I laughed. "Barring myself, you are the clumsiest of evaders, d.i.c.k. I am on my own ground here, and that you know as well as I."

"d.a.m.n you!" he gritted between his teeth. "When we are coming near Appleby Hundred you are fierce enough to be rid of me."

I saw his drift at that: how he would take all the chance of capture and a spy's rope for the sake of pa.s.sing within a mile of Mistress Margery, or of the house he thought she was in.

"Go back, d.i.c.k, whilst you may," said I. "She is not at Appleby Hundred."

He turned upon me like a lion at bay.

"What have you done with her?"

"Peace, you foolish boy. I am not her keeper. Her father took her to Charlotte on the very day you saw her safe at home."

He reined up short in the narrow way. "So?" he said, most bitingly. "And that is why you take the emba.s.sy to Lord Cornwallis and fub me off with the one to Gates. By heaven, Captain Ireton, we shall change roles here and now!"

Ah, my dears, the love-madness is a curious thing. Here was a man who had saved my life so many times I had lost the count of them, feeling for my throat in the murk of that October night as my bitterest foeman might.

And surely it was the love-demon in me that made me say: "You think I am standing in your way, Richard Jennifer? Well, so I am; for whilst I live you may not have her. Why don't you draw and cut me down?"

'Twas then Satan marked my dear lad for his very own.

"On guard!" he cried; "draw and defend yourself!" and with that the great claymore leaped from its sheath to flash in the starlight.

What with his reining back for s.p.a.ce to whirl the steel I had the time to parry the descending blow. But at the balancing instant the brother-hating devil had the upper hand, whispering me that here was the death I coveted; that Margery might have her lover, if so she would, with her husband's blood upon his head.

So I sat motionless while the broadsword cut its circle in air and came down; and then I knew no more till I came to with a bees' hive buzzing in my ears, to find myself lying in the dank gra.s.s at the path side. My head was on Richard's knee, and he was dabbling it with water in his soaked kerchief.

XLI

HOW I PLAYED THE HOST AT MY OWN FIRESIDE

You may be sure that by now the anger gale had blown itself out, that the madness had pa.s.sed for both of us; and when I stirred, Richard broke out in a tremulous babblement of thanksgiving for that he had not slain me outright.

"I was mad, Jack; as mad as any Bedlamite," he would say. "The devil whispered me that you would fight; that you wanted but a decent excuse to thrust me out of the way. And when I saw you would not stir, 'twas too late to do aught but turn the flat of the blade. Oh, G.o.d help me!

I'll never let a second thought of that little Tory prat-a-pace send me to h.e.l.l again."

"Nay," said I; "no such rash promises, I pray you, Richard. We are but two poor fools, with the love of a woman set fair between us. But you need not fight me for it. The love is yours--not mine."

"Don't say that, Jack; I'm selfish enough to wish it were true; as it is not. I know whereof I speak."

"No," I denied, struggling to my feet; "it has been yours from the first, d.i.c.k. I am but a sorry interloper."

For a moment he was all solicitude to know if my head would let me stand; but when I showed him I was no more than clumsily dizzy from the effects of the blow, he went on.

"I say I know, and I do, Jack. She has refused me again."

I groaned in spirit. I knew it must have come to that. Yet I would ask when and where.

"'Twas on our last day's riding," he went on; "after we had had your note saying you would undertake a mission for Colonel Davie."

I took two steps and groped for the horse's bridle rein.

"Did she tell you why she must refuse you?"

He helped me find the rein for my hand and the stirrup for my foot.

"There was no 'why' but the one--she does not love me."

"But I say she does, d.i.c.k; and I, too, know whereof I speak."

He flung me into the saddle as a strong man might toss a boy, and I understood how that saying of mine had gone into his blood.

"Then there must be some barrier that I know not of," he said. Whereupon he put hand to head as one who tries to remember. "Stay; did you not say there was a barrier, Jack?--when we were wrestling with death in the Indian fires? Or did I dream it?"

"You did not dream it. But you were telling me what she said."

"Oh, yes; 'twas little enough. She cut me off at the first word as if my speaking were a mortal sin. And when I would have tried again, she gave me a look to make me wince and broke out crying as if her heart would burst."

I steadied myself as I could by the saddle horn and waited till he was up and we were moving on. Then I would say: "Truly, there is a barrier, Richard; if I promise you that I am going to Charlotte to remove it once for all, will you trust me and go about your affair with General Gates?"

"Trust you, Jack? Who am I that I should do aught else? When I am cool and sane, I'm none so cursed selfish; I could even give her over to you with a free hand, could I but hear her say she loves you as I would have her love me. But when I am mad.... Ah, G.o.d only knows the black blood there is in the heart at such times."

We rode on together in silence after that, and were come to the bank of the river before we spoke again. But here d.i.c.k went back to my warning, saying, whilst we let the horses drink: "'Tis patrolled on the other bank, you say?"

"It was when I pa.s.sed it a few days agone."

"Then I will turn back and cross at Beattie's. 'Twill make you a risk you need not take--to have me with you."

But I thought now that the upper ford might be guarded as well; and if there must be a cutting of a road through the enemy's outpost line for d.i.c.k, two could do it better than one. So I said:

"No; we are here now, and if need be I can lend you the weight of a second blade to see you safe through."

"And you with your head humming like a basket of bees, as I make no doubt it will?"

I laughed. "I should be but a sorry soldier and a sorrier friend if I should let a love-tap with the flat of a blade make me fail you at the pinch."

He reached across the little gap that parted us and grasped my hand.

"By G.o.d!" he swore, most feelingly, "you are as true as the steel you carry, Jack Ireton!"

"Nay," said I, in honest shame; "I do confess I was thinking less of my friend than of the importance of the errand he rides on."

"But if there should be a fight, you will spoil your chance of coming peaceably to Charlotte and my Lord's headquarters."