CHAPTER XXVIII
ON THE TOP OF THE WORLD
I
The Gentleman led up the shoulder of the hill, the tails of his long riding-coat flapping about his legs.
Kit, panting behind, admired him as he had never admired even Uncle Jacko. The man seemed to know no fear, striding rapidly on, his enemy behind him.
True, the boy's dirk still flashed in the other's hand; but the lad had his jack-knife; and his eyes dwelt on the place where he could plant it home and home in that black back--there by the seam, where it was a little worn.
And the man had the scent-bottle!
Surely a fellow would be justified....
"Now's your chance, Little Chap!" came the gay voice.
Kit, betrayed to his own soul, sniggered and put the dark thought away with shuddering disgust.
The man was a gentleman, the man trusted him. Once he had saved his life; and once spared it. Should he pay his debt with the jack-knife?
The long-striding figure went up the hill as though on wings.
Kit clambered at his spurs.
Escape he knew was vain. As well might a canary attempt to escape a hawk.
The scabbard of the other's sword poking and peeping between his tails caught the boy's eye and fascinated it. It had seen plenty that sword, he would bet! What tales it could tell!
How he should like to know!...
"Have you ever fought a duel?" he blurted out.
"Used to a bit. Not now."
"Why?--d'you think it wrong?"
The other flung back a merry laugh.
"No, my little Puritan. I gave it up, because it gave me up. You see, I never quite met my match with the small-sword. Or rather I did meet my match once, but the beggar wouldn't fight."
"Do tell," panted Kit, scenting a story.
"It was in Egypt--during the occupation. He was said to be the finest sword in the British Army--Abercromby's Black Cock, they called him. He'd a standing challenge out against any man of ours who'd take it up. Killed seven of our fellows in seven days, a man a morning, in single combat, between the outpost lines--all fair and square and according to Cocker, and the staffs of both Armies looking on. Sounds like a legend, don't it?--The eighth day I appeared to do battle with him. I was twenty-one at the time, and looked seventeen. It was to have been the great day of my life--and was the bitterest. Directly he saw me--'I don't fight with children,' says he, high and mighty as a turkey-cock, and turned on his heel. I wept." He laughed joyously at the reminiscence.
"Curious how small the world is," he continued. "Five years passed-- five years full of things. Then one fine day, a few weeks back, I was over yonder at Birling Gap, waiting for a friend, when who should come strolling round the corner, smelling of roast beef and Old England, but my old friend of the curly pate and ruddy cheeks. I'd a minute or two to spare. So I introduced myself, and we adjourned to the beach at once."
"What happened that time?" asked the boy keenly.
"Why, Fat George!" replied the other. "And deuced lucky for Master Black Cock too. You see, he was fat and scant o breath."
II
They had climbed to the top of the world.
It lay spread before them, wide and wonderful; head in the heavens, feet in the sea miles beneath on every side.
On the brow beside them the blackened skeleton of a building stood up stark against the light.
The charred stump of a flag-staff pricked up out of the turf. On the scorched grass lay a singed red flag and tattered pendant.
"What's this?" whispered Kit.
The ghastly desolation of the ruins amid the sea of light and living green appalled him. Moreover he smelt death.
"Signal-station," said the Gentleman, hurrying by. "Black Diamond stormed it at dusk on Saturday night--just before I came along. They took it and burnt the men inside. Black Diamond did the storming--Fat George the burning, he and old Toadie."
"Brutes!" hissed Kit.
"I don't much care for Fat George and old Toadie myself," replied the Gentleman, rather white. "They seem to me scarcely--what shall I say? --_spirituels_.... Black Diamond was quite a different pair of shoes. A curious nature--three parts sheer devil, one part pure gentleman. I could tell you some strange tales about him."
III
They had turned their backs on the dark scene.
Before them the land rolled away, fold upon fold, the sea encircling it.
Big Jerry's coombe lay vast and vault-like beneath them on the right, certain dark specks in the centre of it.
They were not sheep, those specks: Kit knew what they were.
Over the shoulder of the coombe, a great flat bay, the sea white along the brown edge of it, swept away scimitar-wise into the mist.
The Gentleman stopped, his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Pevensey Bay! That is where the first Frenchman who ever conquered England landed. Hastings yonder! Battle Abbey over there!--my name on its Roll. Such a wonderful old Church!"
He stopped abruptly.
A ship, lying inshore beneath him, tiny on the plain of sea, had caught his eye.
He flashed round on the boy.
"What nationality?" fiercely, and with pointing finger.
Kit knew at a glance. Even at that distance the ship had something of the dishevelled appearance of a virago after a street-fight. She was the privateer.
"Double Dutchman."
A hand clutched his throat. Eyes of steel pierced him to the heart.
"Frenchman or English? tell, or take the consequences!"
"I couldn't tell you that," choking.
A python arm swept about him.
A face smiled into his.
"I knew you wouldn't. And I wouldn't have liked you if you had. But--"
The boy snapped his eyes. After all he couldn't blame the man!
It was no quick stab that he felt, no maddening darkness that drowned him; but a swift forward thrust that shot him down the slope of the coombe.
It was steep as the roof of a house. Down he pelted, headlong, his legs attempting to catch up his falling body. In vain: head over heels, rolling, bumping, tumbling, a ripple of mocking laughter pursuing him.
There was no danger, he knew. The bottom of the coombe was flat as a floor, the cliff running athwart it a quarter of a mile away.
At last he fetched up, battered and breathless.
Above him he could see the figure of the Gentleman tiny against the sky.
"Forgive me, Little Chap," came a far voice. "I am in a hole, and have to get out as best I can. _Il faut que je file_. Here is your little prodder."
His arm swung. Something flashed in the sky, fell, always flashing, and stuck in the hillside above him, quivering there.
It was the boy's dirk.
III
ABERCROMBY'S BLACK COCK
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