CHAPTER XIII
The window through whose broken pane Glory had dispatched her feathered messenger could not be seen into from the exterior. That was a temporary handicap for the besiegers and one upon which, in all their forethought, they had not calculated. It happened that at this hour of the afternoon the slanting sun struck blindingly upon the glass that still remained unbroken and confused the ambushed eyes that raked the place from advantageous points along the upper slopes.
So when Glory had risen there for an instant, against the window itself, the vigilant assassins had been able to make out only the unidentified shadow of a figure moving there, and upon that figure, at point-blank range, they had loosed their volley. Whose figure it was they could not tell, and since they believed their intended victim to be alone they did not question. In the confusion of the instant, with the glare on windowpanes, they missed the spot of light that rose phœnixlike as the pigeon took flight. The frightened bird mounted skyward unnoted and flustered by the bellowing of so much gunnery.
But Spurrier’s shout of horror was heard by the besiegers and misinterpreted as a cry wrung from him under a mortal wound.
The assailants had not seen nor suspected Glory’s approach because she had come from the front, and had 177 arrived before they, drawing in from the rear and sides, had reached their stations commanding a complete outlook. They had assumed their victim to be in solitary possession and now they also assumed him to be helpless—perhaps already dead.
Yet they waited, following long-revered precepts of wariness, before going onward across the open stretch of the dooryard for an ultimate investigation. He might die slowly—and hard. He might have left in him enough fight to take a vengeful toll of the oncoming attackers—and they could afford to make haste slowly.
So they settled down in their several hiding places and remained as inconspicuous as grass burrowing field mice. The forest cathedral which they defiled seemed lifeless in the hushed stillness of the afternoon as the sun rode down toward its setting.
John Spurrier, inside the house, living where he was supposed to be dead, at first made no sound that carried out to them across the little interval of space.
He was kneeling on the floor with the girl’s head cradled on his knees and in his throat sounded only smothering gasps of inarticulate despair. These low utterances were animal-like and wrung him with the agonies of heartbreak. He thought that she must have died just after the whisper and the smile with which she had announced her success in her effort to save him.
Kneeling there with the bright head inert on his corduroy-clad knee, he fancied that the smile still lingered on her lips even after she had laid down her life for him five minutes from the time he had forsworn her.