“I am frightened, Ruth; stay with me.”
“You told me, Mysa,” Chebron began, “that they had told you tales that our father was dead, and that it was I who killed Paucis.”
“Yes; but I did not believe them, Chebron. Of course I did not for a moment—at least not for a moment about you. But when I thought of those bad men at the gate, and the crash we heard, and the noise of the people rushing in shouting, I thought—I was afraid—that perhaps it might be true about our father. But, oh, Chebron, surely it is not so?”
“Alas! Mysa, it is true! They cruelly slew our father. I wish I had been there to have fallen by his side; but you know Amuba and I were away. Jethro fought desperately to the last, and would have died with him had not our father himself commanded that in case anything happened to him he was to take charge of me, and to carry me out of the land.”
Mysa was crying bitterly now. Presently she looked up.
“But why should you want to leave the land, Chebron? Surely—surely it is not true that you——”
The thing seemed too terrible for her to put into words.
“That I killed poor Paucis? That is true also, Mysa.”
Mysa gave a little cry of horror.
“Oh, Ruth!” she cried, “this is too dreadful!”