‘My God!’ she thought, ‘what can be the purpose of these men? Certainly no good, at such an hour.’
Inez placed her eye to the hole in the boarding, and perceived that they were two powerful men, dressed in ponchos, and as the rays of the light fell upon their countenances, she shuddered at their aspects.
They had placed the sack upon the floor, and began digging up the earth with a couple of spades which they had brought with them. A deadly chill fell upon the heart of Inez when she beheld this, and she could scarcely repress a scream, as a dreadful idea shot through her brain.
‘Horror! horror!’ she reflected, ‘the wretches have surely been committing murder, and have come hither to bury their unfortunate victim.’
‘There, we shall soon be able to make a snug lodging for him,’ said one of the villains, taking up a spade and preparing to begin to dig, ‘and no one will ever know what has become of him. How nicely we gammoned the old fool to take up his lodging with us.’
‘You’re right,’ said the other, ‘it was very well done, and I must give you the credit of doing the best part towards it. If the friends of the old drover look for his return home, how woefully deceived they will be.’
‘Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed the first villain, ‘indeed they will. Well, we have got a very tidy booty for this job.’
‘Yes, it will pay us for the trouble we have been at,’ was the answer; ‘but I’ll warrant that we shall circulate the blunt a little more freely than the old fellow would have done. We must not be in the city many days.’
‘As soon as the job’s over we will quit the spot,’ returned his companion, ‘and it will be many a long day ere we shall revisit this neighborhood again. We couldn’t have fixed a much better place than this to deposit the old fellow’s remains in; but, I say, there is a door yonder, which seems to lead to another part of the house; suppose we examine that, and see whether it will serve better to conceal the body of the murdered man in than this.’
‘Great God!’ thought Inez, ‘I am lost; they will discover and murder me. By what horrible fatality were my footsteps guided to this place?’