Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/23

Rh One o'clock from the Slopperton steeples: two o'clock: three o'clock. The sick little boy does not go to sleep, but wanders, oh, how wearily, through past scenes in his young life. Midsummer rambles, Christmas holidays, and merry games; the pretty speeches of the little sister who died three years ago; unfinished tasks and puzzling exercises, all pass through his wandering mind; and when the clocks chime the quarter after three, he is still talking, still rambling on in feeble accents, still tossing wearily on his pillow.

As the clocks chime the quarter, the rope is at work again, and five minutes afterwards the usher clambers into the room. Not very good to look upon, either in costume or countenance; bad to look upon, with his clothes mud-bespattered and torn; wet to the skin; his hair in matted locks streaming over his forehead; worse to look upon, with his light blue eyes, bright with a dangerous and wicked fire—the eyes of a wild beast baulked of his prey; dreadful to look upon, with his hands clenched in fury, and his tongue busy with half-suppressed but terrible imprecations.

"All for nothing!" he mutters. "All the toil, the scheming, and the danger for nothing—all the work of the brain and the hands wasted—nothing gained, nothing gained!"

He hides away the rope in his trunk, and begins to unbutton his mud-stained gaiters. The little boy cries out in a feeble voice for his medicine.

The usher pours a tablespoonful of the mixture into a wineglass with a steady hand, and carries it to the bedside.

The boy is about to take it from him, when he utters a sudden cry.

"What's the matter?" asks Jabez, angrily.

"Your hand!—your hand! What's that upon your hand?"

A dark stain scarcely dry—a dark stain, at the sight of which the boy trembles from head to foot.

"Nothing, nothing!" answers the tutor. "Take your medicine, and go to sleep."

No, the boy cries hysterically, he won't take his medicine; he will never take anything again from that dreadful hand. "I know what that horrid stain is. What have you been doing? Why did you climb out of the window with a rope? It wasn't to make a swing; it must have been for something dreadful! Why did you stay away three hours in the middle of the night? I counted the hours by the church clocks. Why have you got those strange clothes on? What does it all mean? I'll ask the Doctor to take me out of this room! I'll go to him this moment, for I'm afraid of you."

The boy tries to get out of bed as he speaks; but the usher