Volume Three – Chapter Fifteen.
Face to Face
John Huish’s brain was still confused. At times he was ready to give way to the idea that he must be quite mad, and at such times he had a dire mental struggle to master the wild rush of thoughts so that he might get one uppermost and let it have due course – that one wild idea that he must bring himself face to face with the fiend who mocked his existence, had tortured him for years, and who lived in his semblance; and he felt in nowise surprised, as he passed down the road, at seeing himself, dressed exactly as he then was, turn suddenly out of a side-street and walk rapidly towards the house he had just left.
“At last!” he said beneath his breath; and he drew back into a garden to avoid being seen.
He was in nowise surprised either, as, with the cunning of a madman, he watched till his semblance went straight up to the house and knocked; and, feeling that he would enter, Huish stole slowly out of his hiding-place and followed.
“Trapped!” he said in a low voice. “Only room for one of us in this little world.”
His teeth grated together, his fingers were tightly clenched, and he crept on towards the gateway of his house, hidden by the tall privet hedge within the railings, and reached the entry just as his semblance came back from the door frowning and savage with disappointment at the result of his quest of her who had disappeared just as he had triumphed in his heart over a long-cherished idea of revenge.
The two men were face to face; and with a cry of savage delight John Huish sprang at his semblance’s throat, but to be met by a blinding flash and a tremendous blow, which sent him staggering back, clutching vainly at the railings before he fell upon the pavement and rolled over and over half stunned.
He sprang to his feet, though, and gnashed his teeth with rage as he looked up and down and saw that a couple of the very few people about, alarmed by the shot, were coming to his assistance, but him he sought was gone.
Before anyone could reach him, John Huish had started off running hard to the bottom of the road, chancing which way the man he hunted had gone, and was just in time to see him enter a hansom, to be rapidly driven off.
Running pretty quickly, he became aware that he was exciting attention, and, remembering his appearance, he subsided into a slower pace, for another cab was on ahead, and he hailed it just in time.
“Follow that hansom!” he cried to the man as he leaped in. “Double fare.”
The horse sprang forward, and to his great satisfaction he saw that he gained upon the fugitive, so he sat back patiently waiting, with the determination now to hunt him down.
Mad or sane, there was but one thought still in John Huish’s brain, and that was to get this fiend, this haunting demon, by the throat. Whether he was human or some strange creature from another world, he had ceased now to speculate; his head had been troubled with too much stress. All he felt was that they two could not exist together upon earth: that was his evil half, and he must kill it.
Once or twice a thrill of mad rage made his nerves tingle, for he seemed to see Gertrude resting lovingly in that other’s arms, responding to his caresses, smiling in his face, and blessing him with her love; and at such moments his brain whirled like one of the wheels by his side.
The sight of the cab in front drove these thoughts away, though, and, clenching his teeth, he shook his head as if to clear his brain for the one object in view.
And now, for the first time, he became aware of a strange pain, and of something warm trickling down beside his ear, and putting up his hand, he withdrew it covered with blood.
“He could not kill me,” he muttered, taking out his handkerchief and applying it to where the bullet had struck the top of his head and glanced off, making a deep cut which bled freely.
He did not know it then, but it was the one thing for which he had reason to thank the man he pursued. Though sent with a mission to destroy, it was the saving of his life.
On still through the crowded streets, which were empty to John Huish, for he saw nothing but the cab before him. As in his then wild state there seemed to be room in the world for but one of them two, so in his vision there was room but for the single object he pursued.
There were turnings and checks, and more than once the cab was nearly lost; but the driver he had knew his work, and twice over, when Huish was about to leap out and continue the pursuit on foot, there was the cab on ahead.
Over a bridge, and then down a turning for a short cut. Yes, he must be making for Waterloo Station; and as Huish sprang out he saw the man he sought at the ticket-office, and darted towards him.
The fugitive looked round in the act of taking his ticket, saw the wild face of Huish, and turned and fled, with his pursuer hunting him like a dog and close upon his heels.
Without a moment’s hesitation, on reaching the platform, he ran to the right, doubled back along the next, leaped down on the line, crossed it, reached the next platform, doubled again in and out, amidst the shouts of the porters, passed through a tangle of trains and empty carriages, and so reached again another platform, before glancing back to find Huish doggedly on his track.
