Three quarters of an hour later, Guy was sitting in his room, gazing at the embers on the hearth, in the attitude of moody thought that of late he was apt to fall into. Suddenly there came a timid knock at his door. When he opened it, his cousin stood on the threshold--ghost-like, against the background of darkness, with her white dressing-gown, pale cheeks, and long hair unbound.
"Guy, don't be angry," she said; "it's very foolish of me, I know; but Charley has not come in yet, and just now I am certain there was a shot quite near. Agläe heard nothing, but I did. You know he always carries a pistol. I made him do so. It is nothing, I am sure; but I am so frightened. If you would--"
She tried to smile, but that ghastly look of terror that he had seen once before, long ago, in the library at Kerton Manor, again swept over, and possessed all her face like a white chill mist.
"Don't be absurd, you silly child," Guy said, kindly. "Of course I'll go out directly, and bring him in in five minutes, to laugh at you. Now go back to your room; there's nothing on earth to be alarmed about."
But the instant she had gone, I heard his voice quick and stern: "Frank, come here." There was a door of communication between our rooms, and, though it was closed, I had caught some words of this conversation, so I was ready nearly as soon as he. Guy only staid to take a short lance-wood club, headed with a spiked steel head, which was his constant traveling companion--a very simple weapon, but deadly in his hands as the axe of Richard the King--and then we sallied out, taking our servants and some other men that were below, with torches, in case the moon should fail us unexpectedly.
Twice, three times, when we had gone a short distance, Livingstone shouted Forrester's name. His powerful voice rang far through the ravines, and struck against the rocks, rolling and reverberating in their hollows like a blast fired in a deep mine; but no answer came.
I looked at my companion very nervously. He never spoke, but I saw him gnaw his under lip till the blood ran down.
We had gone a hundred paces or so farther along a narrow path outside the town. On our right the cliff fell almost abruptly toward the river. Guy was a few paces in front, when suddenly there broke from his lips such a sound as I have never heard from those of any mortal before or since.