"This man thet I saved from death one time when somebody sought ter kill him laywayed me an hour or so back, an' atter he'd done disarmed an' maltreated me, he fotched me home hyar ter insult me some more in front of his woman—afore he kilt me in cold blood.... He done them things because I wouldn't censure an' disgust you men thet calls yoreself ther riders."
Parish Thornton smiled derisively as he listened to that indictment, then he capped it with an ironic amendment.
"We all knows ye're ther true leader of this murder-gang, Bas—ye don't need ter be bashful erbout speakin' out yore mind ter yore own slaves."
Rowlett wheeled, his swarthy face burning to its high cheekbones with a flush that spread and dyed his bull-like neck.
"All right, then," he barked out, at last casting aside all subterfuge. "Ef they h'arkens ter what I says I'll tell 'em ter string ye up, hyar an' now, ter thet thar same tree you an' yore woman sots sich store by! I'll tell 'em ter teach Virginny meddlers what hit costs ter come trespassin' in Kaintuck." He was breathing thickly with the excited reaction from his recent terror and despair.
"Men," he bellowed, almost jubilantly, "don't waste no time—ther gallows tree stands ready. Hit's right thar by ther front porch."
Dorothy had listened in a stunned silence. Her face was parchment-pale but she was hardly able yet to grasp the sudden turn of events to irremediable tragedy.
The irrevocable meaning of the thing she had feared in her dreams seemed too vast to comprehend when it drew near her, and she had not clearly realized that minutes now—and few of them—stood between her husband and his death. Her scornful eyes had been dwelling on the one figure she had recognized: the figure of Sim Squires, whom it had never occurred to her to distrust.
But when several night-riders pushed her brusquely from her place beside her man, and drew his hands together at his back and began whipping cords about his unresisting wrists, the horror broke on her in its ghastly fullness and nearness.
The stress they laid on the mention of the tree had brought her out of the coma of her dazed condition into an acute agony of reality.