Read Deliver us from Evil for Free Online Page B

he did so, he shuddered, and held it as though its very touch might poison him. Neither he nor Captain Foxe spoke a further word; and Robert's question hung unanswered in the damp and mouldy air.
    They left the house through the open front door. There were a couple of troopers standing on the lawn, Robert saw; they saluted Captain Foxe, and then one of them waved with his arms, beckoning to something in the darkness behind the house. Robert heard the faint clopping of horse hooves, and a rumbling of wheels; there were more shouts, and then the cart which he and Emily had seen before emerged from round the house. Captain Foxe stood watching its progress across the lawn; he nodded to his troopers, and gestured with his arm towards the gateway in the wall. He watched the cart pass; then he frowned and turned, and stood for a moment frozen in thought. He studied the front of the house, barely visible now in the twilight gloom.
    'Robert. . . ' He paused. 'Yesterday - you never saw poor Hannah -and yet you knew at once, it seemed, that it was she who was dead.'
    'Yes,' his son agreed.
    'How?'
    'It was the candles.' 'Candles?'
    'Yes. The candles in every window of the house. It made me think of the dead child we had seen. I did not know for certain, but I suddenly feared that the baby had been torn from Hannah's womb.'
    'Why?'
    ‘I t was Childermas,' said Emily suddenly. 'When we remember the slaughter of the Innocents. I told you that, didn't I , Robert, when we saw the candles lit yesterday?'
    Captain Foxe glanced at her briefly, then turned back to his son. 'But why should you associate that with Hannah's murder?' he asked.
    Robert swallowed, not wanting to answer. The darkness suddenly seemed very cold again.
    'Robert,' his father coaxed him.
    it was the same, wasn't it?' he blurted out at last. 'Like with Mr Yorke. The way he was killed. Like a sacrifice.'
    Mr Webbe furrowed his brow. 'Sacrifice?' he asked in his low, soft voice.
    'Yes.' Robert turned and appealed to his father. 'You remember? You must do. Just tike Mr Aubrey said. A sacrifice must be offered on the feast-day of Yule. Well, it was. And now a child has been killed on Innocents' Day.' His voice trailed away. 'Anyway,' he continued weakly, 'that was how I knew. I just remembered what Mr Aubrey had said.'
    'Yes,' said Captain Foxe slowly. 'You remembered what Mr Aubrey had said.' He pondered in silence for a moment; then glanced across to Mr Webbe. 'Perhaps we should see what else he might have to say.'
    Mr Webbe made no reply.
    Captain Foxe shrugged. He reached for Emily's and then for Robert's hand. Together they trudged through the snow, meeting no one on the track, towards the blessed flickering of the village lights.
    'These looks of thine can harbour naught but death;
    I see my tragedy written in thy brows.'
    Christopher Marlowe, Edward II
    F
    or the next three days, Captain Foxe was absent again. When he finally returned, it was late at night, and his household had to rise from their beds to greet him. Mrs Foxe and Robert found him sitting by the doorway, pulling off his boots. He looked exhausted and tense; he was streaked with mud, and his clothes were sodden through. At the sight of his wife, however, his face lit up and he reached up to fold her in his arms. 'How I have missed you, my dearest love,' he whispered softly. ' I have kept you much in my thoughts, as a comfort to my soul, for there is great evil abroad, and devilry.' He closed his eyes and kissed her; then he turned to his son. 'Would you care to go fishing tomorrow?' he asked. Robert stared at him in surprise.
    Captain Foxe smiled. 'Would you care to go fishing?' he asked a second time.
    Robert nodded slowly. The promise had originally been made to him as a reward for his achievements in Greek; he had assumed - in the wake of Hannah's death - that the fishing trip had gone the way of the goose. He nodded again, very fast. He did not want his father changing his mind.
    But Captain Foxe, having