Читать книгу Cloud, the Smiter - Arthur Gask - Страница 3

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ONE beautiful summer's evening a young man was bicycling slowly along the Military Road that runs between the great Outer Harbour of South Australia and Glenelg. The road was one very seldom used and wound a lonely, sinuous way among the sandhills by the sea.

Dusk had just fallen and the young man was riding slowly and anxiously along. He was not anxious because the surface of the road was shockingly uneven and bad, but he was troubled because he was riding without a light.

He had not expected to be out so late and there was no oil in his lamp. He had ridden out from Adelaide early that afternoon fully intending to be back long before night had fallen, but twice he had had trouble with his tyres, and dusk had now caught him seven miles at least from the city and on a road that was quite unknown to him.

Indeed he was a stranger to all these parts. A medical student from Sydney, two days before he had come alone to Adelaide, on holiday, and was now amusing himself by touring the district on a bicycle that he had brought with him to the city.

He pedalled slowly along.

Presently, and just as the road passed deeply in among the blackness of two high sandhills, he heard low voices away in front of him, and against the last lights in the sky caught sight of two figures coming towards him. They were men, he saw at once, and one, he thought, was wearing a policeman's helmet.

The young man frowned angrily at his bad luck, for he had no mind for the annoyance of being brought up before the authorities for riding a bicycle without a light.

Quickly, therefore, and without noise, he alighted from his machine and then, lifting it carefully from the ground, he tiptoed off across the road. There was a thick bush close near upon the sands and, crouching low behind it, in a few seconds he lay buried in the shadows.

Rather to his astonishment, for he had made quite certain he had not been seen, the voices had stopped the same instant that he had dismounted, and he was beginning to believe that both his eyes and ears must have deceived him when two men, stepping softly along in the dust that lay thick and deep on the side of the road, drew level with him where he lay.

He was not five yards from them.

They stopped walking and stood absolutely still. In the dim light he could just see from their attitudes that they were listening—listening and peering hard along the way down which he had just come.

Presently one of them spoke, very softly but very distinctly. "You always were an ass, Phil, always on the jumps."

"Ass, yourself. Burke. Everyone's always ass or fool if they don't think exactly with you. I know I saw someone distinctly, just in front."

"Well, what if you did? There's nothing in that—the road's public to anyone, isn't it?"

"Yes, there might be nothing in it if he'd passed us, but where's he gone?—that's what I don't like."

"I don't believe you saw anyone. I'd got my eyes skinned same as you, and I saw no one. It's just one of your damned ideas, always giving everyone the creeps."

"Look here, Burke, I've had no drinks and I've got no creeps, but I'll swear I saw someone coming towards us down that rise. I saw him as plainly as I see you here. He saw us too, I'm sure now, and that's why he disappeared. It's funny and I don't like it."

"Well, it doesn't worry me and I'm going in."

"No, nothing worries you, and you've got no eyes. Nothing worried poor old Rook, and he'd got no eyes. He'd have been here now if he'd used his eyes. He'd not be doing seven years if he'd seen the tram conductor follow him. You know that right enough."

"Oh, chuck it, Phil. Come on now; the Smiter will be in one of his rages if we're late," and greatly to the young man's astonishment they turned off exactly at right angles to the road and proceeded over the sandhills in the direction of the sea.

To the watcher in the bush the whole business seemed very extraordinary and not without a certain sinister significance.

That the men were evil-doers he somehow felt quite sure, but then he fell to wondering what evil they could possibly be doing in so lonely and so uninhabited a spot.

The young man was not afraid, but he shivered, as brave men often do when exposed to a sudden and unexpected situation.

A close observer of physiognomy would not indeed have expected any fear, for it was easy to see the watcher was no coward. His face was the face of a man not unaccustomed to take risks. His eyes were grave and deep set, his jaw was square and firm, and there were lines about his mouth that had been carved there in Gallipoli and France.

A tense two minutes' waiting, and he followed warily after the two men. He was curious as to where they were going and his curiosity was soon satisfied.

To his surprise again, in less almost than two hundred yards, he came upon a low, flat bungalow built deep in the hollow between two sandhills. It seemed quite a fair-sized building as far as he could see in the dark, and a verandah ran all round the sides.

There were no signs anywhere of the men he was following, but just as he caught sight of the building he heard the clang of a shutting door. There were lights in the place.

He turned back the way he had come, and making a wide detour, in a few minutes approached the bungalow on the side facing the sea.

Everything was quite still. All the windows were closely shuttered, but he could see plainly the cracks of light from within.

Silently he tiptoed up on to the verandah and very cautiously and without noise placed his ear close to where the light was coming from.

He could hear the hum of low voices, but to his disappointment he could pick up no word of what was being said.

Then suddenly—so suddenly that there was not the slightest chance of his preventing it—he received a stunning blow on the back of the head and was sent sprawling on his face to the verandah floor. Someone leapt on to his back and pinioned his arms to the ground. At the same time an exultant voice cried shrilly, "Come out, you beggars, quick. There's a blasted spy here and I've downed him. Quick! quick!"

