THE CURSE OF THE CARDEWS OR AFTER THREE HUNDRED YEARS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 138, 11 March 1909, Page 3

THE CURSE OF THE CARDEWS OR AFTER THREE HUNDRED YEARS.

(AU Rights Reserved.)

By W. MURRAY GRAYDON, Author of "The Blackmailers,'" "Reaping the Whirlwind," "Tho Heir of the Loudouns," Etc. ,

PART VII. Geoffrey was indifferent to his peril ; indeed, lie would have welcomed a bullet as a happy escape from tho situation, the consequences of which appalled him. He stood for a moment, isolated as one bloodguilty, gazing on the scene of woe and misery he had unintentionally, but none the less surely, wrought by a fatal mischance. It was more than he could bear ; there was no re'iif in the thought that the quariel had been forced upon him. He suddenly remembered that he had I thrust his pistol into his pocket, j and drawing it out he lifted it to I his breast with an unsteady hand. ! Another instant and he would have j pulled the trigger ; but JJupont, who j had fortunately been watching him, sprang hastily to his side and struck ) down the weapon. J "Not that," he said. "You forget | yourself." J "Heaven forgive lue !" Geoffrey j mutteivd. "Thanks, Jules. You j are right. At least, lam not a j coward." I "You are a brave man. and you j have defended jour honour as one ; should. But come, my poor friend, let us slip away. Those stupid fellows, they have talked too much, they have acted with imprudence, and >on penvive the result. We shall lu»\e time to catch ilir midday boat across the Channel. J'rance \vill Ie a refuge. Here in l'.'ngland, f believe, it is the gaol for men | who light duels." I "Yes: the law has no ine.cy on | them," (Jeoffrey assented. " Anything rather than prison. . I will go, Jules, but not with you, and not to France." lie did not at once move. He lingered, a wild look in his eyes and the veins on Ms forehead swollen, while he took a last view of the tragic picture before him, as if he would brand it upon his memory. He saw the surgeon in ! the act of opening, with nervous i fingers, the case of shining instrui incuts ; he saw Connor still struggling with Colonel Desmond, and Violet sinking to her knees, with a sobbing cry, by the still form that lay huddled like so much lifeless clay. He waited to see no more. Hurling the pistol far from him, and shaking free of his friend's grasp, he turned and fled as if all the avenging furies were at his heels. "Cardew, come back," Jules Dupont called after him, as he gave chase. "Where are you There was no reply. The wood was dark and dense, and Geoffrey had been quickly lost to sight. Ht ran 4 oi) and on aimlessly and recklessly, crashing through bracken and undergrowth, and threading thi nuv/e of tree trunks. Horror and remorse and fear of he knew not what kept him company and whipped him to harder efforts. He was conscious only of a desire to put as gieat a distance as possible between himself and the spot whore he had in cold blood shot down the man whom he meant to spare. By the irony of fate lie was alive and unhurt, his soul blackened by a hideous crime, while Brian was, he believed. 1> ing dead in the glade—dead in Ins sister's arms. He slopi ed presently to reeovet breath and to listen. .lie leaned against a tree, panting heavily, and gazing with anxious eyes into the surrounding thickets. Hearing not the slightest sound, save the trilling- of the birds that fluttered about him, he pushed straight on until he emerged from the wood. He was on the north side of it, as well as he could judge, and it was from the south that he had approached it with Dupont, The comparatively open country gave him . a view qi cottage roofs here and there, a church spire, -and the gables of a brick mansion, but no people were in sight. He struck across a meadow, keeping to the shelter of a stiff hedge that was interspersed with trees, and when lie came to a sti.li" leading.into a second meadow he paused and looked back. The wood lay a quarter of a mile behind him, a mass of deep purple shadows rjnd sunlit foliage. Rooks were ciicling and cawing in air above the highest bows, as if they could spy down into the glade and were denouncing the bloody secret it held. Two men who had the appearance of farm labourers were running towards the plantation from the north. They stopped, wont on again and vanished among the trees. frey