Page:Quiller-Couch - Noughts and Crosses.djvu/209

Rh Said I, "Look here; you're Dick Jago. How far have you walked to-day?"

He had turned on me as if ready with a sharp question, but changed his mind and answered doggedly— "All the way from Drakeport."

"Very well; then it's right-about-face with you and back to Drakeport before I let you go. Do you see this stick? If you attempt to walk a step more towards the port, I'll crack your head with it."

He gulped down something in his throat. "Is the old man ill?" he asked.

"He's dead," said I, simply.

The fellow turned his eyes to the horizon, and began whistling the air of "The Prickly Briar" softly to himself. And while he whistled, my memory ran back to the day when he first came to trouble us, and play the fiend's mischief with a couple of dear honest hearts.

The day I travelled back to was one in the prime of May, when the lilacs were out by Dr. Jago's green gate, and the General from