CHAPTER XL

DARKNESS MADE LIGHT.

We last left Morley Ashton and Hawkshaw seated near the verge of Acton Chine.

The former was extracting from his portemonnaie the ring which Ethel Basset had so unwisely commissioned him to return, and he remained with it in his hand for a minute or two, forming in his own mind the least offensive mode of tendering it. At that time the chimes of the church of Acton-Rennel rung out joyously their closing peal, and the sound, together with the beauty of the evening, the softness of the wooded landscape on one hand, and the wild grandeur of the surf-beaten rocks on the other, were not without a most soothing influence on the somewhat poetic and imaginative temperament of Morley, who reflected on the shortness of the time he would be permitted to look on that familiar scene, and the changes that must take place ere--if ever--he saw it again.

He said something of this kind to Hawkshaw, who was alternately silent or nervously garrulous, adding, with a sad smile--

"I never hear the chimes of old Acton, ringing over the woodlands, without thinking of the lines--

"'Those evening bells, those evening bells, How many a tale their music tells, Of youth, of home, and native clime, When last I heard their soothing chime.'

And then the scenery here about is so glorious, and so thoroughly English in its character and fertility!"

"Bah! you don't call this scenery, do you?" asked Hawkshaw, brusquely.

"Is it not charming?"

"May be so to you; but to me, who have hunted, scouted, and trapped over the mighty Sierras, which divide Texas from New Mexico--Sierras covered to their cloud-clapped summits with forests of oak, pine, and cedar, and all alive with wild horses and cattle; or to me, who have seen the yet denser woods out of which the Arkansas and Trinidad rivers come roaring to the sea, your mild, Dutch-looking, English landscape, is no more than a rat-ranche would be if compared to St. Paul's Cathedral?"

"It must be somewhat dangerous, a land teeming with wild horses and cattle?" said Morley, to change the subject, and smiling, as he lit a fresh cigar.

"Dangerous? _Caramba_! I rather calculate it is!"

"How?" asked Morley, carelessly.

"In those mountain ranges are wild trappers, and lawless bandidos, like those Barradas I told you of one evening--do you remember?"

"Perfectly."

"Fellows of all colours--white, black, and brown, yellow, and copper-coloured--who may be off with your purse and scalp before you know where you are. Then there are bears, conguars, buffaloes, panthers, wolves, foxes, and alligators. I was nearly gobbled up by one when bathing in the Red River. Immortal smash! I had a close run for it, and only kept him off by splashing and kicking like a sunfish in a breeze."

After a pause--

"I wish we had the ladies here," said Morley; "the evening is so lovely--the sunset is so rich."

"Aye--our Ethel is romantic, very!" observed Hawkshaw; "she rather likes 'Thaddeus of Warsaw,' and copies verses in a hot-pressed album; sighs often when alone, no doubt, and always ties the ribbons of her bonnet in a true-lover's knot."

Morley looked fixedly at the speaker, for the whole speech, and the phrase, "our Ethel," displeased him.

"Mr. Hawkshaw," said he, gravely, "there is something of a sneer in your tone, which I do not understand."

"Sneer--not at all. Do you imagine that I would sneer at one so charming as our friend, Miss Basset--one whom we mutually admire so much?" replied Hawkshaw; but as he spoke the fire of secret hate mingled in his eye with that of the admiration, we cannot term it love, he bore for Ethel.

"Apropos of Miss Basset," said Morley, now careless whether he offended or not, "I have here a ring of yours, Captain Hawkshaw, which she commissioned me to return to you, as, on reflection, she cannot think of depriving you of so interesting a relic of your Mexican campaigns."

"Thank you," replied Hawkshaw, with a quiet stare, as he took the ring from Morley, and placed it on one of his fingers, even his bushy moustache failing to conceal the fierce quiver of his upper lip; "I received it at a ball, from the eldest daughter of General Santa Anna, and so can well afford to receive it back from a daughter of old Scriven Basset."

This was the third or fourth history of the ring Morley had heard; but he only smiled in silence.

"You think you have done your duty," resumed the captain, as the resolution to quarrel became strong in his breast, so strong that he cared not to repress it; "but I reckon, friend Ashton, that you are slightly up a tree, as the Yankees say."

"Sir, I do not understand you," said Morley.

"I am not so vernal as to fail in perceiving that you are awfully spooney upon Miss Basset."

"If I am to construe your slang into meaning that I love her, you are quite right," replied Morley, coldly, as he rose up.

