Count Hannibal

Or had the light tricked her? The light must have tricked her, for in

the interval between the flash and the thunder, while she crouched

quaking, he did not move or call. The light must have deceived her. She

felt so certain of it that she found courage to remain where she was

until another flash came and showed him sleeping with closed eyes.

She drew a breath of relief at that, and rose slowly to her feet. But

she dared not go forward until a third flash had confirmed the second.

Then, while the thunder burst overhead and rolled away, she crept on

until she stood beside the pillow, and, stooping, could hear the

sleeper's breathing.

Alas! the worst remained to be done. The packet, she was sure of it, lay

under his pillow. How was she to find it, how remove it without rousing

him? A touch might awaken him. And yet, if she would not return empty-

handed, if she would not go back to the harrowing thoughts which had

tortured her through the long hours of the day, it must be done, and done

now.

She knew this, yet she hung irresolute a while, blenching before the

manual act, listening to the persistent rush and downpour of the rain.

Then a second time she drew courage from the storm. How timely had it

broken. How signally had it aided her! How slight had been her chance

without it! And so at last, resolutely but with a deft touch, she slid

her fingers between the pillow and the bed, slightly pressing down the

latter with her other hand. For an instant she fancied that the

sleeper's breathing stopped, and her heart gave a great bound. But the

breathing went on the next instant--if it had stopped--and dreading the

return of the lightning, shrinking from being revealed so near him, and

in that act--for which the darkness seemed more fitting--she groped

farther, and touched something. Then, as her fingers closed upon it and

grasped it, and his breath rose hot to her burning cheek, she knew that

the real danger lay in the withdrawal.

At the first attempt he uttered a kind of grunt and moved, throwing out

his hand. She thought that he was going to awake, and had hard work to

keep herself where she was; but he did not move, and she began again with

so infinite a precaution that the perspiration ran down her face and her

hair within the hood hung dank on her neck. Slowly, oh so slowly, she

drew back the hand, and with it the packet; so slowly, and yet so

resolutely, being put to it, that when the dreaded flash surprised her,

and she saw his harsh swarthy face, steeped in the mysterious aloofness

of sleep, within a hand's breadth of hers, not a muscle of her arm moved,

nor did her hand quiver.