“Yet you are late, Allison.” She spoke his name tenderly, and her broken English rendered the sibilant very charming in his ears.
“I may be a trifle late, little one, for I met several groups of men stealthily creeping through the darkness. I cannot understand why every warrior in the town seems abroad at this hour of the night.”
She sat up suddenly, clinging to him.
“Which way did they go?”
“To the westward, all of them,” he replied.
Somehow the words sent a chill to her heart, for she remembered her father’s mission to the west gate. Could their carefully guarded conspiracy have been betrayed? She listened eagerly, but all about them the town lay still as death. It was not yet midnight.
Her lover’s caresses recalled her to the present. Allison had drawn her closer beside him on the bench, and throwing back her mantle was pressing her passionately to his heart. Unresistingly she nestled in his arms, the dainty oriental perfumes that radiated from her body filling his nostrils with their ravishing odors and the soft contact of her cheek against his thrilling him with a joy akin to madness.
Words were barren messengers of love now; only the throbbing of his heart and her gentle sighs betrayed to the caressing breeze the fact that the bench was occupied.
Suddenly she shuddered, clutching at his hand so fiercely that her nails were imbedded in his flesh. A low moan escaped her lips, and then her grasp relaxed and she fell back limp and inert.
Filled with a nameless horror, Allison looked up. The sky had lightened, somewhat, permitting him to discern before them the form of a huge black, who held within his hand a dripping sword. Even as Allison gazed the weapon leaped back and came straight for his heart in a quick thrust. He shrank from the point, springing sideways, but could not wholly escape. A biting pain pierced his side. But now he was upon his feet, one hand pressing the wound and the other holding his revolver.