LANDLESS AND PATRICIA
For one moment the parties to this midnight encounter stared at each other with starting eyeballs; the next, down came the curtain of darkness between them.
With a cry of terror Patricia seized and clung to Landless's arm, trembling violently, and with her breath coming in long, gasping sobs. Exhausted by the previous terrors of the night, this last experience completely unnerved her—she seemed upon the point of swooning. Divining what would soonest calm her, Landless hurried her out of the wood and down the shore to the bank, beneath which lay the sleeping slaves. Here she sank upon the sand, her frame quivering like an aspen. "That dreadful face!" she said in a low, shaken voice. "It is burned upon my eyeballs. How came it there? Was it—dead?"
"No, no, madam," Landless said soothingly. "'Tis simple enough. The murderer is in hiding within these woods, and we stumbled upon his lair."
She gazed fearfully around her. "I see it everywhere. And may he not follow us down here? Oh, horrible!"
"He is not likely to do that," said Landless, with a smile. "You may rest assured that he is far from this by now."
She drew a long breath of relief. "Oh! I hope he is!" she cried fervently. "It was dreadful! No storm could frighten me as did that face!" and she shuddered again.
"Try not to think of it," he said. "It is gone now; try to forget it."
"I will try," she said doubtfully.
Landless did not answer, and the two sat in silence, watching out the dreary night. But not for long, for presently Patricia said humbly:—