Читать книгу Tom Slade's Double Dare - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 8

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One thing Hervey did bear in mind, and that was what Tom had told him about how to distinguish a dark object in the dark. He would not remember this twenty-four hours hence, but he remembered it then, and that is saying much for him. He tried to improve upon the formula by experimenting with his eyes cross-eyed, but it didn’t work. Skirting the lower western reach of the mountain and beyond, in the comparatively flat country, he kept squinting away at old Crows Nest and its shadowy, black mass guided him. “Slady’s got the right dope on mountains,” he said to himself.

The race was about as Tom had said; four miles for the horses, against a mile and a half for Hervey. Both routes were bad, Hervey’s the worse of the two. All things considered, hills, muddy roads, trackless woodland, swampy areas, it should take the heavily loaded team a little over an hour to reach the bridge. By Tom’s calculation it must take Hervey at least an hour and a half.

So there you are.

Going straight north, Hervey would have that dim black mass, hovering on the verge of invisibility, to guide him. Traveling a little west of north he might have reached the road at a nearer point. But here the traveling was bad and the danger of getting lost greater. Tom had weighed one thing against another and told Hervey to go straight north.

Hervey found the first half hour of his journey very difficult, picking his way around the base of the mountain. Beyond the country was flat and comparatively open, being mostly sparse woodland. The wind was very keen here, since there was no mountain to break its force and the rain blew in his face, almost blinding him.

Again and again he wiped his dripping face with his sleeve and plodded on, picking out his beacon now and again in the darkness. It was surprising how easy it was for him to do this by the little trick of which Tom had told him. His eyes would just catch the mountain for a second, then it would evaporate in the surrounding blackness, like breath on a pane of glass.

Suddenly, something happened which quite unnerved him. He was hurrying through a patch of woodland when, not more than ten feet ahead of him, he was certain that he saw something dark glide from one tree to another.

He stopped short, his heart in his mouth. The minutes, he knew, were precious, but he could not move. The wind in the trees moaned like some lost soul, and in his stark fear the beating of the drops on the leafy carpet startled him. He heard these because he was standing still, and the ceasing of his own footfalls emphasized the steady patter. Somewhere, in all that stormy solitude and desolation, an uncanny owl hooted its dismal song.

Hervey did not move.

It was not till he bethought him of those horses lumbering along the road ever nearer and nearer to that trap of death that he got control of himself and started off.

It was just the gloom of those dark woods, the play of some freakish and deceptive shadow conjuring itself into a human presence, that he had seen.... Who would be out in that lonely wood on such a night?

With a sudden, desperate impulse to challenge his fear and have done with it, he stepped briskly toward the tree to glance about it and dispel his illusion. If it was just some branch broken by the wind and hanging loose....

He approached the trunk and edged around it. As he did so a form moved around the trunk also. Hervey paused. The pounding of his heart seemed louder than the noises of the storm. In his throat was a queer burning sensation. He could not speak. He could not stir. The dark form moved again, ever so little....