There was a great shuffling of feet and the noise of a chair being overturned; then a door banged open and three men ran out. They all fell on him at once, and in two minutes he had been dragged inside the house, and, with his arms tied painfully and tightly behind him, had been bundled roughly into a chair.

He found himself in a large room with a good-sized table running down the centre. At one end of the table there was a heap of articles that had apparently been hastily covered with a cloth. His attention was drawn to this by one of his captors frowningly adjusting the end of the cloth, so as to make sure he should not possibly perceive what was underneath. The four men sat down to the table and one of them, producing a revolver, laid it significantly down just in front of him.

Then they all regarded him intently, without speaking, for quite a long time.

The young man, in spite of himself, felt uneasy. The man who had knocked him down was the first to speak, but it was to his companions that he addressed his remark.

"So, I was an ass, was I?" he sneered exultingly, "and I had got the jumps, eh? Where the devil would we all have been if I hadn't stopped outside to make sure? I knew I'd seen someone out on that road there, and directly he turned back I knew at once he was a spy. It was you who were the damned fool, Burke, at any rate this time."

"Oh, shut up, Phil. Never mind about that now. Who the hell is this man?—that's what I want to know. Who are you, now?" And half rising from his seat the speaker leaned frowningly across the table to peer closer at the student.

The latter was still dazed and heavy with his fall, but he answered coherently enough.

"I'm no one in particular," he said. "I'm a medical student and my name is Page."

"You're in the police!"

"Oh no, I'm not. I'm a medical student I say, and I come from Sydney."

"You followed us out here—you were spying."

"No, indeed, I wasn't. It was quite an accident."

"Accident, be damned! We saw you in the road."

"Yes—I know that, but I thought you were policemen yourselves. I am bicycling to Adelaide, and I've got no oil in my lamp. I saw you coming and thought one of you had got a policeman's hat. So I hid until you had gone by, that's all."

His interrogator sneered contemptuously.

"And that's why you came sneaking round the verandah; that's why you went right round the other side of the sandhill, so as to take us unawares! That's why you stood listening, too, under the window! You fool! Again I ask you what did you follow us for?"

The student hesitated a moment and then replied a little lamely, "I wanted to see if I could borrow some oil."

There was a snarl of dangerous laughter, and then a third man broke in.

"See what he's got about him, Phil; that'll help us a bit."

The young man's pockets were quickly emptied of their contents and his clothes searched generally. The man they called Phil seemed purposely rough in his handling, but the victim bore patiently with the roughness, realising perfectly well now that things were in a dangerous way.

The search yielded nothing of interest. A little money, some keys, a pocket knife, a few odds and ends, and nothing more. No papers or letters of any kind. The student had left his pocket-book and all his valuables locked in the trunk at his hotel.

The searchers were dissatisfied. The very absence of any papers seemed to them suspicious, and they glared darkly at the young man.

Then suddenly the fourth man spoke for the first time, and the student started as if he had been stung. He had not heard that voice before and the cruelty in it struck at him like a blow. It was a voice, cold, suave, and pitiless, without a trace of mercy in its tone. It was the voice of a man who would hesitate at nothing if he thought it necessary—a man with no scruples whatsoever.

"See if he's got any name," he said quietly, "on the collar of his shirt or in the pocket of his coat."

The student regarded him intently. He was a rather fat man with a white flabby face, and neither short nor tall. He had a square broad forehead, and his mouth was set in a hard straight line. His eyes were sleepy-looking and appeared to have no particular expression in them. The man reminded him strangely of someone in his past life, but he could not remember whom.

They found no name either in his pocket or on his shirt, and after a short silence the fourth man spoke again.

"Whom do you know in Adelaide?"

The student shrugged his shoulders.

"I know no one," he said; "I only arrived the day before yesterday. I am stopping at the Southern Cross Hotel."

Again a short silence and the interrogation went on.

"You say you're a medical student."

"Yes—in my third year."

"Tell me the branches of the carotid artery."

For a moment the student was amused—then he reeled them off glibly.

"What's your father?"

"A bank manager in Sydney. Manager of the Coulter Street branch of the Bank of New South Wales."

A significant glance passed between the men, and the student distinctly saw the eyes of the man they called Phil turn quickly to the covered-up end of the table.

The fourth man spoke again, coldly and deliberately as before.

"I believe you're a liar."

For the first time the student was angry.

"What if I am? I've done you no harm. But I'm not. Everything I've told you is true, except that I kept back that I was curious to know what your two friends were about."

"What made you curious?"

"What I heard them say."

"Exactly, you're a spy."

The student bit his lip in vexation. He knew that like a fool he had given himself away. He ought never to have let them know that he had heard anything at all. Now, if they had got anything to hide, they knew that they had aroused his suspicions and it might be dangerous for them to let him go.

He looked at them from one to another, but three of them now averted their eyes. Only the fourth man was looking at him still.

There was a long, dreadful silence and the young man shivered. He realised that he was in the presence of death.

Once before he remembered such a scene as this, in a little village in the far-off days in France. He had been on orderly duty, and they were examining a spy. The examination had been concluded and there had been a moment's silence before the officer had told the spy he was about to die. He sensed that silence now.

The fourth man made a peculiar sign to the one they called Phil.

