At last, and almost with the rapidity of a stroke of lightning, the whole mystery solved itself. It flashed upon his mind that Pepeeta had abandoned him, and in company with the man he had so implicitly trusted.

The serpent he had nourished in his bosom had at last stung him! Tearing the paper into shreds, and stamping upon the floor, he cursed and raved.

"I see it all," he cried. "Fool, a.s.s, bat, mole! Curse me! Yes, curse me! But curse them also! Oh! G-G-G.o.d, help me to avenge this wrong!"

As soon as a G.o.d is necessary to the atheist he invents one, and in a single instant this hopeless skeptic had become a firm believer in the Deity. It seemed for a few moments as if his pa.s.sions would destroy him by their internal violence; but their first ebullition was soon expended and he began to grow calm. The electric fires of his anger were no longer permitted to play at random, but were gathered up into a thunderbolt to be hurled at his foe; this half-crazed man suddenly became as cool and calculating as he was desperate and determined.

A purpose shaped itself instantly in his mind, and he began its execution without delay. He made no confidant, took no advice; but having smoothed his ruffled clothing and combed his disheveled hair so as to excite no comment and provoke no question, he pa.s.sed through the hotel corridor and office, greeting his acquaintances with his accustomed ease, and made his way to the livery stable. He went at once to the stalls where his famous team was accustomed to stand, and to his astonishment and delight found his horses both there.

"Tom," he said to the hostler, "did you hire a horse and b-b-buggy to a young couple last night?"

"I did not," answered the surly groom.

"Tell me the truth," said the doctor in a voice that made every word sound like the crack of a rifle.

"What do you take me for?" asked the stableman, trying to appear indignant and innocent.

"You're a l-l-liar, and I am in no mood for trifling. Out with it, you scoundrel!" he cried, seizing him by the throat.

With a sign of terror the groom indicated his readiness to come to terms, and the doctor relaxed his grip.

Still trembling, he told the truth.

"Do you know which road they took?"

He waved his hand toward Kentucky.

"Put a saddle on Hamlet--no, on Romeo," he ordered, tersely.

The groom entered a box stall and led out the black beauty. The doctor glanced him over and smiled. And well he might, for every muscle, every motion betokened speed, intelligence, endurance.

The pursuer made a single stop on his way to the river and that was at a gun store, from which he emerged carrying a pair of saddle bags on his arm. In the holsters were two loaded pistols.

He smiled as he mounted, having already consummated vengeance in his heart. Once across the river and safe upon the Louisville pike, he loosened the reins. The horse, whose sympathetic heart had already been imbued with the spirit of his rider, shook his long black mane, plunged forward and pounded along the hard turnpike. His hoof-beats--sharp, sonorous, rhythmical--seemed to be crying for vengeance; for hoof-beats have a language, and always utter the thoughts of a rider.

Now that he was well on his way the outraged husband had time to reflect, and the past few months rose vividly before him. He saw his own folly and did not spare himself in his condemnation; but this folly did not for an instant modify the guilt of the two fugitives. Every moment his injuries seemed more colossal, more unpardonable, more unendurable.

He had been wounded in his affections and also in his vanity, which was far more dreadful, and an agonizing thirst for vengeance overpowered him.

The great veins began to swell in his neck. He would have choked, had he not violently torn off his collar and cravat and flung them into the dust.

His thirst for blood outstripped his fleet horse, who seemed to him, in his impetuous haste, to be creeping like a snail. He drove his spurs deep into the sides of the frightened animal, which almost leaped through his girth. A less expert horseman would have been unseated; but an earthquake could not have thrown this Centaur out of his saddle.

The forests, hills and houses flowed past him like a river. Occasionally he halted an instant to inquire of some lonely traveler if he had seen a horse and buggy pa.s.sing that way, but he was cunning enough to conceal his anxiety and to hide his joy as every answer made him more certain that he was on the trail of the fugitives.

The road was perfectly familiar. He had traversed it a hundred times, and not having to inquire the way he had only to remember and to reflect. An undercurrent of speculation had been flowing through his mind as to where he should overtake the fugitives.

"They will have arrived almost at the edge of the great forest and I will let them enter," he said to himself.

Having reached the foot of a long hill, he dismounted, led his horse to a little brook and permitted him to drink. When the n.o.ble animal had quenched his thirst, the quack patted his neck, picked him a little wisp of gra.s.s and talked to him as if he were a man.

"We will rest ourselves a little now, for we shall need all our strength and nerve. One more b-b-burst of speed and we shall overhaul them. Have you got your wind, Romeo? Come then, let us be off!"

Once more he sprang into the saddle, the restive horse pawing the ground and leaping forward before he was seated. His master held him back while they ascended the long slope of the hill, and stopped him as they gained its summit.

The descent was a gradual one, down into a beautiful valley. For a mile or two the road was perfectly straight and the rider, shading his eyes, glanced along it. In the distance a moving object attracted his attention, and as he gazed at it, long and strainingly, the terrible smile once more wreathed his white lips.

He opened the holsters, drew out the pistols, examined them carefully, replaced them, felt of the stirrup straps, tightened the girth, settled himself in the saddle and shouted "Go!"

The command electrified the horse, and he dashed forward again faster than ever. As they tore down the slope of the hill, it occurred to the doctor that he had not formed any definite plan as to what he should do to Pepeeta! "Shall I kill her, also?" he asked himself.

