Britt’s recent experience had rendered him incapable of surveying the thing from a normal viewpoint.  He saw the man whom he had disgraced by plot and perjury, the man who was buried under tons of rock, so the state had officially reported, the man to whose return after seven years of punishment Britt had been looking forward with dread.  He had slept more peacefully since that tragedy had been enacted at the prison.  Britt was not admitting that this was a human being in the flesh.  Already partially crazed by the manhandling from which he had suffered, he peered at this apparition, a mystic figure in the aura of the fog—­the shade of Frank Vaniman, so his frantic belief insisted—­and leaped up, screaming like a man who had gone stark, staring mad.

Before Vaniman had time to issue a command Britt ran away along the lane by which the van had entered the wood.  He was an extraordinary figure in flight.  His night robe fluttered behind as he ran.  For the most part he hopped on one foot; he yelped with pain when he was obliged to set the blistered foot on the ground in order to recover his balance.

Vaniman did not stay to threaten the three men.  He had their weapons and he did not fear them.

He ran after Britt.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE FOX WHO WAS RUN TO EARTH

Vaniman’s first impulse was to overtake the fugitive.  He wanted to have Britt in his grip, holding to him, forcing him to confess and restore.

But when Britt reached the highway and started in the direction of the village, saner second thought controlled the pursuer.  Britt had become a self-operating proposition; Vaniman felt that, although sudden fright were spurring Britt, a fear more inherently characteristic was pulling the usurer on his race to the village—­he had betrayed the hiding place of hard cash!  He was rushing to protect it.  By running to the treasure Britt would be betraying something of more moment to Vaniman than gold.  The young man kept his distance, keeping the quarry in sight, running a few feet behind Britt in the fog.

In the mist the two were like the flitting figures of a fantasy.  The road was still well filled with wains and pedestrians, following after those who had gone on ahead.  The wains stopped; the pedestrians halted and gaped and gasped.  Women cried out shrilly.  Vaniman and Britt furnished an uncanny spectacle.  The eyes which beheld them saw them only for an instant; the fog’s curtain allowed each observer scant time to determine what these figures were.  Britt, hairless, his face sickly white, his night gear fluttering, was as starkly bodeful as if he were newly risen from the grave, garbed in death’s cerements.  Vaniman’s presence on the scene added to the terrifying illusion produced by Britt.

This pursuer had been officially proclaimed dead.  They who beheld believed they saw a dead man.  The face was smutched with blood.  The eyes were wide and were set straight ahead.  Vaniman was taking no chances on losing the man whom he was chasing.