Night, with a rising moon, and over all things a great quietude,
a deep, deep silence. Air, close and heavy, without a breath to
wake the slumbering trees; an oppressive stillness, in which
small sounds magnified themselves, and seemed disproportionately
loud.
And presently, as I went upon my way, I forgot the old man
sleeping so peacefully with the rusty staple clasped to his
shrunken breast, and thought only of the proud woman who had
given her life into my keeping, and who, henceforth, would walk
with me, hand in hand, upon this Broad Highway, over rough
places, and smooth--even unto the end. So I strode on, full of a
deep and abiding joy, and with heart that throbbed and hands that
trembled because I knew that she watched and waited for my
coming.
A sound broke upon the stillness--sudden and sharp--like the
snapping of a stick. I stopped and glanced about me--but it had
come and gone--lost in the all-pervading calm.
And presently, reaching the leafy path that led steeply down into
the Hollow, I paused a moment to look about me and to listen
again; but the deep silence was all unbroken, save for the
slumberous song of the brook, that stole up to me from the
shadows, and I wondered idly what that sudden sound might have
been. So I began to descend this leafy path, and went on to meet
that which lay waiting for me in the shadows.
It was dark here among the trees, for the moon was low as yet,
but, every now and then, she sent a kindly ray through some
opening amid the leaves, so that as I descended the path I seemed
to be wading through small, limpid pools of radiance.
But all at once I stopped--staring at something which lay at the
edge of one of these pools--a white claw--a hand whose fingers,
talon-like, had sunk deep and embedded themselves in the turf.
And, beyond this gleaming hand, was an arm, and beyond that
again, something that bulked across my path, darker than the
shadows.
Running forward, I stood looking down at that which lay at my
feet--so very still; and stooped suddenly, and turned it over
that I might see the face; and, seeing it, started back in
shuddering horror. For, in those features--hideous with blood,
stained and blackened with powder, I recognized my cousin--Sir
Maurice Vibart. Then, remembering the stick that had snapped, I
wondered no more, but a sudden deadly faintness came upon me so,
that I leaned weakly against a tree near by.
A rustling of leaves--a shuddering breath, and, though I did not
raise my head, I knew that Charmian was there.