She leaned forward cautiously, and looked down in wonder and perplexity while the stones were lifted off, then two of the logs were shifted to one side, while a dark, irregular opening was revealed in the rock floor, as if the mouth of a small cave had been uncovered.
Indeed, such was the case, for on blasting away the rock, some years before, this aperture had been discovered, and as it was a dangerous opening, descending far downward into the very heart of the hill, it had been closed by means of the cedar logs, and the large flat stones laid on top of them.
As the logs were lifted to one side, a member of the band standing near, dropped a loose stone into the opening, while the girl anxiously listening, quickly caught her breath as she heard the object falling down and down, striking against the uneven sides of the pit in its descent until it seemed to have penetrated the very bowels of the earth.
The man who had dropped the stone shuddered and turned away.
"The devil take me! if I believe that hole has any bottom to it," he said in an awed voice, and quickly the thought flashed into Sally's brain as to the purpose for which the pit had been uncovered, and why the abandoned quarry had been selected for a meeting-place this night.
Was a human body to be sacrificed to the fearsome depths of that dark cavern? The thought appalled her more than all else that had gone before, and she grew faint with terror. Even the prisoner seemed to look in speechless horror toward the black opening as if he, also, guessed the peril that threatened him.
The very members of the secret conclave gazed with awe-stricken faces on the yawning, ominous hole, as though they were beginning to weaken at so dire a punishment. Even the act of a traitor seemed scarcely to merit a fate this terrible. Only the captain and his ally appeared unmoved and unrelenting. On the former's face a look of fiendish triumph slowly settled, as he gazed steadfastly into the awesome blackness of the cave-like opening—a hard, evil face it was, that held neither pity nor regret.
"To your horses, boys!" The leader spoke quickly, commandingly, for his keen eyes saw signs of weakening among his followers. "Remember your oath! Remember your safety!" he called out warningly.
"And remember the blood of an innocent man is on your hands!" cried the doomed man despairingly. "I sought to save your lives—you are wrongfully taking mine!"
"He lies!" thundered the captain. "He sold himself to the officers of the law, an' but for a premature shot we might all now be dead, or in prison. They did not fire on him, bear in mind, but waited until he had passed on, an' given the signal that all was safe, an' we come near ridin' into the trap that was laid for us. He is a traitor to us, an' to our cause, an' deserves a traitor's death!"