Then her thoughts returned to the blow which had awakened her, and the conclusion followed that it must have been the result of the half-blind flight of one of those great winged beetles.
She closed the window abruptly. She closed the second one. Then, having drawn the curtains, she fumbled for the matches and lit the candles upon her dressing bureau. It was her intention to search for the intruding beetle, and then retire.
But her search terminated abruptly. It terminated even as it began. That which had struck her was lying almost at her feet upon the soft rug on which she stood, and within a yard of where she had been sitting. It was a piece of paper tied about a small ball of soil.
She stared down at it for some startled moments. The effects of her dread were still upon her, and they set up a sort of panic which made her fearful of touching the missile. But it could not remain there uninspected. There could be no thought of retiring without learning the meaning of what lay there on the floor.
Gingerly she stooped with a candle in her hand. She stooped lower, but making no attempt to touch the thing which had disturbed her. The candle revealed a folded sheet of white paper. A string bound it round the rooted portion of a grass tuft.
After a few moments she reached out and picked it up. The next moment she was standing erect at her bureau, and with a pair of scissors she severed the string and dropped the grass tuft to the floor.
The paper was folded and thumb-marked by dirty hands. With shaking fingers and tense nerves she deliberately unfolded it.
It was a note, and she read it eagerly.
"You sold the lives of men for a price. You had it your way then. We're goin' to have our way now. You'll pay for that deal the only way we know."
* * * * * *