Slowly his speech returned, and he reached out one hand.
“My boy, she is not dead. I feel her heart in mine, I see her love for me in her face. No! she is not dead!—not dead!” his voice fell to a whispered groan.
The other tried to stay his tears and to reply, but he could only touch her cold, bruised hand, hoping that he might grow to a perfect understanding of the tragedy.
The father turned his head. His look was full of supplicating agony. In a plaintive and quivering voice he cried:
“My God! My God! My God!”
Presently John Holmes went away to give the alarm. Returning later, he went through the dreary house and darkened the windows—the windows of the room where the dead girl lay he darkened last. He lifted her cold hand and held it to his heart—and all the world seemed death and silence, broken only by the father’s moaning.
CHAPTER XVI.
The news flashed over the country as if by the lightning’s spark and by nine o’clock the district was aroused to a state of frenzied passion. From near and far they gathered to the stricken home, till in an hour a mob had assembled, vowing torture and death to the fiend. A brief questioning revealed the fact that the Carrs’ cook had seen a negro man pass the kitchen door about dusk, and he had asked for a drink of water. She would know him again, she said.
A fierce yell rent the silence as Holmes told of the fleeing man and grim curses filled the air, followed by the thunder of hoofbeats as the horsemen dashed away in pursuit. On they rode through the darkness, galloping where the way was clear, and everywhere and at all times urging their horses to their utmost, every minute pressing forward with increasing rage and recklessness. Uphill, downhill the searchers went, scouring every nook and corner for miles around. Their panting horses needed not to be urged. They seemed to have caught the same fierce spirit that inspired their riders, their straining muscles and distended nostrils telling of their eagerness and exertion.
The night was going, but the searchers had as yet found no trace. If the earth had opened and swallowed the one they sought, the mystery of his disappearance could have been greater.