A wild, strange look of horror came into his face as he glanced around him, seeking which way to go, and for the moment he made for the way down to the waterside by Hungerford Bridge; but a train was on the point of starting – not the one for which he had taken a ticket, but anywhere would do, so that he could get away from the madman who hunted him like fate.
He dashed to the gate just as it was closed, and the stern official uttered the words. “Too late.”
He glanced over his shoulder, and saw that John Huish was within ten yards, and half a dozen porters in pursuit. Had he possessed the presence of mind now to face him, he had but to say. “This is an escaped lunatic,” to see Huish secured.
But his nerve was gone, and in his horror he glanced wildly from place to place, ran a few yards, dashed through another gate, and ran along another platform just as the train was gliding away by the next.
Shouts and orders to stop reached him, but they fell upon ears that heard nothing, and, boldly leaping down at the end of the platform, he ran along the line, caught the handle of one of the carriages about the middle of the train, and climbed on to the footboard.
“Safe!” he muttered. “Curse him! he is a devil incarnate!”
As he spoke he climbed into the compartment, which proved to be empty; and then, with a smile of triumph, he thrust his head out of the window to gaze back at his discomfited pursuer; for the engine was now rapidly gathering speed, and being one of the long-distance trains, it would probably run ten or a dozen miles without stopping.
As he looked out, though, his eyes became fixed and his teeth chattered together with horror, for there, far back, standing on the footboard of the guard’s break, was John Huish, and as the young men’s eyes met there was a strange kind of fascination which held the fugitive to the window, while his pursuer seemed to come nearer and nearer till their eyes almost touched.
Occurring as these incidents did on the off side of the train, they had not been seen by the guard, who was in profound ignorance of what had taken place, while the officials at the terminus gave him the credit of seeing the strange passengers, and taking such steps as were necessary at the first stopping station. But he saw nothing till, looking out, about a couple of miles down the line, he saw John Huish standing on the footboard, and the next minute he entered the brake.
To the guard’s remarks there was no reply, and finding himself in company with a wild-looking man, with closely cut hair, his head bleeding, and who paid no heed to his words, he was about to check the train; but as his hand was stretched out to the wheel that bore the line, John Huish’s eyes blazed up and he shrank back, afraid to enter into an encounter with one whom he looked upon as mad.
“Where do you stop first?” said Huish at last.
“Bulter Lane,” replied the man, naming a station some fourteen miles down the line; and John Huish was silent during the half-hour’s run, while the guard kept glancing anxiously out at the stations they passed, and longed for help to rid him of his strange companion.
They were over two miles from their destination when, before he could arrest him, the guard saw Huish – who had been leaning out of the window, first on one side, then on the other – suddenly open the door, step down, and leap from the train.
“Why, there’s another!” he cried, looking out. “I wonder they haven’t broken their necks.”
Had he been gazing out as the train ran on through the pretty country place, he would have seen the fugitive, after anxiously looking ahead, suddenly step down upon the footboard, leap forward, stagger as his feet touched the ballast, and then go down on hands and knees, but to get up and begin walking fast to the boundary hedge, which he crossed just as John Huish also took his leap from the train, alighted in safety, and once more began the pursuit.
“Why, the hunt’s t’other way on,” cried the guard excitedly, as he looked back. “Madman’s hunting his keeper, I think; and he’ll have him too,” he added, as the train thundered rapidly along, and they glided into the station, his last glimpse of the two strange passengers being as they ran across a meadow nearly two miles back. He gave information to the station-master, and two or three passengers who had seen the fugitive leave the carriage, and whose destination this proved to be, set off at a trot in the direction taken by the hunted man, while, after telling the engine-driver and stoker that it was a rum start, the guard resumed his place and the train continued its way.
It was a desperate leap, but in the dread which had seized him, the fugitive would have taken one of greater danger, for something seemed to tell him that he was fleeing from death, and that death was the stronger of the two.
He fell heavily, and cut his knees and hands upon the rough gravel, but he was up again, leaped the hedge beside the lane, and was hurrying across the meadow in the hope that Huish would not miss him until he reached the next station.
