[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

IT was nearly midnight: the moon had
risen about half an hour before, and its
pallid light revealed every feature of the
lonely and lugubrious locality fixed upon
by the gypsy for his rendezvous with Earle.

Nothing more gloomy and forbidding than
the spot in question could be imagined.

The road, or rather bridle-path, indicated by
the gypsy, ran along the steep banks of the
stream we have spoken of, and near a dark and
sullen-looking pool above which rose a huge
rock, festooned with spectral-looking vines, and
covered nearly with dense foliage. The stream,
merrily brawling on elsewhere, here dragged
its black and sombre current slowly along,
and deposited its froth and scum. Above

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

the pool a dead bough, gnarled and abrupt,
resembled the gaunt arm of some fiend
stretched out—beneath, on the sullen water,
the shadows assumed ghostly and threatening
outlines.

It was a spot to commit a murder, not to
hold a midnight interview in, save with the
kind upon some weapon. The very hooting of
a great-horned owl, buried in the leaves, sonnded
unearthly. The spot seemed given up to gloom
and the recollection, by the very inanimate
objects, of some terrible tragedy.

Precisely at midnight, a figure wrapped in a
cloak approached the great gnarled tree near the
rock hanging over the pool and the moonlight
clearly revealed the form of Earle.

“Well, I am here,” he muttered; “where, I
wonder, is my friend of the black eyes?”

“Here!” came from the shadow of the
rock.

And the gypsy advanced into the moonlight.

Earle advanced in his turn. Under his cloak
his hand grasped the hilt of his poniard.

They faced each other directly opposite the
pool; and the dark eyes of the gypsy, full of
wary cunning, were fixed upon the calm face of
Earle.

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

“I see you are a brave man, brother,” he
said.

“How have I proved that?” said Earle.

“By coming here at an hour like this,
alone.”

“That is no proof of my courage. You are
but one man—I am another.”

The gypsy laughed.

“And a cool one. Others might have refused
this meeting. This spot has a black reputation
in the neighborhood.”

“Why?”

“A man was tied to that tree, and lashed
nearly to death.”

“In deed!”

“And six feet from it, another was murdered,
and his body dragged to the pool yonder, where
it was thrown in, with weights to hold it
down.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw it.”

“You saw the murder?”

The gypsy nodded.

“Why did you not denounce the murderer?
But doubtless you did so.”

The gypsy shook his head.

“I was too intelligent for that.”

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

“Too intelligent?”

“Yes.”

“Explain.”

The gypsy laughed again. It was a low, subtle
sound, like the hiss of a serpent.

“Why should I have informed on the murderer?”
he said. “No; I was too intelligent for
that! A man is murdered; his body concealed
in that black-looking pool; no one knows of the
murder save the man or men who committed
it, and a wandering vagabond of a gypsy who
chanced to be in the copse yonder, and witnessed
all,—and you ask now why the vagabond
did not go to a magistrate and tell all;
why he did not say, `I saw another commit
this murder.' No—I am acquainted with these
good English justices of the peace. They
demand a murderer where murder has been
done—what more natural than the arrest of the
vagabond?”

Earle nodded.

“You are right. And you held your
tongue?”

“Yes.”

“Knowing all?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what happened. There is nothing

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

like understanding all the particulars of a given
event.”

“The story is short. I will conceal nothing—
for you are a brother of the Rommanye Rye,
and the oath of the brotherhood seals the lips—
you know that.”

“Yes.”

“What happened was this: There was a man
who had an enemy. That enemy met the man
one day at this spot, seized him with the aid of
a servant, bound him to that tree there, and
lashed him as men lash a hound. I do not
know why—enough that he lashed him till
his flesh was bloody. Then the two went
away and left him tied; when some passer-by
found him he was nearly dead.”

“That is a strange story,” said Earle; “and
this led to the murder?”

“Yes. The man who had been lashed got
well, and waited. One day he was riding
along this road just at dark with a mounted
attendant. He met his enemy—the one who
had treated him as I have described. I was
yonder in that thicket, as I told you. The
enemies met face to face, and he who had been
lashed smiled sweetly, held out his hand, and
said, `I forgive you; my punishment was

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just.' At these words, the other held out his
hand in turn. A minute afterwards he fell
from his horse with a deep groan—the man
whom he had lashed had stabbed him to the
heart.”

“Good!” said Earle; “there is a regular
murder.”

“Yes. The man did not die at once, so his
enemy and the attendant dismounted and beat
out his brains. They then fastened rocks, with
their stirrup leathers, to the feet of the corpse,
and dragged it to the pool yonder, where they
threw it in, and it sunk to the bottom.”

Earle listened with attention.

“And you saw all this?”

“Yes.”

“And did not inform on the murderer?”

“No.”

“Then the murder remained unsuspected?”

“On the contrary, it was discovered at once.”

“How was that?—you interest me.”

“The murdered man had been followed by
a very fine blood-hound, a pet dog with him.
When he was stabbed, the dog leaped at the
throat of the murderer.”

“Brave dog!—and they did not kill him
too?”

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

“No: he escaped, and led the way afterwards
to the spot where his master had been murdered.
The marks of a struggle were found—
the blood-stains on the grass over which the
body had been dragged, and at last the body
itself, in the pool where it had been sunk.”

Earle reflected for some moments and then
said,—

“That is a singular history you relate,
brother, and yet your voice tells me that it
is true. Now, what is your object? To bring
the murderer to justice?”

The gypsy smiled.

“I should like to do so if I could, brother;
but I cannot, being a vagabond; and then, I
cannot afford it.”

“Afford it?”

“The secret is worth much money. Listen:
I go—that is, you and I go—to the man who
committed that murder and say, “Your life is
in my hand; you killed a man; pay me ten
thousand guineas as the price of my secresy?”
That is plain, is it not?”

Earle nodded coolly.

“Then we will divide the sum he pays us,”
said the gypsy.

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“That would be liberal,” returned Earle.

“You consent?”

“That depends. We have used no names; let
us come to that. Who was the murdered man?”

“Giles Maverick, a prominent gentleman of
Pembrokeshire.”

“The murderer?”

“Sir Murdaugh Westbrooke.”

p517-046

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