"No, by God, I don't believe that!"
John Brown lifted his hand in a quick signal and Owen stepped stealthily behind Doyle. The sharpened cutlass whistled through the air and crashed into Doyle's skull. His helpless hands were lifted instinctively as he staggered. The swift descending blade split the right hand open and severed the left from the body before he crumpled in a heap on the ground. The assassin placed his knee on the prostrate figure and plunged his knife three times in the breast,—once through the heart and once through each lung. He had learned the art in butchering cattle.
Fifty yards away the mangled bodies of William and Drury Doyle lay on the ground with the dim figure of the assassin bending low to make sure that no sign of life remained.
John Brown raised the wick of his lantern and walked coolly up to the body of the elder Doyle. He flashed the lantern on the distorted features. A look of religious ecstasy swept the stern face of the Puritan and his eyes glittered with an unearthly glare.
He uttered a sound that was half a laugh and half a religious shout, snatched his pistol from his belt, placed the muzzle within an inch of the dead skull and fired. The brains of the corpse splashed the muzzle of the revolver.
The trembling mother inside the cabin uttered a low cry of horror and crumpled in the arms of her son.
The boy dragged her to the bed and rushed to the kitchen for a cup of water. He dashed it in her face and cried for joy when she breathed again. He didn't mind the moans and sobs. The thought that she, too, might be dead had stopped his very heartbeat.
He soothed her at last and sat holding her hand in the dark. The girls nestled against her side. The mother gave no sign that she was conscious of their presence.
Her spirit was outside the cabin now, hovering in the darkness mourning her dead. Through the dread hours of the night she sat motionless, listening, dreaming.
No sounds came from the darkness. The coyote had ceased to call. The cricket in the chimney slept at last.