She possessed great strength, this remarkable woman; for the instant she was inside the door, heavy as he was, she raised him in her arms, and carried him into an adjoining room, where she closed the door behind her, and deposited him upon a couch.
And then, still working with great rapidity, she pulled aside a rug that was on the floor, and, having lifted a trapdoor, she again took him in her arms, and descended through the opening in the floor to the depths beneath it.
After a little she reappeared, and this time there was a grim smile upon her face, while she replaced the rug over the trapdoor, and otherwise rendered the room the same as it had been before the incident happened.
She passed coolly out upon the piazza, and for a time strode up and down it in deep thought; but at last she raised her head quickly, and called sharply to the sentinel who was pacing up and down in front of the cottage.
"Send Handsome to me!" she ordered; and then she continued her pacing until Handsome appeared.
Handsome belied his name terribly in the light of day, for an uglier-looking chap could not be imagined; and yet, withal, there was a gleam of humor in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. She turned to him abruptly.
"Where are the others of that bunch who were found with Dago?" she asked sharply.
"Yonder," replied Handsome, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the glade beyond them.
"What do you think about them, Handsome?" she asked again.
"I haven't thought much about them," he replied. "They are about the usual sort, I believe; no better and perhaps no worse."