Glancing back, though, when he had run some fifty yards, he uttered a shriek that was like that of a frightened woman, for he could see Huish passing the hedge, and now he knew it was a trial of speed and endurance.
“He’ll kill me,” he cried hoarsely, as with trembling hands he pulled out the revolver from his breast, and, thrusting a hand into his pockets, sought for a cartridge to replace that which he had fired; but his fingers refused their office; and giving up the task, he ran on across meadow after meadow, checked by the hedges, and aiming afterwards at the gates.
A grim smile overspread his face as, after about a mile had been covered, he glanced back to see that he was the faster of the two, and, aiming for the open country, he pressed on.
“I shall tire him out,” he muttered as he toiled on, feeling disposed to throw away the revolver, but fearing to part with what might prove the means of saving his life.
The country was wooded and park-like; and with a strange perversity he sought the open, when he might have obtained help had he sought the nearest village. It was as if, in this time of peril, he, the clever, scheming, ready-witted man, had lost all command over his actions, and every nerve seemed concentrated upon the sole thought of fleeing from his pursuer.
They were too far ahead in their start to be seen by the porters who ran up the line from the station, and then followed their footprints across the meadows, so that there were no witnesses to the savage, relentless pursuit of the one, and the blind, terror-stricken flight of the other.
The pursued was right: unchecked by illness and confinement, he was the swifter of the two, gradually placing more distance between himself and his pursuer; but he had not calculated upon the latter’s stern determination.
For after a few minutes, in place of exerting himself to overtake his quarry, John Huish settled down into a steady, plodding run, husbanding his strength, and contented to keep his double in sight.
A few minutes later, as he still kept his eyes upon the man ahead, he slipped off his coat and steadily ran on, easier now that he was freed from this encumbrance.
A mile was covered, then, more slowly, another, and now the exertions of pursuer and pursued showed in the sluggish pace at which they toiled on. Huish’s face was black with the heat, and the veins in his forehead were starting, his breath came thick and fast, and now, dragging off his vest, collar, and tie, one by one, he threw them aside, and seeming to nerve himself as he saw his enemy stagger in his track, he increased his pace.
Fields were everywhere, save that in the distance were the spires of a couple of churches. At the end of a hundred more yards they came suddenly upon a wide expanse of undulating common-land, dotted with clumps of Scotch firs, and tufts of gorse and bracken, offering plenty of places of concealment to a hunted man, could he but reach one unseen.
But Huish was too close, while now the endurance was telling over speed, and as, like a hunted hare, the pursued glanced back with wild and starting eyes, he could see that his pursuer was gaining steadily, and the distance between them becoming short.
The afternoon sun cast long shadows, and glorified the golden gorse and bronzed the dark-green pines, while ever and again a rabbit scuttled away to its safe sanctuary in the sandy earth, and turned as if to gaze pityingly at the hunted stranger. Now and then, too, a blackbird darted away, uttering its alarm note, while high overhead in the peaceful arch of heaven a lark sent forth its trill of joy and peace.
Peace, while war to the death was in preparation for enactment by those two men, who, with bloodshot eyes, hot, dry tongues, and hoarse breathing, stumbled on over the heath and gorse! All around was a scene of silent beauty, such as the wild parts of Surrey can display in the greatest perfection; but bird, wild-flower, the mellow afternoon sunshine, all were as naught to John Huish, who saw but the tottering figure some forty yards ahead, and with his chest seeming to be aflame, the foam at his lip, and the taste of hot blood in his mouth, he toiled on.
“I can go no farther!” panted the man he pursued, as, after wildly looking round for help, he made for a clump of firs, to one of which he clung as if to steady himself as he laid the pistol against the trunk and fired, while his pursuer was twenty yards away.
The bullet whizzed by John Huish’s head as he came on, and there was another report and the strange singing noise of a second bullet, but he passed on unharmed. His bloodshot eyes were fixed upon the half-hidden figure by the fir-tree, now not ten yards away – now not five, as there was a flash, a report, and a jerking feeling in his left arm.
The next moment the hunted man had dropped the pistol and turned to flee, running amongst the trees to where there was a hollow beneath a bank of yellow sand, capped with golden broom, and here he crouched, half turned away, thrusting one arm into a rabbit burrow, pressing himself against the crumbling soil, and literally shrieking in a wild, hoarse way as might some rat that has been hunted into a corner where there is no escape.
