Mehalah. S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
upset the boat, Glory! Sit still; a punt is an unsteady vessel, and won't bear dancing in. What is it that you have given me?'
'A keepsake.'
'I shall always keep it, Glory, for the sake of the girl I love best in the world. Now tell me; am I to row up Mersea channel or the Rhyn?'
'There is water enough in the Rhyn, though we shall not be able to reach our hard. You row on, and do not trouble yourself about the direction, I will steer. We shall land on the Saltings. That is why I have brought the lanthorn with me.'
'What are you doing with the light?'
'I must put it behind me. With the blaze in my eyes I cannot see where to steer.' She did as she said.
'Now tell me, Glory, what you have hung round my neck.'
'It is a medal, George.'
'Whatever it be, it comes from you, and is worth more than gold.'
'It is worth a great deal. It is a certain charm.'
'Indeed!'
'It preserves him who wears it from death by violence.'
At the word a flash shot out of the rushes, and a bullet whizzed past the stern.
George De Witt paused on his oars, startled, confounded.
'The bullet was meant for you or me,' said Mehalah in a low voice. 'Had the lanthorn been in the bows and not in the stern it would have struck you.'
Then she sprang up and held the lanthorn aloft, above her head.
'Coward, whoever you are, skulking in the reeds. Show a light, if you are a man. Show a light as I do. and give me a mark in return.'
'For heaven's sake, Glory, put out the candle,' exclaimed De Witt in agitation.
'Coward! show a light, that I may have a shot at you,' she cried again, without noticing what George said. In his alarm for her and for himself, he raised his oar and dashed the lanthorn out of her hand. It fell, and went out in the water.
Mehalah drew her pistol from her belt, and cocked it. She was standing, without trembling, immovable in the punt, her eye fixed unflinching on the reeds.
'George,' she said, 'dip the oars. Don't let her float away.'
He hesitated.
Presently a slight click was audible, then a feeble flash, as from flint struck with steel in the pitch blackness of the shore.
Then a small red spark burned steadily.
Not a sound, save the ripple of the retreating tide.
Mehalah's pistol was levelled at the spark. She fired, and the spark disappeared.
She and George held their breath.
'I have hit,' she said. 'Now run the punt in where the light was visible.'
'No, Glory; this will not do. I am not going to run you and myself into fresh danger.' He struck out.
'George, you are rowing away! Give me the oars. I will find out who it was that fired at us.'
'This is foolhardiness,' he said, but obeyed. A couple of strokes ran the punt among the reeds. Nothing was to be seen or heard. The night was dark on the water, it was black as ink among the rushes. Several times De Witt stayed his hand and listened, but there was not a sound save the gurgle of the water, and the song of the night wind among the tassels and harsh leaves of the bulrushes.
'She is aground,' said De Witt.
'We must back into the channel, and push on to the Ray,' said Mehalah.
The young man jumped into the water among the roots of the reeds, and drew the punt out till she floated; then he stepped in and resumed the oars.
'Hist!' whispered De Witt.
Both heard the click of a lock.
'Down!' he whispered, and threw himself in the bottom of the punt.
Another flash, report, and a bullet struck and splintered the bulwark.
De Witt rose, resumed the oars, and rowed lustily.
Mehalah had not stirred. She had remained erect in the stern and never flinched.
'Coward!' she cried in a voice full of wrath and scorn, 'I defy you to death, be you who you may!'
CHAPTER III.
THE SEVEN WHISTLERS.
The examination of old Abraham before George De Witt did not lead to any satisfactory result. The young man was unable to throw light on the mystery. He had not been with the shepherd all the while since the sale of the sheep; nor had he seen the money. Abraham had indeed told him the sum for which he had parted with the flock, and in so doing had chinked the bag significantly. George thought it was impossible for the shot and pennypieces that had been found in the pouch to have produced the metallic sound he had heard. Abraham had informed him of the sale in Colchester. Then they had separated, and the shepherd had left the town before De Witt.
The young man had overtaken him at the public-house called the Red Lion at Abberton, half-way between Colchester and his destination. He was drinking a mug of beer with some seafaring men; and they proceeded thence together. But at the Rose, another tavern a few miles further, they had stopped for a glass and something to eat. But even there De Witt had not been with the old man all the while, for the landlord had called him out to look at a contrivance he had in his punt for putting a false keel on her; with a bar, after a fashion he had seen among the South Sea Islanders when he was a sailor.
The discussion of this daring innovation had lasted some time, and when De Witt returned to the tavern, he found Abraham dozing, if not fast asleep, with his head on the table, and his money bag in his hand.
'It is clear enough,' said the widow, 'that the money was stolen either at the Lion or at the Rose.'
'I brought the money safe here,' said Abraham sullenly. 'It is of no use your asking questions, and troubling my head about what I did here and there. I was at the Woolpack at Colchester, at the Lion at Abberton, and lastly at the Rose. But I tell you I brought the money here all safe, and laid it there on that table every penny.'
'How can you be sure of that, Abraham?'
'I say I know it.'
'But Abraham, what grounds have you for such assurance? Did you count the money at the Rose?'
'I don't care what you may ask or say. I brought the money here. If you have lost it, or it has been bewitched since then, I am not to blame.'
'Abraham, it must have been stolen on the road. There was no one here to take the money.'
'That is nothing to me. I say I laid the money all right there!' He pointed to the table.
'You may go, Abraham,' said Mehalah.
'Do you charge me with taking the money?' the old man asked with moody temper.
'Of course not,' answered the girl. 'We did not suspect you for one moment.'
'Then whom do you lay it on?'
'We suspect some one whom you met at one of the taverns.'
'I tell you,' he said with an oath, 'I brought the money here.'
'You cannot prove it,' said De Witt; 'if you have any reasons for saying this, let us hear them.'
'I have no reasons,' answered the shepherd, 'but I know the truth all the same. I never have reasons, I do not want to have them, when I know a fact.'
'Did you shake the bag and make the money chink on the way?'
'I will not answer any more questions. If you suspect me to be the thief, say so to my face, and don't go ferriting and trapping to ketch me, and then go and lay it on me before a magistrate.'
'You had better go, Abraham. No one disputes your perfect honesty,'