I did not feel sleepy after reaching home. My wife and two children had retired and were sound asleep. There was no one astir but myself, and drawing my chair to the fire, I began reading the evening paper.
Fully an hour had passed in this manner and I was in the act of rising from my chair, with the purpose of going to bed, when a sharp ring of the bell startled me as though I had heard burglars in the house. I felt instinctively that something serious had happened as I hurried to the door.
“Did Ben Mayberry take a telegraphic message across the river to-night?” asked the man, whom I recognized as a policeman.
“He started to do so,” I answered tremblingly. “What’s wrong.”
“It’s the last message he’ll ever deliver; he has probably been killed!”
CHAPTER V
IN STORM AND DARKNESS
“Yes, it’s the last message he’ll ever deliver,” repeated the policeman; “Ben Mayberry has probably been killed!”