As Huish came at him he made another effort to flee, running a few yards, shrieking still in his agony of fear, more like some wild creature than a man. Then in his horror he faced round just as, gathering up his remaining strength, Huish sprang at his breast and they fell, the latter lying upon his enemy’s chest with his hands feebly clasping his throat.
“At last!” he panted with a savage laugh, and then lay helpless. He had overtaken his enemy, the creature who had blasted his life, maddened him, and robbed him of his fame and all he loved, and now he was helpless as a child.
For a time there was the hoarse panting of their laboured breath, and the eyes of the two men alone engaged in deadly strife; their limbs were completely paralysed. The sun sank lower, casting the shadows of the pines across them, and, emboldened by the silence, the furze chats twittered here and there, while from the distance came the soft mellow caw of a rook in homeward flight. Then from the dry grass hard by came the shrill crisp chizz of the grasshopper, and soft and deep from the clump of firs the low rattling whir of the evejar preparing for its hawking flight round the trees in quest of the moths and beetles that formed its fare.
But one thing in the soft evening beauty seemed to accord with the passions and hellish fury of the two men, and that was the low hiss and writhing shape of a short thick viper which glided slowly from beneath one tuft of heath where it had been driven by the coming footsteps, to seek its lurking-place beneath another.
For fully twenty minutes, panting, heated, exhausted, did the two men lie there, glaring into each other’s eyes. Once only did the hunted move, and his hand stole softly towards his breast-pocket; but it was pinioned on the instant, and he lay prone, waiting his time.
Meanwhile the sobbing hoarse murmur of their breathing grew more subdued, the heavy beating of their hearts more even, and the great drops of sweat ceased to trickle down from neck and temple, to coalesce, and then drop upon the grass. The feeling of helplessness, of paralysed muscles, passed away, and with the fire in his eye growing fiercer as he felt his strength returning, John Huish uttered a sigh of content as he told himself that he could now crush out the life of the creature who had destroyed his happy life.
The sun sank lower as he gazed down at the face beneath him. It was like looking at his own angry countenance in a mirror, and for the moment he was startled; but that passed away, for the thought of Gertrude came like a flash through his insane brain.
It was for vengeance.
“Devil!” he cried hoarsely; and with one sharp movement he struck at the prostrate man.
The latter had seen the change in his countenance, and was prepared for the assault. With the activity of a panther he seized the coming hand, and throwing up his chest as he bent his spine like a bow, he tried to throw his adversary off, and then a deadly struggle began.
At this moment there was little difference in the physical power of the two adversaries. Huish, though, from his position had the advantage, one that he fought hard to keep. At first it seemed that he would lose it, for, having somewhat recovered from his horror and fear of death, the hunted man threw the strength he had been husbanding into his first effort, flung John Huish aside, and nearly escaped. His advantage, however, was but a matter of minutes, for Huish steadily held on, and he was never able to rise to his feet. The grass was crushed down, the purple heather broken, and the sand torn up, while, growing giddy and weak with his exertions, the old fear came back, and once more the man lay prone upon his back, gazing up into Huish’s relentless eyes, and shuddered at the remorseless countenance he saw.
Then he raised his head slightly to try and look round for help, but he could see nothing but the setting sun, now glorifying the whole scene of peace made horrible by the life-and-death struggle that was going on. He thought of the past, of his wife, and as a strange singing arose in his ears, it seemed to take the form of words imploring for mercy – the mercy that he would not show.
“I can’t die – I am not fit to die!” he gasped. “John Huish, have mercy on me!”
He shuddered as his adversary burst into a wild, hoarse laugh, and glared down at him; and truly his face was horrible, distorted as it was by passion, his brow smeared with blood from the wound in his head, and every vein knotted and standing out from his exertions.
“He is mad!” the man muttered, as he saw the wild look in the other’s eyes, and once more he shrieked aloud. “No, no! do not kill me!” he cried; “I cannot die!”
“Not die!” cried Huish. “We shall see!”