"Take this young gentleman outside," he said suavely, "while we think over what we must do. Don't unloose his arms. No," he continued, turning back to the young man, "you'd better go quietly. We're not going to hurt you, but we have valuable properties here and we should like to be quite certain you didn't come after them. We shall inquire into your story and see if it's all true. The Southern Cross Hotel, I think you said. Well, we'll phone up. We shan't keep you long."

The student got up stiffly. He knew quite well that the man was lying, and that they were going to do something dreadful to him, but he made a pretence of being relieved and smiled confidently.

Still pinioned and with an escort on either side, he was piloted through the house and across a small yard to a substantial-looking motor shed on the far side. The moon had just risen and he could plainly see the padlock on the door.

The man they had called Burke produced a key and, opening the door only just wide enough to admit of his entering, unceremoniously pushed the prisoner in and clanged and padlocked the door again behind him.

It was almost dark inside and the vicious push he had received caused the student instantly to overbalance. He fell painfully upon a big heap of wood and for quite a minute lay dazed and stunned exactly where he fell.

Then he rolled over in a feeble attempt to sit up, and the first thing his hands touched was the cold, smooth blade of an axe.

For a moment he thought nothing of it, and then it suddenly flashed through him that if the blade were only moderately sharp he could very quickly cut through the cord that held his wrists so painfully together. At once he began rubbing the cord and blade together.

The axe proved sharper even than he had dared to hope and almost immediately he was free of his bonds and was breathlessly chafing the blood back into his cold, numbed hands.

All the while he was looking intently about him. The moonlight came in faintly between the chinks of the door and, more accustomed now to the darkness, he could take in all his surroundings without difficulty.

There was no car in the garage and it was apparently being used as a wood shed only.

His thoughts succeeded one another quickly. He was sure he was in great and deadly peril, for if ever he had seen murder in anyone's eyes he had seen it in those of the white, flabby-faced man who had questioned him last.

What their business was he could not imagine, but he believed he had stumbled inadvertently upon some sinister secret, and that it would not be safe therefore for them now to let him go.

He shuddered to think what they might be intending to do to him, but if his four years in the war had given him courage, they had also given him quickness and resource. Action followed almost immediately upon thought.

Directly sensation had come back fully into his hands, he stood back a few feet, well away from the wall, and swinging the long axe over his head brought it down fiercely upon the door.

Once, twice, three times he swung it and then, crash, the door burst open and he sprang exulting into the moonlight.

There was no hesitation then about his actions. With a loud cry of defiance, for he knew it would be quite hopeless to imagine the breaking down of the door had not been heard, he hurled his axe contemptuously upon the roof of the bungalow, and raced like a greyhound for the sea.

He knew his only chance lay in flight, and he judged rightly he could run best over the broad level sand at the margin of the waves.

He reckoned that if he could get only a hundred yards from the house he would be safe, for it would be quite improbable that they would have a loaded rifle ready.

Racing over the yard and down towards the low fence that bounded the long stretch of grass in the front of the house, he heard voices shouting to him to stop and then three times in quick succession someone from behind fired with a revolver. The hiss of the bullets sounded unpleasantly close, but he was quite unharmed.

He had reached the fence and was adjusting his stride to leap over it when for the fourth time the revolver spoke. The bullet missed him as before, but the report made him miscalculate his jump. He sprang short and hitting the top rail fell with a heavy crash back on to the ground. His forehead struck a jagged paling and in an instant he was blinded with blood.

He felt terribly sick and made no attempt to rise. Two of his late captors ran up.

"My God," cried one of them. "Smiter's hit him in the head. He's killed him. Fetch the others quick."

But there was no need, for the other two came running down as he spoke. There was a low and hurried consultation and then the Smiter issued his orders like a man who was accustomed to be obeyed.

"Put him in the sea," he said sharply; "with this tide running he'll be out of the gulf by morning. Quick now; the shots may have been heard. Lift him, don't drag him down. You needn't go in deep. The tide'll be dead off shore."

With no further discussion the limp body of the student was bundled up and hurried to the sea.

He was quite conscious and had missed no word of what had been said, but he felt too sick to worry about anything. It crossed into his mind that he was prepared to die.

A few stumbling yards and they were over the sands and by the sea.

"Now swing him; one, two, three. .. .. ."

Instinctively he knew what was coming, and he took in a deep breath.

Splash—he was free of them at last.

The sweet warm water of the sea closed over him, but instantly as he sank his brain was cleared of its oppression, and the magic love of life came back.

He felt revived at once.

Why should he die in any case? He had so much to live for, and, after all, he could not be very much hurt.

With the sea warm as it can be on an Australian summer night, he knew he could remain in it for hours without being chilled, and he had only to drift gently with the tide speedily to draw clear from the murderers.

He chuckled to himself at the simple way in which they had let him go.

Very gently he allowed himself to rise to the surface, until his face was just clear, and then he opened his eyes.

The moon was disappearing behind a cloud, and in a few seconds it was almost pitch dark.

He was about twenty yards from the shore and dimly he could see the figures of the two men who had thrown him in.

They were watching to see what had become of him.

He drifted very slowly away.