glanced in the opposite direction, where the smoke of London clouded the horizon, ami saw a familiar figure—he was sure it was Duport—striding rapidly across the open fields. "'Jules i:s still looking for me," he reflected. "It seems unkind to desert him. but it is the more prudent cpurse, since our path's- must lie apart, Hp better be thinking of his own safety, apd of getting over the Channel. Tbtfsc lwp rustics—no doubt thev heard the pistol shots—will soon spread the news. J'hpy might be paid to hold their tongues, and Connor will probably try to do that, but he will never he able to persuade Colonel Desmond to keep the affair quiet for a single hour if Brian is really dead. And I cannot believe otherwise. He never stirred,. never spoke, after he fell. It is nearly seven o'clock now, ami London will be reading of the duel before the morning is half done. And the police—they will be searching for me; they will be on the,. How am 1 to get away ? ' shall I do? Was ever a life so - wracked flpd Ruined ? In a few short hours i have Joj3t 'a; fortune, killed my best friend, turned a woman's love and trust to bitterest

hate. Ami iiot I, but Cam on Torrana, is lo Lie. me f>r it. till. That name'! 11 canno be only a coin- > eidejice, 10it her the Curs„- of , the Cardews is a real- and terrible thing or else J am the most luckless devil that was ever born into the world. Heavep help me ! -my burden is heavier than I can bear." To let events take their course, , and t'u'e the terrors of the law, was Grof-jv.v's first impulse, anil l'or a moment ho regarded it with resignation. almost with a s"nse of relief, so nutiil i-ig and (.-rushing wa; his dspair. Hut. his mood soon changed. He l'elt again that subtle, impelling power whuh mutely pointed to the distant hind of Guiana, as if to tell him that some task or <luty\. waited him there, to bid him ho[ o that life might yet have some •■•tvour for him in the future years, 1 «ck. and barren though it "was now. wid again he yielded to the mysterious v ill that was stronger than his •>\\n. which was his own for aught e s s.-cried to the contrary. Yes, < .11 hazards ho would go to Hriish Gi.i.ma, and there follow desi:iy "s bent, lead him where it .voi 11. "I ha\e about, as niuch chance ot im'i.-ig tiie golden treasure as of climbing Lo the moon." he told hinixe.f, indifferentl.v ; "but Guiana is thousands of miles away, and it is ; s good a plact* as any for a man to obtain em: loymont, C«< orgetown is a tini-ing port, and full of English and foreign mercantile houses, I will start life a fish under a new name. N"o fear of meeting anybody there who knew me at home." To plan was one thing, to act was another. Theie w< re diflicultirs in the path, and Geolney set himself Lo consider them. London, though it was who. e .he would 'be sought i\ r, was also the safest hiding-place for hi in or for any other hunted man. Well, then, it should he the grer-t town for the preset* t until his purprs ■ took more definite shape. lie went ou briskly—he had paused but a mi mile or two —and soon the •vood of the tragedy, which still ap,>aie;nly held its ghastly secret, Has hidden by a crest of high ground. Now that he had something -to exist, for, to fiv his mind upon, 'he felt his misery a little less Meat ly. ,lt was still almost inLoleraLl*, however. He could not shut out the memory of ISrian lying prone on the green sward, of Violet "s agonized face and burning wcrds. Those two pictures were nvi-r la [ore his eyes, to remind him that lie was branded with the mark of Cain : for the man who lay in lho wood had been as his brother. lie 'reached the highway that lad to Finchley. crossed scleral fields be*und it, and stopped by a brook, to bathe his hot tempi -s and pull the briars from his clothing. He pushed Ji). and for an hour his course was uncertain, first- by country roads, and then by streets of straggling villas,., until he found himself in the neighbourhood of Muswell liill and the A 1 -xandra I'alace. He bore oil' to lichgate I fill. breaking his walk at the Gate Home to get a drink of brandy, and the morning was half ripei.t when a erav.ling traniear landed hi h in tiie heart of London, at iho foot of Gray's Inn-road. , Jiy Hol'iorn and Newgate-street lie made •:is way to St. I'aid's Churchyard, ;'iid, seat -d on a bench in that tjuiot uasis. . whil .' tame pigeons strutted it lis feet and tho roaring tide of the jj.ighly city ebbed and ilowed iround liiin, he gave thoughtful consideration to the vexed problems of the immediate future. Fi:St was the question of money, 'lid a search in his pockets yielded le s than tight pounds, a sum ridii 1 >i.sly inadequate—unless he should ;o .by the steerage—l'or a s.