"That is what I said," returned Halloran, grimly.
"But, sir!" began old Adam, "this is no graveyard."
"Curse you, who said it was?" cut in the other, sharply.
"It is not to be thought of, sir," murmured the grave digger, trembling in every limb, his brain too bewildered to try to reason out the meaning of this strange request, and quite believing the stranger must be an escaped lunatic.
Coolly and deliberately Halloran drew a revolver from his pocket, and placed it at Adam's throbbing temple, saying, grimly, and harshly:
"You will do as I command or your life will pay the forfeit. I give you one moment of time to decide."
It was a moment so fraught with tragic horror that in all the after years of his life Adam always looked back to it with a shudder of deadly fear.
He was no longer young—the sands of life were running slower than in the long ago—still, life was sweet to him, ah, very sweet. He had a good wife and little bairns at home, and an aged mother, to whom he was very dear, and he was their only support.
Who was this dark-browed stranger? Why did he wish a grave dug by the roadside on this terrible night? Whom did he wish to bury there, and was the body within the coach?
All these thoughts were surging rapidly through his brain, when suddenly Halloran said: