They were awoke from their sleep by a hand placed upon their shoulders. They stared around them sleepily, as yet not realising the real state of affairs. It was dark in their bedroom, for the moon was behind a cloud.
When it gleamed out, they saw Jane Ryan standing before them. Her arms were naked to the shoulder; her eyes glistened with a strange light.
She held a loaded gun in her hands.
The Ashbrooks were perfectly bewildered when they beheld this strange apparition awaking them in the silent hours of the night.
“Jane!” exclaimed Richard Ashbrook, suddenly calling to his mind the warning given him in the earlier part of the night by his faithful and devoted servant. “Jane—what’s the matter? Speak, girl.”
“Hush!” she murmured, placing her finger on her lips; “make no noise, or it may be fatal. Listen.”
Both the farmers listened till their ears tingled, but they could hear nothing.
A thought crossed the minds of both almost simultaneously, that the girl was (to use the expression they made use of afterwards) off her head.
The brothers stared at each other in mute astonishment.
“I can’t hear anything,” said John Ashbrook.