CHAPTER II

BITE-IN-THE-DARK

What I expected to see I hardly know. I think probably I expected nothing visible, but merely that the hut would suddenly fill with wailings and demoniac cries, for the Mad Captain with his unseen tormentors was still beating in my mind. And something like a doubt crossed my thoughts that perhaps my father too was fleeing from some such spirits of remorse and retribution. But certainly I wasn't expecting the miserable and decrepit hag who crawled out of the blackness in through the open doorway, delaying on the threshold to push the crazy door flat against the wall before venturing through, as though suspecting some hidden snare.

It seemed an anticlimax to my strung imagination, and I could have laughed aloud, but something in my father's attitude of stealthy watchfulness held my lips dumb, though I was on the point of pushing back through the wall to say, "How stupid, daddy!" as though a splendid game had been spoilt. For the woman was just an ordinary beggar, very dirty, very ragged, very weary and miserable, and so weak that she must have fallen, and now could only crawl to the comforting welcome of the fire; it was her body I had felt shake the hut as she had collapsed. And yet my father's face didn't change, but his fingers played foolishly together about his throat. He was usually so kind to the friendless and helpless that I expected to see him rise and help her in; and I began to think that I too should like his permission to return to my warm place out of the biting night air that chilled my hands and feet. But his face still wore its imbecile expression, and as the woman crept up to him he shrank away from her towards my side of the fire, chattering incomprehensibly, and watching her slyly out of the corner of his eyes.

His strange manner must have startled her, for she made a circuit to avoid him, but with eyes fixed steadily upon him still moved slowly towards the fire, till soon they were both crouched one on either side of it, crossing glances through the flames. My father was seated with his back to me, but with his face half averted from the woman so that I could see it in profile; but the woman I had in full view. She was moaning weakly like a dumb creature in pain, and her hands were spread out tremblingly to the fire, as though greedy for its warmth. Her fingers were yellow and thin and withered. She was wearing a kind of bonnet from under which stray wisps of ragged hair straggled down over her face. The bones in her cheeks showed sharply, throwing deep shadows into the hollows behind, and her eyes beneath her great brows were like pits of blackness, occasionally gleaming with points of red as the firelight caught her pupils. And all the time as she warmed herself, trembling and complaining in broken whimpers, she watched my father, who for his part was edging farther and farther from her, jabbering stupidly and gurgling with low, throaty laughter. And so there they sat like animals in a cage, and although I had never seen anything quite so harmless and commonplace as the forlorn waif who had just crawled into our shelter, yet it seemed to me that the two as they fronted each other were like beasts preparing for a spring, and the woman's whine and my father's idiot cacklings were like the growls of coming battle.

I became spellbound watching them, wondering what would happen. I forgot the cold; and the immensity of blackness all around me held no hidden fears, for all my mind was on that strange pair in the hut, shining red with the leaping flames, and looming black as the fire slackened. This was the best game I had seen, and I was an enthralled spectator eagerly watching for the moves. And, though I knew it not, blacker than the night about me was the shadow of an old crime that had caught me in its darkness and would bring on my head also a measure of doom.

It is impossible for me to say just what were my feelings at the time, for the incident has been so often rehearsed by my father with such dramatic distinctness that I hardly remember what I saw through the slit in the coat, and what I learnt afterwards; also I have come to regard it so much from my father's standpoint rather than from my own that it is difficult to disentangle my own feelings from his, and in telling what happened I may seem to be reading more into the affair than I could possibly have comprehended at the time.

But this I know, that as the woman spread her hands to the blaze, whimpering curses against the cold and the night and the ill folk that grudged a starving body a bit o' warmth, and drove you from their doors without a bite or a sip, I could see her furtively scanning the hut, searching out, as it seemed to me, possible hiding-places. Why I cannot say, but the fear grew in my heart that it was me she was looking for, and as the black hollows where her eyes were hidden rested on the coat behind which I crouched a shudder passed through me, for I remember how suddenly the fire lit up her eyes in their dark caverns, and the fierce red balls seemed menacingly fixed on me. I shrank back into the night, but not so far that I couldn't still with difficulty see into the hut.

And while the woman whined and droned her endless tale of wrong my father was muttering and chuckling insanely in his corner, puffing out his cheeks, blowing in his hands, sometimes leaning forward and grinning amiably at the old hag, and sometimes snarling malignantly at her, or beating and clutching at imaginary tormentors. But I thought he watched her all the while, and took due note of her peering and prying.

