He whirled like a flash, startled, sweeping his glances around the room. And then he laughed in smothered, savage relief. It was only that voice within that chose a cursed mockery this time to put him upon his guard.
He was staring now at the sprawled form on the bed, at a red stain that was already creeping through the fresh bandages. His face grew hard and set; a flush came and died away, leaving it an ashen gray.
And then he stepped to the door—and listened—and locked it.
CHAPTER VIII—THOU SHALT NOT KILL
IT seemed as though the stillness of death were already in the room; a stillness that was horrible and unnerving in contrast with the shrill swirling of the wind without, and the loud roar and pound of the waves breaking upon the shore close at hand beneath the windows.
His face still set as in a rigid mould, features drawn in hard, sharp lines, then ashen gray now even upon the lips, Raymond crossed from the door to the nearer of the two windows. It was black outside, inky black, unnaturally black, relieved only by a wavering, irregular line of white where the waves broke into foam along the rocky beach—and this line, as it wavered, and wriggled, and advanced, and receded seemed to lend an uncanny ghostlike aspect to the blackness, and, as he strained his eyes out of the window, he shuddered suddenly and drew back. But the next instant he snarled fiercely to himself. Was he to lose his nerve because it was black outside, and because the waves were running high and creaming along the shore! He would have something shortly that would warrant him in losing his nerve if he faltered now—the hemp around his neck, rasping, chafing at his throat, the horrible prickling as the rough strands grew taut!
He clutched at his throat mechanically, rubbing it with his fingers mechanically—and, as fiercely as before, snarled again. Enough of this! He was neither fool nor child. There was a sure way out from that dangling noose, cornered, trapped though he was—and he knew the way now. He reached up and drew down the window shade, and passed quickly to the other window and drew down the shade there as well.
And then he turned, and stepped to the bed, and bent over the priest.