Chapter 7 THE SET TIME.

Dick Causton trudged back to his cabin in no tranquil frame of mind. He had his own excellent reasons for believing that a more disappointed and angry man than Doctor Remy, at that moment, was not to be found under the sun. Not only had he lost the coveted Bergan estate, but he had been fooled and cheated by the very man whom he had taken to be his most willing and despicable tool. Nor would it be long, Dick foresaw, before the doctor would seek to mitigate the bitterness of his chagrin with whatever sweetness was to be derived from the thought and purpose of revenge. In that case, he would be the first point of attack. What a fool he had been to meddle or make with any of the doctor's affairs! As if he did not know at least a dozen different proverbs in as many languages, to the effect that prudence was better than repentance, safety preferable to sorrow! Of what use was it to have his head stuffed with the consummate wisdom of all nations, if he only acted like a consummate idiot!

A pertinent question, Richard Causton! Showing the good results, too, of your period of forced abstinence from strong drink, and your lonely watch over the sick-bed—wellnigh the death-bed—of Bergan Arling. Up to this point, we have deemed your case hopeless; now, truly, we think better of it. To recognize one's folly is the first step toward breaking from its bondage. To have learned that the fruits of righteousness do not ripen on the tree of worldly wisdom, is, perhaps, to feel the first faint hunger for the saving fruitage of the tree of life. There may be the making of a man—a contrite, humbled, subdued, scarred, but free man—in you yet!

Ignoring, or unconscious of, these grounds of hope for the future, however, Dick continued to busy himself with his fears for the present. Nor did they prove to be causeless; he was not yet in sight of his door, when he heard the sound of impatient knocking thereat. Stealing to a point where he could see without being seen, his worst fears were realized,—the unwelcome visitor was Doctor Remy.

"De puerta cerrada el diablo se torna,—From a locked door, the devil turns away," he muttered, settling himself in his hiding place, with the intention of remaining there until the anticipated departure.

But the doctor was not to be thus balked. After repeated knockings, with short intervals of waiting, he finally drew back from the door with the evident intention of bursting it in; whereupon Dick hastened to make his appearance, doing his best to assume an air of easy nonchalance.

"He who brings good news, knocks hard," he called out, by way of arresting the doctor's attention, and saving the door. "Or, as the Germans say, He who brings, is welcome; I suppose you have come to settle our little account."

"Yes, I have come to settle accounts with you," replied Doctor Remy, with grim irony. "Why didn't you tell me about this other will?"

"What other will?" asked Dick, innocently.

"I am in no humor for trifling," returned Doctor Remy;—"Major Bergan's will, that you witnessed a fortnight ago."

"C'est la glose d' Orleans,—that is to say, the commentary is more obscure than the text," answered Dick, shaking his head, as if he could make nothing of it.

"Don't try my patience too far," rejoined the doctor, menacingly. "I have just seen Mr. Tatum, and he told me of the will, and named you as one of the witnesses."

"Did he?" asked Dick, shrugging his shoulders. "Then I must be like 'el escudero de Guadalaxara, que de lo que dice de noche, no hay nada a la ma?ana.' Do you understand Spanish?"

"Do you understand English?" growled Doctor Remy. "I asked you if you had witnessed a will; and I want to know what was in it."

"And I gave you to understand that if I had, it must have been when I was too drunk to remember anything about it," responded Dick.

Doctor Remy's eyes flashed ominously. "I shall find a way to refresh your memory," said he. "One question more, and I warn you that you had better give me a straightforward answer, and not try to put me off with a proverb;—what was done with the will after it was made?"

"Why, hasn't it been found?" asked Dick, with surprise that was plainly genuine.

"No, it has not," replied Doctor Remy, curtly. "See here, Dick," he added, after a pause, quitting his threatening tone for one of persuasion; "I'll make it well worth your while to tell me all you know about that will. Open the door—I'm tired of standing—and we'll go in and talk it over."

"I—I—it's pleasanter outside," stammered Dick, fairly driven to his wit's end by this proposal. "Besides, 'walls have ears;' no place like the open air for your business—and mine."

"Your walls should be deaf," answered the doctor, looking at him suspiciously; "you live alone, do you not?"

"Yes, certainly; but no walls are to be trusted; mèfiance est mére de s?retè."

"Very true," replied Doctor Remy; "and I distrust you. Open that door at once, and let me see what or whom it is, that you are so anxious to conceal."

Dick's consternation was extreme. Still, he did what he could to gain time; assistance might be on the road. He began to fumble in his pockets. "Very happy to oblige you, I'm sure," he faltered, with a poor assumption of graciousness. "But, 'He that will be served must be patient.' I declare! I believe I've lost that key! Still, Mais val perder, que mais perd—"

"Will you open that door?" interrupted Doctor Remy, fiercely, "or shall I do it myself?"