He tightened his hands now fiercely, when, with almost superhuman strength, the hunted man made a dying effort to wrench away his neck, shrieking out: “Huish – John Huish – mercy – do not kill – I am – your brother!”
John Huish’s hands relaxed their grasp, and a strange pang of fear and wonder combined struck through his brain. This man – his very self in appearance – his double – who knew his every act, his very life, and who had impersonated him again and again – was it possible?
He stared down at the distorted countenance before him, his hands clawed and held a few inches from the prostrate man’s throat, while doubt and incredulity struggled for the mastery. Then a curious smile crossed his face as his former thought re-mastered his beclouded brain.
“Another wile – a trick – a lie, for a few more moments’ breath,” he cried, catching him by the throat once more. “It is a lie, and you are a devil!”
“Mercy, help!” shrieked the other once more. “Huish – John – would you kill your brother?”
“I have no brother.”
“I am the son of James Huish and Mary Riversley!” cried the other with starting eyes; and then, as the young man loosed him once more, he cried: “It is true, I call God to witness – it is true!”
John Huish clasped his forehead with his hands, and tried to comprehend the fact thus suddenly brought before his clouded brain.
“You – my brother?”
“Ask in the other world!” yelled the other, as, with a stroke like lightning, he struck Huish full in the shoulder with a long keen-bladed knife, and, with a low groan, the young man fell over sidewise, and lay motionless amongst the heath.
“Curse him!” hissed the man savagely, as he rose to his feet, and then sank down feeling faint and giddy. “I’m sick as a dog. I’m torn to pieces. Curse him, it was time to strike!”
He wiped the blood from his hands, sought for and picked up the revolver that had fallen before the struggle began, and came back to think.
“Not room for two John Huishes,” he said, with a coarse laugh.
“Shall I go on with the game?” he said at last. “Yes? No? Too late. I shall be hunted down for this. The Baillestone people must know of the jump from the train. He will be found here to-morrow. I must get back.”
He bent over the prostrate man for a few moments, gazing at his calm, placid face, which now in the twilight seemed sleeping.
“Poor devil!” he muttered; “I didn’t want your life, but if, as you said, there was only room for one of us, why, you had to go! Brother, eh? Good-bye, dear brother Abel; I’m going to play Cain with a vengeance now; but my mark is on my arm, and not on my brow. Curse it, how it throbs and burns!”
With a low inspiration of the breath he hurriedly threw off his coat, and drew up his shirt-sleeve, for half was torn away in the struggle, and laying bare a great puckered scar upon his arm, it showed red and fiery, probably, though, from injury in the struggle.
“It is nothing, I suppose. One would think he had had the bite, and not I. Rabid as a maddened dog!”
He hastily drew on his coat, shivering with cold and horror.
“That would be horrible,” he muttered, “to go mad like a dog! What a fool I am! I shall stay here till I am taken.”
He glanced sharply round, and then started off at a steady walk, thankful for the coming shades of night, which would hide his disordered apparel.
His figure had hardly grown faint in the distance when a couple of young men crossing the common with rod and basket on their shoulders came upon the prostrate form of John Huish, as they chatted carelessly of the day’s sport.
“Drunk, or a tramp?” said one.
“Both,” said the other carelessly, as he glanced at the figure. “By Jove! Harry, there’s blood. It’s suicide!”
They hurried to the spot, and there was still light enough to display the tokens of the fierce struggle in the trampled turf, and the torn neck of the injured man’s shirt.
“It’s murder!” cried the first speaker. “Run for help!”
“Here it is!” said the other excitedly, as several figures were seen approaching; and he uttered a loud shout.
“What is it? Have you found them?” cried the first of the fresh party, panting.
“Found this man – he’s dead.”
“We’ve been hunting them for long enough,” said the other. “Yes, that’s one; here’s his coat and waistcoat. Good God! is he dead?”
“I don’t know,” said the man, leaning over Huish’s body. “He’s got an ugly wound. I wonder who he is?”
“I know,” said the man who had come up. “We have found his pocket-book and a letter. His name’s Huish – John Huish – and the letter’s from a doctor – Stonor, I think the name is.”
“Never mind the name as long as it is a doctor!” cried the man who knelt by Huish. “Someone run for him. Here, who’s got a flask?”