She could not see the object, itself; it was so closely rolled in and so carefully protected from the driving storm by the heavy black wrap that entirely enveloped it from head to foot—for she had firmly determined that it was a human form. Only one question remained unsolved in her mind now.
“Was it alive or dead?”
While she yet pondered on this mystery, and with her eyes on the horseman, every thing—the white horse—its rider—the man or woman, or corpse, that he had carried before him—whatever it was that was hidden from sight so effectually within the folds of that pall—she could not believe it was any thing else—while yet she saw him coming toward the place of her concealment, all vanished from her sight as suddenly and as surely as though the earth had opened and swallowed them up.
She uttered a little cry of consternation. Then she rubbed her eyes and looked again.
But there was nothing there, where the man and the horse and that other thing had been, only the falling storm, still raging with all its fury.
What could it mean?
She asked herself this question shudderingly, while, in her fear, she clung around the neck of her great brute companion, glad in the terror that possessed her of the company which he, dumb animal though he was, could be to her.
The blood-hound had never, for an instant, removed his gaze from the place where the mysterious horseman, with his black burden, had so unaccountably disappeared a few moments before; and while Vinnie’s arms were yet around his neck he tore himself from her embrace and darted out of sight among the shrubbery that grew dense and heavy about the spot.
Vinnie called to him repeatedly, but he did not come back. She waited, then called again and again with a like result. The dog did not come; nor could she hear him beating about the undergrowth.
Had he deserted her?