his belt, and into that belt he seemed to be thrusting other things — a hatchet and an instrument like a diminutive pick.
Sliding his body between two of the wide spikes on the edge of the well, he sat on the inner edge for a moment, holding the rope. He was grinning again, at the small figure which held the other light. Then he swung off the edge.and down into the well; his lamp was swallowed. But not before the small figure had darted to the edge, and, as the beam of Rampole's lamp struck upwards for an instant, Budge saw that the face bending over the well was the face of Miss Dorothy….
The watcher at the edge of the Hag's Nook was not now the adventurer Budge or even the butler Budge. He was simply a stooping, incredulous figure who tried to understand these amazing things. Frogs complained loudly, and there were bugs brushing about his face. Edging forward between the trees, he crept closer. Miss Dorothy's light went out. The thought went through his head that he would have a rare wild story to tell to the Rankins a month hence, over the port.
From the well a few broken reflections glimmered, as of a lamp sizzling out in water, but never quite extinguished. Momentarily the pointed leaves of a beech tree were outlined, and once (Budge thought) Miss Dorothy's face. But the cool moon had come out again, ghostly against the wall of the prison. Afraid of making a noise, tight-chested and sweating, Budge moved still closer. The chorus of frogs, crickets, God knew what! — this chorus was so loud that Budge wondered how any noise could be heard. It was cold here, too.
Now, it is to be urged that Budge was not, and never has been, an imaginative man. Circumstances do not permit it. But when he glanced away from the flickers of light dancing deep in the well, and saw a figure standing motionless in the moonlight, he knew it was an alien presence. Deep within him Budge knew that the presence of Miss Dorothy and the American was right, as right as gravy over roast beef, and that the other presence was wrong
It was — Budge tells it to this day — a small man. Standing some distance behind Miss Dorothy, a crooked shadow among the shadows of the trees against the moon, he seemed to grow into weird proportions, and he-had something in his hand.
A muffled noise bubbled up from the well. There had been other noises, but this was definitely a cry or a groan or a strangling of breath….
For a time Budge remembered nothing very clearly. Afterwards he tried to determine how long a time had elapsed between that booming echo and the time that a head appeared over the edge of the well once more, but he could never be sure. All he could be sure of was that Miss Dorothy, at some period or other, had snapped on her light. She did not point it down into the well. She kept it steady, across the mouth of the rusty spikes…. And up from the well, now, another lamp was strengthening as somebody climbed….
A head appeared, framed between the spikes. At first Budge did not see it very clearly, because he was trying to peer into the darkness to find that alien figure on the outer edge; that motionless figure which somehow gave an impression of wire and hair and steel, like a monster. Failing to see it, Budge looked at the head framed between the spikes, coming higher and higher above the well.
It was not Mr. Rampole's face. It was the face of Mr. Herbert Starberth, rising up over the spikes of the well; and the jaw was fallen, and by this time Budge was so close he could see the bullet-hole between the eyes.
Not ten feet away from him he saw this head rising, horribly, as though Mr. Herbert were climbing out of the well. His sodden hair was plastered down over his forehead; the eyelids were down and the eyeballs showed white beneath; and the colour of the bullet-hole was blue. Budge staggered, literally staggered, for he felt one knee jerk sideways beneath him, and he thought he was going to be sick.
The head moved. It turned away from him, and a hand appeared over the edge of the well. Mr. Herbert was dead. But he seemed to be climbing out of the well.
Miss Dorothy screamed. Just before her lamp went out, Budge saw another thing which loosened his horror like a tight belt, and saved him from being sick. He saw the young American's head propped under Mr. Herbert's shoulder; and he saw that it was the Yankee's hand which had seized the wall, carrying a stiff corpse up out of the depths.
Silver-blue like the glow for a pantomime, the moonlight etched a Japanese tracery of trees. All of it had been done in pantomime. Budge never knew about the other figure, the alien figure he had seen standing beyond the well and peering towards the spikes. He never knew whether this man had seen the young American's head beneath Mr. Herbert's body at all…. But he did hear a flopping and stumbling among the brush, a wild rush as of a bat banging against walls to get out of a room. Somebody was running, with inarticulate cries, through the Hag's Nook.
The gauzy dimness of the pantomime was ripped apart. Far above, from the balcony of the Governor's Room, glared a bright light. It cut down through the trees, and the boom of a voice roared out from the balcony.
'There he goes! Grab him!'
Wheeling, the light made a green and black whirlpool among the trees. Saplings crackled, and feet sloshed on marshy ground. Budge's thoughts, in this moment, were as elementary as the thoughts of an animal. The only distinct impression in his mind was that here, crackling through these bushes, ran Guilt. He had a confused idea that there were several flash-lamps darting beams around the runner.
A head and shoulders were suddenly blocked out against the moon. Then Budge saw the runner
Budge, fat and past fifty, felt the flesh shaking on his big body. He was neither Budge the swashbuckler nor Budge the butler; he, was only an unnerved man leaning against a tree. Now, when the moonlight fell as with a shining of raindrops, he saw the other man's hand; it was encased in a big gardener's glove, and the forefinger was jammed through the trigger-guard of a long-barrelled pistol. Through Budge's mind went a vision of youth, of standing on a broad football field, wildly, and seeming to see figures coming at him from every direction. It was as though he were naked. The other man plunged.
Budge, fat and past fifty, felt a great pain in his lungs. He did not drop behind the tree. He knew what he had to do; he was solid, with a quiet brain and a very clear eye.
'All right,' he said aloud. 'All right!' and dived for the other man.
He heard the explosion. There was a yellowish spurt, like a bad gas-range when you apply a match to it. Something hit him in the chest, swirling him off balance as his fingers ripped down the other man's coat. He felt his finger nails tear in cloth, falling, and his hip was suddenly twisted into weakness. There was a sensation as though he were flying through the air. Then his face squashed into dead leaves, and he dimly heard a thud as of his own body hitting the ground.
That was how Budge the Englishman went down.
Chapter 16
'I don't think he's dead,' said Rampole, going down on his knees beside the flattened figure of the butler. 'Buck up, please! Hold your light down here while I roll him over. Where the devil is what's-his-name-Sir Benjamin?'
Budge was lying on his side, one hand still stretched out. His hat was crushed along one side with an almost rakish effect, and his respectable black coat had burst a button. Tugging at the dead weight, Rampole wrenched him over.
The face was like dough and the eyes were closed, but he was breathing. Since the wound was high along the left breast, blood had begun to soak through.
'Halloa!' Rampole shouted. 'Halloa, there! Where are you?'
He lifted his head to glance at the girl. He could not see her distinctly; she was looking away, but the light did not waver much.
There was a crackling in the bushes. Sir Benjamin, his cap crushed down like a gangster in a motion picture, pushed through. His long arms dangled out of his sleeves, and you could see the freckles against the muddy pallor of his face.
'He — he got away,' the chief constable said rather hoarsely. 'I don't know who he was. I don't even know what happened. Who's this?'
'Look at him,' said Rampole. 'He must have tried to stop… the other one. Didn't you hear the shot? For God's sake let's get him to your car and down to the village. Take his feet, will you? — I'll get his head. Try not to jolt
