The Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini. Rafael Sabatini

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      CHAPTER XI.

       THE ASHBURNS

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      Gregory Ashburn pushed back his chair and made shift to rise from the table at which he and his brother had but dined.

      He was a tall, heavily built man, with a coarse, florid countenance set in a frame of reddish hair that hung straight and limp. In the colour of their hair lay the only point of resemblance between the brothers. For the rest Joseph was spare and of middle weight, pale of face, thin-lipped, and owning a cunning expression that was rendered very evil by virtue of the slight cast in his colourless eyes.

      In earlier life Gregory had not been unhandsome; debauchery and sloth had puffed and coarsened him. Joseph, on the other hand, had never been aught but ill-favoured.

      “Tis a week since Worcester field was fought,” grumbled Gregory, looking lazily sideways at the mullioned windows as he spoke, “and never a word from the lad.”

      Joseph shrugged his narrow shoulders and sneered. It was Joseph's habit to sneer when he spoke, and his words were wont to fit the sneer.

      “Doth the lack of news trouble you?” he asked, glancing across the table at his brother.

      Gregory rose without meeting that glance.

      “Truth to tell it does trouble me,” he muttered.

      “And yet,” quoth Joseph, “tis a natural thing enough. When battles are fought it is not uncommon for men to die.”

      Gregory crossed slowly to the window, and stared out at the trees of the park which autumn was fast stripping.

      “If he were among the fallen—if he were dead then indeed the matter would be at an end.”

      “Aye, and well ended.”

      “You forget Cynthia,” Gregory reproved him.

      “Forget her? Not I, man. Listen.” And he jerked his thumb in the direction of the wainscot.

      To the two men in that rich chamber of Castle Marleigh was borne the sound—softened by distance of a girlish voice merrily singing.

      Joseph laughed a cackle of contempt.

      “Is that the song of a maid whose lover comes not back from the wars?” he asked.

      “But bethink you, Joseph, the child suspects not the possibility of his having fallen.”

      “Gadswounds, sir, did your daughter give the fellow a thought she must be anxious. A week yesterday since the battle, and no word from him. I dare swear, Gregory, there's little in that to warrant his mistress singing.”

      “Cynthia is young—a child. She reasons not as you and I, nor seeks to account for his absence.”

      “Troubles not to account for it,” Joseph amended.

      “Be that as it may,” returned Gregory irritably, “I would I knew.”

      “That which we do not know we may sometimes infer. I infer him to be dead, and there's the end of it.”

      “What if he should not be?”

      “Then, my good fool, he would be here.”

      “It is unlike you, Joseph, to argue so loosely. What if he should be a prisoner?”

      “Why, then, the plantations will do that which the battle hath left undone. So that, dead or captive, you see it is all one.”

      And, lifting his glass to the light, he closed one eye, the better to survey with the other the rich colour of the wine. Not that Joseph was curious touching that colour, but he was a juggler in gestures, and at that moment he could think of no other whereby he might so naturally convey the utter indifference of his feelings in the matter.

      “Joseph, you are wrong,” said Gregory, turning his back upon the window and facing his brother. “It is not all one. What if he return some day?”

      “Oh, what if—what if—what if!” cried Joseph testily. “Gregory, what a casuist you might have been had not nature made you a villain! You are as full of “what if s” as an egg of meat. Well what if some day he should return? I fling your question back—what if?”

      “God only knows.”

      “Then leave it to Him,” was the flippant answer; and Joseph drained his glass.

      “Nay, brother, 'twere too great a risk. I must and I will know whether Kenneth were slain or not. If he is a prisoner, then we must exert ourselves to win his freedom.”

      “Plague take it,” Joseph burst out. “Why all this ado? Why did you ever loose that graceless whelp from his Scottish moor?”

      Gregory sighed with an air of resigned patience.

      “I have more reasons than one,” he answered slowly. “If you need that I recite them to you, I pity your wits. Look you, Joseph, you have more influence with Cromwell; more—far more—than have I, and if you are minded to do so, you can serve me in this.”

      “I wait but to learn how.”

      “Then go to Cromwell, at Windsor or wherever he may be, and seek to learn from him if Kenneth is a prisoner. If he is not, then clearly he is dead.”

      Joseph made a gesture of impatience.

      “Can you not leave Fate alone?”

      “Think you I have no conscience, Joseph?” cried the other with sudden vigour.

      “Pish! you are womanish.”

      “Nay, Joseph, I am old. I am in the autumn of my days, and I would see these two wed before I die.”