*a voyage of thousands of miles ; mo reiver, he. needed clotlus, nor could : ie land ponnl-'ss in a foreign country. He had twenty pounds in gold t-icl-od- in his desk at the Albany-, >ut he dared not venture there for fear of arrest. knowing that word of the duel might long since have en lU"shell by wire to different pait-! i:'f London. As for the three i-tt-TS, 'they stl -o had b< on le't at h-s chambers, and had probably been lies'ed by now, as he wished them to be. Their purpurt was not in the leust altered by what had happened. "I don't know what I could have been thinking of," he told himself, ■■in fully, "to leave the money behind this morning and come away with only this"—referring to the parchment map. which he had taken from his pocket. Of coins'. I iieani to go back, though, if I surived. '"That Iliian would !e the uie was to fall was the last thing 1 dreamed of." Tl.e possession of a. gold watch .nil a valuable ring, suddenly reuein! ored, reliev ed Geoflrey s miiul •omewhal on the score of money. N'.'Xl came an ordeal that he dreaded ..nd it was with lagging ■ steps that lie sabied forth at noon to Ludgati Hill, v.hele he bought three different new spapei s. In none of them, however, was there any mention oi what lie feared lo find. "it is too soon," lie reflected, ' or they are hiding it from the public." He got some lunch at a cheap City restaurant, and imagined that the busjhoss men and clerks around him were regarding him with lurlive suspicion. Later hp pawned I his watch and ring for eighteen guineas. and paid a visit lo a shipping ollico, where he learned that a Hoj al Mail steamer was to sail for George- i town, iiemerara, at an early hour the folio,wing morning. He lusitat•d about engaging a passage, and finally decided to leave it until ho ] got to .Southampton. During the ■ long hours of the afternoon he t bought more papers, as fast as the ■uiecossi ve editions appealed. and 1 Mich time returned to the old 1 churchyard, .planning the placards .vith anxious eyes as he went. to | search tiie damp columns at his lei- E sure. Jbit the results were ever the same., Not a word, not a line to e -toll tiie public that two well-known t ,v:oung Englishmen had fought a fatal duel near Finchley that morning, i There was no mention of the affair whatever., * The sun vanished over the Thames 1 in a bank of murky clouds, and the ' night air grew chill and -misty, pre- 11 ■saving bad weather. At nine o'clock, wften the lights were beginning to • flash from street, lamps and shop., wimlovts, . Geoffrey ' crumpled the last eJition of an evening paper in his hand and sprang to his foot, his face b =.iger with the stimulus of a, pe>y- *

.. born hope." Two minutes later he t was striding "westward down Liidt. gate Hill, jostled and pushed by llie e sluggjsh crowds that more than r once beat him'off the pavement. 1 ■■■ " ——' !. CHAPVIiII X. s THE MAN IN THE CAB. , The sudden ela ion that had coiiie , at the end of his weary vigil, the i* ray of comfort 'that promised to . make his lot a little easier to bear, - burned brightly in Geoffrey's heart ■ at first and urged him on. To be i relieved of the burden of blood- . guiltiness !—it was almost enough - to make him temporarily forget his , other troubles. r "God grant that Jam right—that i I am not deceiving mvself !" was ? ilia mental prayer. "Surely 1 have , every reason to hope for tlie best. . The Press know nothing, and that ■ can mean but one thing. It the j worst had happened, and Brian was . dead, the papers would have had news of the tragedy hours ago—no • one would have dared to try to • hide it. But they are all .silent, and why ? Because Brian is alive, and perhaps not even -seriously i wounded. The bullet may have stunned him and glanced off. He I has been taken to Connor's house, i and his friends are hushing the matter up. Yes. that must he it. I i might have returned to the Albany i long ago. instead of wasting the day in hiding'. I will go there at once, and get the money and pack some clothes, and