There was a bundle of straw and leaves and branches and other lumber in the corner behind the woman, and her eyes were often turned to it, wondering, I thought, what it might conceal. I felt a thrill of delight to know that if she thought I was hidden there she would have a fine disappointment when she looked for me; for look for me I knew she would, so convinced had I become that she was wondering where I was hidden. For if she was hunting for my father she must know that I should be with him. And sometimes she gazed at the cloak hung over the window; perhaps I was there. And sometimes at the coat that concealed my hiding-place; but it hung flat against the wall, and she couldn't know of the hole behind it. I triumphed in my security with all the joy that I had learnt from the exciting games of hide-and-seek which I had played with my father. I nearly laughed aloud when the old crone, unable to restrain her curiosity, so it seemed to me, rose shivering, and diving her hands into the pile of lumber seized an armful of wood and threw it on the fire. She returned to her place, still whimpering, but more angrily than before and with greater vigour. My father only chuckled softly, and subsided into snarlings as though the affair hadn't disturbed him. But I knew he had noted it.

How it was that with nothing happening the atmosphere grew more strained with each moment I can't explain. I felt that something was bound to happen, and it would come quickly. I became more and more convinced that the old woman was searching for me; but the knowledge was exhilarating, not frightening. I was used to being hunted, and knew the thrill of hiding. And then my father was there to protect me if the game became too serious.

And so the droning and the mummery continued; and then the hag, still shivering with cold, rose and twitched down my father's cloak from the window and threw it over her shoulders. Foiled again, I thought, as she crouched back into her place; and my father hissed between his teeth, and made a sudden grab at something in the fire. Then his attention became fixed on the roof, though I could see nothing there, and with complete indifference he left his hand singeing in the flames. I could see the hag watching him, and behind her inscrutable eyes she must have been wondering whether this was a supreme bluff or a genuine piece of idiocy. But my father never winced. Slowly it seemed his attention became drawn to his roasting flesh, while I shuddered at the pain of it. But he looked down on his hand, and then calmly drew it up to his eyes as though dumbly questioning what had been hurting him. And suddenly he looked across at the woman, and with a frightful cry hurled himself at her through the fire. But she was too quick for him, and nimbly avoiding him slipped round to my side of the fire, still ready to spring away if he attacked her again; and while my father blundered stupidly across the hut, and collapsed against the wall, grumbling and shaking, I saw the hag slip a knife back into the folds of her dress. It was real war, I knew then; and my blood sang through my ears.

If my father had thought to take her by surprise he had failed. But still there was no motive for the attack except the rage of a lunatic. If she was questioning his identity the secret wasn't betrayed. But I began to fear for myself, for I knew she would find some pretext to whip away the coat that was hiding me, and the tell-tale hole would be revealed. And now she was on my side of the fire. She wouldn't even have to pass my father to get at me. My father must have realized this too, for he seemed to me to be gathering for another spring. And I think the woman knew it, and was determined to peep behind the coat before the tables were again reversed. Her hand crept behind her towards me. Instinctively I clutched at the coat, and felt something hard in the pocket. It was my father's pistol, I knew well; a prohibited toy, but one eagerly desired. I had some idea, as a child will, of playing the hero; and I slipped the pistol from the pocket. It was easily done, for the woman's eyes were on my father, though her hand was creeping ever nearer to the coat. I tugged at the hammer of the great thing, and with difficulty cocked it, and held it with a shaky hand. And then what happened I couldn't see. My attention was on the pistol, when all at once the hut was in an uproar. I think the woman must have clutched at the coat and my father sprung at the same moment. At any rate there was the thud of a body against me, and my hand seemed to be wrenched from my arm, while a splitting roar seemed to burst my head in pieces. I fell back dazed, but rather interested and frightened, and felt my father, stumbling through the dark, trip and almost fall cross me, crying, "Tommy! Tommy!"

He took me back into the hut, and hugged me convulsively when he found me unhurt. The woman lay writhing on the ground, with a dreadful dark stain upon her breast. My father's hand was gashed across; and on the floor lay a blood-stained knife.

And now my father from pretence seemed to become a madman in reality. He laughed and shouted and stamped the floor where the wretched victim lay feebly cursing and spitting blood. His evil joy was terrible, and frightened me even more than the blood-drenched figure at his feet. And then he began heaping the fire into a tremendous blaze, and scattering flaming brands against the walls, till at last the crazy structure began to smoulder, and then a sudden sharp flame or two shot up. And all the while he shouted and laughed, cheering on the growing conflagration, till the place was full of choking smoke, and our eyes ran streaming, and the heat scorched our cheeks. And at last he seized me and swung me to his shoulders, and raced away with me through the darkness, now beginning to be touched with grey between the trees; and soon behind us the glare of the burning hut was like a cruel red eye blinking at us out of the blackness.

As we pushed free of the woodland into the grey and open morning my father set me down, and looking back heaved a great sigh and wiped his brow. Then he seized me by the hand and danced me round repeating excitedly, "We're free, Tommy, we're free!"

"Was it Shadow-of-Fear?" I asked.

My father's face darkened. "Shadow-of-Fear never dies," he answered. "But we shall escape him now." And he smiled again.

"But that," I said, "who is that?"

"Ah, that," he laughed, "was the old witch, Bite-in-the-Dark."