And so we fared forth many a weary mile along the broad highway, lined with grassy banks, topped by——
“Hist!” remarked Diana.
“Oh,” said I, “my dear! You must not interrupt my description of the scenery. Pray, why hist?”
“Shadrach, Meschech and Abednego!” she averred, pointing to where three evil faces peered through three gaps in the hedgerow.
Ensued a scrambling rush of three dark figures, with upraised heavy sticks or bludgeons. One, snarling as was his wont, strode me-wards. I leapt lightly aside only to meet both the other weapons, which simultaneously descended upon my head. Instant blackness overwhelmed me, interspersed, however, with luminaries of dazzling hue. When I recovered consciousness, Diana was nowhere to be seen.
X
So I went my way, sorrowing for my lost love. It was growing dusk when I reached a ruined and desolate barn. A solitary place and dismal, remote from the world, a very sinister place forsooth, such indeed as might be the haunt of grisly specters and angry moo-cows. Breath in check, with eyes of horror stared I at that dreadful barn, whence emanated the sound of hollow knocks. Instantly I was transformed into a cool, dispassionate, relentless creature, intent upon one desperate purpose, though as yet I wot not what that purpose was.
“Be damned to ye, Shadrach!” panted a hoarse voice. “’Eave, man! ’Eave! Her’s a sittin’ on th’ trap door.”
I crept toward the ladder whereon they stood, leapt and smote with all my might. Ensued a battle grim and great. Ensued thereupon a silence, an emptiness, a stillness and from afar I heard lugubrious voices growing fainter and fainter.
“Oh,” cried I, “Diana! Ah there, Diana!”