“Push your sleeve higher,” he directed.
Abe did so.
Suddenly a low, savage exclamation came from the hidden lips of the man.
“There it is!” he almost panted. “There is the mark!”
On the lad’s arm, just above the elbow, were the faint outlines of a blue star, as if it had been tattooed in the flesh years before. Hundreds of times Abe had gazed at this mark upon his arm and wondered over it. To him it was a mystery and one he fancied would never be solved.
Suddenly the man threw the boy’s wrist aside, and through the eyeholes of the mask Abe fancied he caught a reddish gleam. And now suddenly upon him fell a feeling of hopeless fear more intense than any he had yet experienced.
“He will kill me now!” he whispered. “I know he will!”
“It is her brat!” muttered the man. “Shawmut lied to me. The kid still lives!”
He turned as if to depart, and for a moment the hand he had so persistently held behind his back dropped at his side. In a twinkling Abe seized it, as he began wildly pleading for mercy. Only a few words escaped his lips, for the touch of that hand, cold, and clammy, and deathlike, silenced him. It was as if he had grasped the fingers of a corpse, and he saw that the hand, scarcely larger than a child’s, was white as chalk.
With a terrible oath the masked man lifted his other hand and struck the boy down. Then he caught up the lamp and hurried out of the room, the door closing with a click behind him.