There was a silence, and then that old voice again, the voice that roused the mob to fury:
“I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger,
I can tarry—I can tarry but a night—”
“Lead us on—give the signal, Richard Travis,” they shouted.
Again the silence fell as Richard Travis raised his rifle and aimed at the tall figure outlined closely and with magnified distinctness in the glare of bonfire and torch. How splendidly cool and brave he looked—that tall figure standing there, giving orders as calmly as he gave them at Shiloh and Franklin, and so forgetful of himself and his own safety!
Richard Travis brought his rifle down—it shook so—brought it down saying to himself with a nervous laugh: “It is not Tom—not Tom Travis I am going to kill—it's—it's Alice's husband of only two days—her lover—”
“Shoot! Why don't you shoot?” they shouted. “We are waiting to rush—”
Even where he stood, Richard Travis could see the old calm, quiet and now triumphant smile lighting up Tom Travis's face, and he knew he was thinking of Alice—Alice, his bride.
And then that same nervous, uncanny chill ran into the very marrow of Richard Travis and brought his gun down with an oath on his lips as he said pitifully—“I am poisoned—it is that!”
The crowd shouted and urged him to shoot, but he sat shaking to his very soul. And when it passed there came the old half humorous, half bitter, cynical laugh as he said: “Alice—Alice a widow—”
It passed, and again there leaped into his eyes the great light Jud Carpenter had seen there that morning, and slipping the cartridges out of the barrel's breech, he looked up peacefully with the halo of a holy light around his eyes as he said: “Oh, God, and I thank Thee—for this—this touch again! Hold the little spark in my heart—hold it, oh, God, but for a little while till the temptation is gone, and I shall rest—I shall rest.”