"But you cannot think of marrying her, even if old Basset be donkey enough to let you!"

"Captain Hawkshaw!"

"For one who can scarcely float himself, it is thankless work to take a sinking craft in tow," continued the captain, whose phrases were quite as often nautical as Mexican.

"Sir, you are impertinent."

"_Caramba!_ not at all--but truthful--only truthful," replied Hawkshaw, with a studied insolence of manner, as he continued to knock the ashes off his cigar, so that they flew all over Morley's face. "If I had you in Mexico, I would give you advice more seriously; as it is, in this tame, stupid land of good order, coroners' inquests, rural police, and city bluebottles, I must content myself with what I have said."

"Stand back, sir, and permit me to pass you!" said Morley, haughtily, as he found that, on rising, he was unpleasantly near the verge of the rocks, and that Hawkshaw, with a dark and dangerous gleam in his eyes, stood menacingly between him and the safer portion of the edge.

It was at that moment, that unexpectedly as a star falls, or light flashes, a diabolical idea occurred to Hawkshaw, just as if a fiend, unseen, was at his ear to whisper and to urge him on.

A sudden silence seemed to fill the air--to pervade the land and sea. He ceased to hear the roar of the waves in the Chine below, or the screaming of the wild sea-birds in mid air. A clamorous ferocity--a terrible anxiety, seemed to possess his whole soul.

He cast a hasty glance around him; not a person was near, and no eye was upon them, save One in heaven, and that dread eye he forgot. He gave the unsuspecting Morley a dreadful blow with his clenched hand, and then a violent push. The victim staggered backward, reeled forward, and as he fell, clutched wildly at the turf which fringed the edge of the rocks.

"Oh, Heaven!" burst from his lips; "Hawkshaw--you cannot--you dare not mean this! Save me--Ethel!"

The pieces of turf he clutched so desperately gave way, and without a sound he vanished into the awful profundity below!

Hawkshaw lingered a moment by the fatal spot, for in that moment all his senses were paralysed. His breath, his sight, and hearing were gone, and he felt as one who had ceased to live.

Then he glanced carefully, fearfully, and stealthily around, to assure himself again that the dreadful deed he had committed was unseen by mortal eyes, and anon, turning, he proceeded rapidly to descend the winding pathway from the Chine, and then sought the road to Laurel Lodge.

The minutes spent in descending seemed to be so many hours. His feet felt as if glued to the dusty path, and his knees trembled under him. Before he reached the highway the fierce fever of his blood had cooled, though his heart still beat wildly, and his temples throbbed painfully.

There was a revulsion of feeling now, and he began to wish the cruel deed undone. It was an act so tremendous, so fearful to be perpetrated among civilised people, that it appalled him more than he could have expected, though he had witnessed, yes, and acted in many a deed of cruelty and bloodshed, in climes where the law, unless it were Lynch law, was unknown even in name.

The sun had set, and the sombre shadows of evening were deepening on the land and sea.

Hawkshaw walked hurriedly, taking a great circuit, that the perturbation of his spirits might subside a little before he presented himself at Laurel Lodge; but the throbbing of his temples, and the leaping of his heart, continued the same as he hastened on; and now, as the twilight deepened, the trees and shadows began to take strange and threatening forms, and ever before him he seemed to see the last despairing glance of Morley's eyes, and in his ears to hear the rending of the turf as it gave way, with the awful sound of the poor victim's voice, as with the terror of a dreadful death in his soul, he so vainly sought the pitiless destroyer to save him.

In the cool flow of a wayside runnel, he bathed his trembling hands and flushed forehead. Then he began to consider that, as no one had seen him commit the act, he need scarcely wish it undone; that he should dismiss the palsying fear that was gnawing at his heart, for in time he would strive to forget, as he had forgotten and lived down many a thing before.

He had removed a troublesome rival from his path, and fearfully had he punished Ethel for her rejection of his addresses but two hours or so before, it now seemed years ago, and for her open preference of the hapless Morley Ashton; and yet--and yet the emotions of that man's soul were what no pen can depict.

The summer moon that rose so broad and redly from the distant sea now showed her clear, bright, silver disc above the rocks of Acton Chine, but Hawkshaw dared not look upon her lest he might see murder on her face, as slowly, with parched lips, pallid cheeks, and trembling hands, he left the long, green lane, and proceeded up the avenue that led to Laurel Lodge.