Dick lifted his head boldly; his straining ears had caught the sound of distant footsteps. "A man's house is his castle," he began;—but Doctor Remy stopped the rest of the sentence in his throat, with one hand, while he thrust the other into his pocket for the key. Dick uttered a smothered cry. Immediately Doctor Remy heard the door tried from within; the next moment, the window beside it was flung open, and the pale, stern face of Bergan Arling met his astonished sight.

At the same instant, he saw several persons emerging from the shadow of the Oakstead woods. Mr. Bergan, Hubert Arling, and Doctor Gerrish, he recognized at a glance, and he stayed to recognize no more:—these, in conjunction with Bergan—alive, and in possession of his faculties—were enough to show him that his deep-laid scheme had come to naught, that the prize for which he had thought, labored, and sinned, was snatched from his hands in the very moment of success. Some important figure—could it be Providence?—had been overlooked or changed in his calculations, and made them all come wrong.

Yet he had failed before. Bitterly he acknowledged to himself that, despite his rich natural endowments of intellect, courage, will, and resource, his life had been, on the whole, a succession of failures. The consequences of one early mistake had followed, hampered, modified, and defeated, every effort that he had made to rise above a certain level of station, fortune, or reputation. Nevertheless, he had saved from every wreck, thus far, an unbroken spirit and an inexhaustible invention. What was there in the present one to cause his heart to shiver and shrink with so deadly a chill of despair, to smite him with so heavy an intuition that the measure of his opportunities for good or evil was full, and that some set time of reckoning was at hand? Nay, he would not be daunted! There must be some expedient—some bold stroke or crafty subterfuge—by which he could still wring safety, at least, from the hands of defeat.

He ran his eye over the scene of his recent operations, as a general might scan a disastrous battle-field. Instantly, the intercepted letters, the forged will, the poisoned powder, the attack on Bergan Arling, set themselves in order before him,—revolted soldiers, once his obedient servants, now gone over to the enemy. No! the odds were too great. Nothing was left him but flight;—nay, it was a question if even that remained,—pursuit was so near! Still, it must be tried.

Giving Dick a final choke, to render him incapable of immediate action, he flung him on the ground, and fled towards the nearest bank. Once across the excavation, there was a thick wood beyond, in which he would quickly be lost to sight; and the present was all he had time to think of; the future must care for itself. One moment his tall form was seen, by the approaching party, on the edge of the bank, clearly defined against the twilight sky; the next, it sank suddenly from view, both hands raised, apparently in a mocking gesture of farewell, or it might be, of defiance.

Hubert Arling immediately recognized the fugitive, and hastened after him. Arrived at the brink of the excavation, he was amazed to find that Doctor Remy was nowhere in sight, although it seemed incredible that he could have traversed the sandy chasm so quickly. Nothing daunted, however, Hubert leaped the precipice, half-burying himself in the soft sand at the bottom, struggled across, climbed the opposite bank—taking much more time, it seemed to him, than his predecessor had done—and plunged into the wood beyond. Here, he soon found that all the odds were against him; the underbrush was thick, the wood was soon merged in a dense juniper swamp; the twilight was deepening; a hundred men might easily elude his single search. It was necessary to go back and obtain organized assistance.

He was rejoiced to find Bergan in the cabin, though his state was such as to cause intense anxiety. The great exertion that he had made to interfere between Doctor Remy and Dick—believing the latter to be in danger of losing his life in behalf of his guest—had caused his wound to re-open; and when Dick recovered himself sufficiently to make it known that Bergan was within, and to unlock the door, he was found on the floor under the window, in a death-like faint. Doctor Gerrish, however, at once took him in hand, with great personal good will, and no small amount of medical efficiency. And no sooner was he pronounced out of immediate danger—although he had relapsed into fever and delirium—than Hubert's mind recurred to the intermitted pursuit of Doctor Remy. From the first, he had shared Doctor Trubie's suspicions, and having now heard the several stories of Mr. Bergan, Doctor Gerrish, and Dick, and pretty accurately divined their logical connection and drift, he was strongly of the opinion that the doctor's evil career should be brought to a close. No consideration of family, friendship, or love, he thought, should interfere to save him from richly deserved punishment, and leave him at large to work new wickedness. So thinking, he put his thoughts into prompt, resolute, persevering action.

But it was wholly in vain. If the earth had opened and swallowed him up, Doctor Remy could not have disappeared more effectually. Far and near, no trace was found of his course, no clue to his hiding place. The flight of a bird through the air, the dart of a fish through the wave, do not leave less visible track behind. Day by day, Hubert had to acknowledge himself baffled, puzzled, confounded; but he would not be discouraged. Doctor Trubie having been sent for, had joined him, and between the two, the search went obstinately on.