. There was no fear that John Rex would escape again from the woman he had deceived. The infernal genius of Sarah Purfoy had saved her lover at last–but saved him only that she might nurse him till he died– died ignorant even of her tenderness, a mere animal, lacking the intellect he had in his selfish wickedness abused.
Chapter XVII.
The Redemption
—“That is my story. Let it plead with you to turn you from your purpose, and to save her. The punishment of sin falls not upon the sinner only. A deed once done lives in its consequence for ever, and this tragedy of shame and crime to which my felon’s death is a fitting end, is but the outcome of a selfish sin like yours!”
It had grown dark in the prison, and as he ceased speaking, Rufus Dawes felt a trembling hand seize his own. It was that of the chaplain.
“Let me hold your hand!–Sir Richard Devine did not murder your father. He was murdered by a horseman who, riding with him, struck him and fled.”
“Merciful God! How do you know this?”
“Because I saw the murder committed, because–don’t let go my hand– I robbed the body.”
” You!–”
“In my youth I was a gambler. Lord Bellasis won money from me, and to pay him I forged two bills of exchange. Unscrupulous and cruel, he threatened to expose me if I did not give him double the sum. Forgery was death in those days, and I strained every nerve to buy back the proofs of my folly. I succeeded. I was to meet Lord Bellasis near his own house at Hampstead on the night of which you speak, to pay the money and receive the bills. When I saw him fall I galloped up, but instead of pursuing his murderer I rifled his pocket-book of my forgeries. I was afraid to give evidence at the trial, or I might have saved you.–Ah! you have let go my hand!”
“God forgive you!” said Rufus Dawes, and then was silent.
“Speak!” cried North. “Speak, or you will make me mad. Reproach me! Spurn me! Spit upon me! You cannot think worse of me than I do myself.” But the other, his head buried in his hands, did not answer, and with a wild gesture North staggered out of the cell.
Nearly an hour had passed since the chaplain had placed the rum flask in his hand, and Gimblett observed, with semi-drunken astonishment, that it was not yet empty. He had intended, in the first instance, to have taken but one sup in payment of his courtesy–for Gimblett was conscious of his own weakness in the matter of strong waters– but as he waited and waited, the one sup became two, and two three, and at length more than half the contents of the bottle had moistened his gullet, and maddened him for more. Gimblett was in a quandary. If he didn’t finish the flask, he would be oppressed with an everlasting regret. If he did finish it he would be drunk; and to be drunk on duty was the one unpardonable sin. He looked across the darkness of the sea, to where the rising and falling light marked the schooner. The Commandant was a long way off! A faint breeze, which had–according to Blunt’s prophecy–arisen with the night, brought up to him the voices of the boat’s crew from the jetty below him. His friend Jack Mannix was coxswain of her. He would give Jack a drink. Leaving the gate, he advanced unsteadily to the edge of the embankment, and, putting his head over, called out to his friend. The breeze, however, which was momentarily freshening, carried his voice away; and Jack Mannix, hearing nothing, continued his conversation. Gimblett was just drunk enough to be virtuously indignant at this incivility, and seating himself on the edge of the bank, swallowed the remainder of the rum at a draught. The effect upon his enforcedly temperate stomach was very touching. He made one feeble attempt to get upon his legs, cast a reproachful glance at the rum bottle, essayed to drink out of its spirituous emptiness, and then, with a smile of reckless contentment, cursed the island and all its contents, and fell asleep.