sort of hurry fitted it on the bony head.
“Don’t!” said the other involuntarily.
The lawyer had put his finger, as the doctor had done, through the hole in the hat, and it lay exactly over the hole in the skull.
“I have the better right to shrink,” he said steadily, but in a vibrant voice. “I think I am the older friend.”
Paynter nodded without speech, accepting the final identification. The last doubt, or hope, had departed, and he turned to the dragging apparatus, and did not speak till he had made his last find.
The singing of the birds seemed to grow louder about them, and the dance of the green summer leaves was repeated beyond in the dance of the green summer sea. Only the great roots of the mysterious trees could be seen, the rest being far aloft, and all round it was a wood of little, lively and happy things. They might have been two innocent naturalists, or even two children fishing for eels or tittlebats on that summer holiday when Paynter pulled up something that weighed in the net more heavily than any bone. It nearly broke the meshes, and fell against a mossy stone with a clang.
“Truth lies at the bottom of a well,” cried the American, with lift in his voice. “The woodman’s ax.”
It lay, indeed, flat and gleaming in the grasses by the well in the wood, just as it had lain in the thicket where the woodman threw it in the beginning of all these things. But on one corner of the bright blade was a dull brown stain.
“I see,” said Ashe, “the woodman’s ax, and therefore the Woodman. Your deductions are rapid.”
“My deductions are reasonable,” said Paynter, “Look here, Mr. Ashe; I know what you’re thinking. I know you distrust Treherne; but I’m sure you will be just for all that. To begin with, surely the first assumption is that the woodman’s ax is used by the Woodman. What have you to say to it?”
“I say ‘No’ to it,” replied the lawyer. “The last weapon a woodman would use would be a woodman’s ax; that is if he is a sane man.”
“He isn’t,” said Paynter quietly; “you
Prev.
Back
Top