John Huish's brain was still confused. At times he was ready to give
way to the idea that he must be quite mad, and at such times he had a
dire mental struggle to master the wild rush of thoughts so that he
might get one uppermost and let it have due course--that one wild idea
that he must bring himself face to face with the fiend who mocked his
existence, had tortured him for years, and who lived in his semblance;
and he felt in nowise surprised, as he passed down the road, at seeing
himself, dressed exactly as he then was, turn suddenly out of a
side-street and walk rapidly towards the house he had just left.
"At last!" he said beneath his breath; and he drew back into a garden to
avoid being seen.
He was in nowise surprised either, as, with the cunning of a madman, he
watched till his semblance went straight up to the house and knocked;
and, feeling that he would enter, Huish stole slowly out of his
hiding-place and followed.
"Trapped!" he said in a low voice. "Only room for one of us in this
little world."
His teeth grated together, his fingers were tightly clenched, and he
crept on towards the gateway of his house, hidden by the tall privet
hedge within the railings, and reached the entry just as his semblance
came back from the door frowning and savage with disappointment at the
result of his quest of her who had disappeared just as he had triumphed
in his heart over a long-cherished idea of revenge.
The two men were face to face; and with a cry of savage delight John
Huish sprang at his semblance's throat, but to be met by a blinding
flash and a tremendous blow, which sent him staggering back, clutching
vainly at the railings before he fell upon the pavement and rolled over
and over half stunned.
He sprang to his feet, though, and gnashed his teeth with rage as he
looked up and down and saw that a couple of the very few people about,
alarmed by the shot, were coming to his assistance, but him he sought
was gone.
Before anyone could reach him, John Huish had started off running hard
to the bottom of the road, chancing which way the man he hunted had
gone, and was just in time to see him enter a hansom, to be rapidly
driven off.
Running pretty quickly, he became aware that he was exciting attention,
and, remembering his appearance, he subsided into a slower pace, for
another cab was on ahead, and he hailed it just in time.
"Follow that hansom!" he cried to the man as he leaped in. "Double
fare."
The horse sprang forward, and to his great satisfaction he saw that he
gained upon the fugitive, so he sat back patiently waiting, with the
determination now to hunt him down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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