Headon Hill

“ Miss Enid Mallory tossed her dainty head in mock indignation. "You are perfectly horrid, Mr. Beauchamp," she snapped at him. "As if I could make an ugly face if I tried ever so. And I won't have you calling me Pussy—now that I'm grown up."
"Grown up, is it, the little spitfire?" grinned the young sailor. "And I am to be Mr. Beauchamp, am I? Well, we used to be Reggie and Pussy when I was at home last, and, whatever you may do, the force of habit will be too strong for me. Even if I try to conquer it, which I shan't." ”

“ But the dowdy ladies at Ottermouth were an insignificant minority. Certainly not to be classed in that category was the winsome maiden, dressed in immaculate white flannel and carrying a tennis racquet, to whom Nugent raised his soft grey hat as the car struck into the main street. A vision of dainty, if very youthful, loveliness, Enid Mallory was smart from the crown of her well-poised little head to the soles of her natty shoes. She returned Nugent's bow with a trace of brusqueness, and immediately turned and made a grimace at the clean-shaven young fellow who was with her. ”

“ But, if the Snipe would not use her guns or torpedoes, how was she, with the pluck of the devil but only the experience of a draper's girl, to enable a slower ship to catch a faster one? If only she had a man to help her, with knowledge equal to her determination.
And then, suddenly, it flashed across her brain that there was such a man on board if only she could get to him unobserved. Chermside, chained in the black hole on the lower deck, had risked life once already in Violet Maynard's cause, and would doubtless do so again, were he granted the opportunity. ”

“ That Violet would resent his conduct and despise him for it he could not help. Even if Nugent kept his promise of trying to soften it down, the girl's displeasure was inevitable, but it would be as heaven to hell compared with the ignominy he would have incurred by full disclosure. And, to do him justice, he had not been wholly selfish in shrinking from that ignominy. He knew his sweetheart's pure faith in him, and he had been honestly anxious to spare her virginal soul the shock of discovering the loathsome thing from which her short-lived romance had sprung. ”

“ You always—latterly at least—seem to me to be living in the past, or, perhaps, in the future. When your yacht is ready for sea, I suppose that you will lose no time in going back to the East?"
Leslie started, and came back to earth. "If you only knew the price I paid to get out of India you would not say that," he answered gravely. "And I am afraid that you are incorrect in your other surmises, Miss Maynard. I am neither living in a past which has nothing to recommend it, or in a future which is not alluring. As a matter of fact, I am just drifting—and revelling in the present." ”

“ Again that movement in the screen behind Nugent's chair, and this time with results that shifted the centre of interest with startling suddenness. Round the corner of the screen came Pierre Legros, gaunt and haggard, his fierce eyes in accord with the furious spasms that made a battle-ground of his unshaven face. Nugent, half turning in his chair to look up at the apparition which had drawn the gaze of the other two, broke off in the midst of his sneer with a sobbing catch in his throat.
"You say I not come forward to spik the truth?" the Frenchman began, in a voice that shook with emotion. ”

“ A moment later he was following his guide across the lawn, and so out of the door on to the moor. The night air was heavy with the scent of the dew-laden heather, across which they had to grope their way, and the croak of a fern owl alone broke the stillness as they skirted the golf links and came to the head of the chine at the foot of which they were to flash the signals that would summon the Cobra's launch.
They were about to descend the steps cut in the cliff, when from the house they had just left, a quarter of a mile away, the "teuf-teuf" of a motor car was heard. ”

“ Bhagwan Singh, Maharajah of Sindkhote, walked unsteadily to the sideboard and poured out half a tumbler of neat brandy. He drank it at a gulp, and then turned to his European mentor, restored to the outward semblance of his customary Oriental calm. A good-looking man with a pale olive complexion, jet black moustache and features of the full-faced Eastern type, he was by no means ill-favoured, though in his lazy eyes there were infinite possibilities of malevolent cruelty.
"Sit down, my dear Nugent, and talk," he said, tossing a gold cigarette-case across the table. ”

“ It was approached on one side by a long carriage-drive under an avenue of ancient elms, and halfway up this Leslie Chermside saw three people advancing towards him—a rather incongruous trio. No need for him to look twice at the tall girl in the simple white blouse swinging along with the graceful vigour of youth a little behind the other two. The sight of her set his pulses beating, for it was Violet Maynard herself, and Leslie felt sick with remorse at the glad smile of recognition she gave him. ”

“ She skipped out on to the deck without waiting for an answer, and her stout heart pulsed with joy as she saw the lean, venomous hull of the warship much nearer than when she had entered the saloon. Her appearance was the signal for a violent flow of language from Brant, who had confided the secret of his mummery to the mate. Cheeseman, with his tongue in his cheek, played up to the lead of the apelike skipper, simulating the wildest terror of the oncoming destroyer. ”

“ Having only reached Ottermouth the previous evening, he explained there were many things that claimed his attention at home.
"All right, dear boy," said Montague Maynard in his loud jolly voice. "Run out and see us whenever you can tear yourself away from golf and the delights of the Ottermouth Club. Old Sarah Dymmock hates you like the devil, but she don't bite so long as people don't want to hurt my little Violet, and she's a good sportswoman. And you're too good a sportsman yourself to mind an old woman's whims." ”