be oil to Southampton by the first train. Dupont may be waiting for me to come ; back, unless, believing what I did, he has already crossed the Channel." Geoffrey's theory was a sound one, and he put faith in it as far as Wellington-street, when grave doubts began to obtrude. At Charing Cross he paused irresolutely. Was it not more likely, he asked himself, that Colonel Desmond and the police were acting together to con-" ceal the tragedy for the present, so that there might be a better chance of apprehending Brian's slayer ? If that were so, detectives would be at this very moment searching Ijondon for him, guarding - the approaches to the Albany and watching the railway stations. "I must learn tlifc truth, one way or the other," he vowed, miserably. "I can't endure the suspense. No, cost what it 'may, I'll not leave town till I know whether Brian is dead or alive." That Jules Dupont was still in London and on the look-out for him Geoffrey regarded as most improbable : but he remembered that in any event John Connor would have ■icen certain to send him a letter or a telegram, and this strengthened his resolve. If a message was lying at his chambers, and he was convinced that such was the case, ae must have it at all hazards. lie hesitated no longer. In feverish haste, furtively scrutinising every face that passed him, he strode up through .Leicester-square, along Co-ventry-street, and across to the south-west corner of liegent-street. As he stood here, watching his chance to slip over Piccadilly, , a hansom came towards him from the west, moving slowly in the tide of wheeled traffic. It held two persons. .One was Carmen Torrana, and the other was a handsome,, 'swarthyyoung man with a - black moustache and a luxuriant beard parted in the middle. Geoffrey first saw the man, who was quite unknown to him : and then, as hu recognised Carmen, and their t'-yes met in the brilliant light that flooded the circus, the gill's face crimsoned with emotion that was stronger than surpri.se. She leaned partly forward, her eyes dilated and her lips moving, and having made a quick gesture that might have been involuntary or otherwise, she shrank back in tlic seat. At the same instant she nudged and spoke to her companion, who swiftly turned his dark eyes upon Geoffrey with a curious, penetrating stare. The driver whipped up his liors", and the cab swung down liegont-street and jingled rapidly away, lea\ing Geoffrey gazing aifier it in startled perplexity. Not. anger nor resentment, nor ill-fteling'. towards.-..Car-men, was at the moment in his thoughts. ."That look shii jgave me ! It- was a plain warning," he told hinitclf. "It meant that she has heard of the duel. She was surpt i.sed to see me here, and wished me to understand that I was in danger. Shall I go on, or" A hand clapped him on the shoulder, none too lightly, and a voice inquired at his ear : "Z beg your pardon, sir, but do you know those people ?" Geoffrey did not catch the words distinctly. He wheeled round with a guilty start, with his heart hallway to his mouth, expecting to see a warrant of arrest flourished before his eyes. Nor Was he immediately reassured, though what he saw, in a quick, searching glance, was a tall, lean man of sunburnt complexion'and honest, •> prepossessing features—a man whose rough-cut tweeds ' and flannel .-shirt, sash-bell and carelessly knotted |,ie, and wide-awake liat,worn at a angle, unmistakably betokpnecj U}e colonial. The query was ivpgateU, with a tiace pf a Scotcji apcent ' «'Po yQii know Hliose people?" "What people? Who?" Geoffrey. J asked, confusedly. "The two in. the cab, sir. It went down Regent-street, and I saw you looking after it. There was a man J with a yellow complexion, like a - Spaniard. Can you tell ire who tie is ?" "I haven't the slightest idea," - was Geoffrey's truthful response. "I never saw him before in my life." ,"I was mistaken, then. But 1 imagjried he gave you a mighty sharp g|ance,"'" "I wasn't aware-of it. If I had any knowledge of the -.nan .vou nfer to, I woujd gladly enlighten you." "Well, I beg youv pardon, sir. I'm •orry to have troubled you." With that, and a keen glance at t Geoffrey, the stranger nodded and moved on. It had not occurred to him to inquire about Carmen, else he might , have 1 anied something » bearing on the que;tion that interested him. : • • (To be - fuoiiiiniied).