For five minutes she remained immovable and listened to the deep, regular breathing of the sleeping man. Her wits were keen, her eyes wide. She could see the dim outlines of the furniture by the starlight through the window. Small objects in the room were, of course, invisible. To light a candle was not to be thought of. It might wake the sleeper.
She knew how to make the light without a noise or its rays reaching his face. He had startled her with the electric torch because of its novelty. She was no longer afraid. She would know how to press the button. He had left the thing lying on the table beside the black bag. He might have hidden the gold. He would not remember in his drunken stupor to move the electric torch.
She glided ghost-like into the room. Her bare feet were velvet. She knew every board in the floor. There was one near the table that creaked. She counted her steps and cleared the spot without a sound.
Her thin fingers found the edge of the table and slipped with uncanny touch along its surface until her hand closed on the rounded form of the torch.
Without moving in her tracks she turned the light on the table and in every nook and corner of the room beyond. She slowly swung her body on a pivot, flashing the light into each shadow and over every inch of floor, turning always in a circle toward the couch.
Satisfied that the object she sought was nowhere in the circle she had covered, she moved a step from the table and winked the light beneath it. She squatted on the floor and flashed it carefully over every inch of its boards from one corner of the room to the other and under the couch.
She rose softly, glided behind the head of the sleeping man and stood back some six feet, lest the flash of the torch might disturb him. She threw its rays behind the couch and slowly raised them until they covered the dirty pillow on which Jim was sleeping. There beneath the pillow lay the bag with its precious treasure. He was sleeping on it. She had feared this, but felt sure that the whiskey he had drunk would hold him in its stupor until late next morning.
She crouched low and fixed the light's ray slowly on the bag that her hand might not err the slightest in its touch. She laid her bony fingers on it with a slow, imperceptible movement, held them there a moment and moved the bag the slightest bit to test the sleeper's wakefulness. To her surprise he stirred instantly.
“What'ell!” he growled sleepily.
She stood motionless until he was breathing again with deep, even, heavy throb. Gliding back to the table, she flashed the light again on the bag and studied its position. His big neck rested squarely across it. To move it without waking him was a physical impossibility.