The church was so large that the considerable congregation were swallowed up in its echoing nave. The transepts contained nothing save monuments and tombs. The tempered light that stole through stained-glass windows left most of the space in shadow, but I descried beyond the breadth of the crossing a second box-like pew identical with ours, and in it a company whose gay raiment and gabbling ways were out of place in contrast with the stolid piety of the village folk and neighboring gentry.
"There's Hilyer," muttered Hugh in my ear, as the verger pompously presented his mace and the Vicar withdrew toward the altar.
But we had no time to spare for observing the county's black sheep. Mr. Penfellow's quavering, nasal voice began to intone the stately rite of the Established Church for the dead. The shrill voices of the choir-boys responded.
Our eyes became fastened upon the oblong casket resting on its low catafalque under the choir railing, which contained the body of James Chesby, that quaint, whimsical, Twentieth Century knight errant, who had upheld the traditions of his race by tilting over the world in pursuit of a prize which all sober men proclaimed to be impossible of attainment.
And he had as good as found it! Laughed at, derided, mocked and ridiculed, he had persisted doggedly in what he had regarded as his life-work. He had succeeded where all others had failed or feared to venture. And at the last, probably when he envisaged complete success in his grasp, he had accepted death rather than yield the prize to any but his heir. He must have had good stuff in him, that slight, wan-faced slip of a man, whom I had only seen as he lay on his death-bed in the hospital, his eyes shining to the end with indomitable spirit.
As I thought of him, cut and hacked by that brute Toutou, I found my fingers clenching on the book-rack in front of me; and glancing down, I saw Hugh's knuckles, too, were white. We exchanged a grim glance. For the first time we understood fully that we were playing a man's game, a game in which there was no limit. And we experienced the thirst for action which comes from a desire to slake unsatisfied vengeance. This task we had set ourselves to was more than a hunt for treasure. It was likewise a pursuit of James Chesby's murderers.