The thought sent a shudder through him and he instinctively pulled on the bridle.

"My heart will tell me," he cried aloud, and loosened the reins of his horse and of his pa.s.sions. The very semblance of humanity seemed to be suddenly obliterated from his countenance. This was no longer a man, but an agent of destruction rushing like a missile projected from a cannon.

There were only two things present to his consciousness--the carriage upon which he was swiftly gaining, and the fierce smiting of the horse's hoofs which seemed to be echoing the cries of his heart for vengeance.

On he swept, nearer, nearer, nearer. He was now within hailing distance, and his brain reeled; he forgot his discretion and his plan.

"Halt," he screamed, in a voice that cut the silent air like a knife.

A face appeared above the top of the buggy, and looked back. It was his foe.

With a howl of rage, he s.n.a.t.c.hed a pistol from the holster and fired.

The bullet went wide of the mark and the next instant he saw the whip-lash cut the air and descend on the flank of the startled mare. The buggy lurched forward, and for an instant drew rapidly away. Overwhelmed by the fear that he might be baffled in his vengeance, he drew the other pistol and fired again more wide of the mark than before.

With a wild oath he flung the smoking weapons into the road, and again drove the spurs into the steaming sides of his horse. There could be no doubt as to the result of the chase after that. The half-maddened animal was overhauling the fugitives perceptibly at every enormous stride, and in a few moments more shot by the buggy and up to the head of the terrified mare. As he did so, his rider reached out his left hand and caught the mare by her bridle, reined up his own horse and threw both of the animals back upon their haunches.

In another instant the two men stood confronting each other on the road, the quack black and terrible, the Quaker white and calm. Not a word was spoken, and like two wild beasts emerging from a jungle they sprang at each other's throats. They were oddly, but not unequally, matched, for while the doctor was short, thick-set and muscular, but clumsy and awkward like a bear, David was tall and slim, but lithe and sinewy as a panther. Locked in each other's arms, they seemed like a single hideous monster in some sort of convulsion.

As it was impossible for them in this deadly embrace to strike, they wrestled rather than fought, and bit with teeth and tore with hands with equal ferocity.

At the instant when the two infuriated men seized each other in this deadly grip, Pepeeta fainted, while the terrified mare backed the buggy into the bushes by the roadside. Romeo, snorting and pawing the ground, approached the combatants, snuffed at them a moment as if profoundly concerned at their strange maneuvers, then, turning away, began to crop the rich blue gra.s.s in entire indifference to the results of this mad quarrel between two foolish men.

The combatants surged and swayed back and forth along the dusty road, tripping and stumbling in vain efforts to throw each other to the ground. Their danger lent them strength, and their hatred skill. At last, after protracted efforts, they fell and rolled over and over, now one on top, now the other. Suddenly and as if by a single impulse changing their tactics, their right hands unclasped and began to feel each for the other's throat. A sudden slip of David's hold permitted the doctor to turn him over, and sprawling across his breast he pinioned him to the earth. His great hand stole toward the throat of his prostrate foe and fastened upon it with the grip of an iron vise.

The beautiful face turned pale, then grew purple. This would have been the last moment in the life of the Quaker had not his right hand, convulsively clawing the road, touched a piece of broken rock. It was as if a life-line had swung up against the hand of a drowning man.

Through the body which had seemed to be emptied of all its resources, a tide of reserve energy swelled, under the impulse of which the exhausted youth untwisted the grip of the iron hand, flung off the heavy body, mounted upon it, crowded the great head with its matted hair and staring eyes down into the dust, seized the stone with his right hand, raised it, and struck.

The effect of the blow was twofold--paralyzing the brain of the smitten and the arm of the smiter. Across the low forehead of the quack it left a great gaping wound like a b.l.o.o.d.y mouth. A death-like pallor spread itself over his countenance, the lids dropped back and left the eyes staring hideously up into the face above them.

David's arm, spasmodically uplifted for a second blow, was suspended in air. He did not move for a long time; and when at length his scattered senses began to return he threw down the stone, rose to his feet and exclaimed in accents of terror, "My G.o.d! I have killed him."

He could not overcome the fascination of the lifeless face and wide-staring eyes. They drew him towards them; he stooped down and felt for the pulse, which was imperceptible; laid his hand upon the heart, but could not feel it beat; he raised an arm, and it fell back limp and lifeless.

Suddenly one elemental pa.s.sion gave place to another. Horror had displaced anger, and now in its turn gave way to the instinct of self-preservation. He looked toward the carriage and saw that Pepeeta had fallen into a swoon. "Perhaps she has not seen what has happened,"

he said to himself, and a cunning smile lit up his pale face.

Stooping down, he seized the loathsome object lying there in the dust of the road and dragged it off into the thick shrubbery. Stumbling along, he came to a hollow made by the roots of an upturned tree. Into this he flung the thing, hastily; covered it with moss and leaves, and stood staring stupidly at the rude sepulchre. He experienced a momentary feeling of relief that the hideous object was out of sight; but the consciousness of his guilt and his danger soon surged back upon him like a flood. In such moments the mind works wildly, like a clock with a broken spring, but sometimes with an astonishing accuracy and wisdom.

It occurred to him that if he left the body where it was and it should be eventually discovered, it would afford the gravest suspicions of foul play; but that if he dragged it back again to the road and laid it with its face in the dust, against the rock with which the deed was done, it might pa.s.s for an accident.