“ I was taken by surprise, and I did not understand," replied the onion-seller submissively, as he passed out of the window which Nugent held significantly open.
But once outside in the darkness, setting out on the four-mile trudge back to his ship, he began to mutter to himself, and the refrain of the inaudible babble was always the same, recurring a hundred times as he stumbled along the moorland track—
"Louise goes to console herself, but not with Pierre. Poor Pierre! He will have to strike—always strike—if he is betrayed." ”

“ If I might make a suggestion it would be that you should yourself ask Chermside for enlightenment."
"Thank you, I shall certainly inform him of what has happened," said Violet coldly. "But it must rest with him whether he offers an explanation of his relations with Levison. I am content to trust the man who is to be my husband. In the meanwhile, Mr. Nugent, it is but fair that you should know that I have advised my maid to lose no further time in communicating with the police. It will be the shortest and most satisfactory way of getting this absurdity wiped out once for all." ”

“ Such was the general configuration of the little town of Ottermouth in South Devon, for no fault of its own not quite a first-class seaside resort as yet, but slowly and surely worming its way into the affections of those who had discovered it. There was no pier, and therefore there were but few "trippers." But in the curious blend of brand-new brick villas and old-world houses of "cob" there dwelt men of varying fortunes, who in their time had helped to make history, and who had chosen this peaceful spot on the Devon coast as the one in which to end their strenuous days. ”

“ Lucky chap, to possess inherited wealth, though I'm not sure that I wouldn't have preferred you to have made a pile by hard work, as I have."
Leslie suddenly finding himself on the edge of a precipice, clutched for the only available support—a deprecating and rather shamefaced laugh. "Mr. Nugent must be given to exaggeration, sir," he said. "I have never represented myself as a rich man. As a matter of fact I am—not by any means what you would consider rich." ”

“ Manor House at the point of her sunshade. Louise uttered a suppressed shriek as Nugent released his grip on the Frenchman's collar and carefully closed the window.
"Mon Dieu! it is Pierre Legros," she cried, looking from one to the other of the two men in sheer bewilderment, in which there was a trace of fear.
"Yes, it is I—Pierre," said the onion-seller in his native tongue, scowling at his fair compatriot. "Is it that you have acquired the habit of supping alone with gentlemen above your station, as well as of meeting them in the lonely places of the country? ”

“ Leslie found himself idly wondering what could have taken Nugent from home again so late. Possibly he was going down to the club for an hour or two, to drown the memory of his villainy in the congenial company of gentlemen who would have spurned him from their midst could they have known the manner of man he was.
"Now, sir; mind where you're going," came Tuke's hoarse whisper. "There's only a handrail in places, and a nasty drop if you fall." ”

“ The gentle tolerance of Nugent's smile was harder to bear than abuse would have been. "Really, Chermside, you are an impossible fellow to have as a partner in a losing game," he said. "At the risk of being wearisome, let me repeat that your trial would spell ruin for me. It is Louise Aubin, Miss Maynard's French maid, who is at the bottom of the trouble. Levison, like the vulgar wretch he was, amused himself with a flirtation with her. ”

“ Travers Nugent had finally convinced him that the police held a warrant for his arrest and that his only road to safety—not, perhaps, though that was doubtful, from conviction of the murder of Levison, but from exposure of his connivance at Violet Maynard's abduction—lay in flight. He had consented to go on board the Cobra after dark, and escape to South America or anywhere else. Personally he did not care where he went. Wherever it was it would be out of the life of her who had grown to be to him the very sun of his existence. ”

“ The pose of the superb figure, the disgusted scorn in the coolly appraising eyes, the level tones of the musical voice, all reduced him to a temporary servility that would have been unbearingly nauseous to a weaker character, capable of a personal interest in the vile instrument of her persecution. But Violet Maynard, having grasped the main facts, was able to regard Captain Simon Brant from an entirely detached point of view. ”

“ Bhagwan Singh's sensual lips creased in a cruel smile. "My dear Nugent," he said, "Mr. Leslie Chermside will not really be quit of his Indian debts till he has served my purpose. I shall buy them up, and hold them over him as a bond of good faith. If he shows signs of kicking over the traces it will be for you to put on the screw—in your own way. Not that I anticipate anything of the sort from one who has sunk as low as he has, and I shall further secure his loyalty by the promise of a small pension contingent on his success." ”

“ Unflinchingly Nettle returned his stare. She even laughed a little. "I am certainly not going to commit the crime of suicide to save you from committing the crime of murder. I don't love you well enough for that," she replied.
And then the swift thought came to her that the wretch meant to slake his thirst for revenge and trust to his cunning to avoid the penalty for it. When the warship's men boarded the Cobra he would have to explain the kidnapping of Violet Maynard and his treatment of Chermside as best he could, and he would doubtless have to suffer for it. ”

“ Chermside, we've no time for talking. I must get back to the saloon without being caught if I'm to be of any use. There are only us two women to stand between you and these fiends, and there's only God Almighty to stand between us and—the end of the voyage. There's a bare chance that we may be able to send word into Plymouth, if I can fool or browbeat the captain, and I must be on hand to run that chance for all it's worth. ”