That done she stood arrested, all the blood in her body running to her heart. She must be dreaming! The passage in which she stood--the passage which she had left in black darkness--was alight; was so far lighted, at least, that to eyes fresh from the night, the figures of three men, grouped at the farther end, stood out against the glow of the lantern which they appeared to be trimming--for the two nearest were stooping over it. These two had their backs to her, the third his face; and it was the sight of this third man which had driven the blood to her heart. He ended at the waist! It was only after a few seconds, it was only when she had gazed at him awhile in speechless horror, that he rose another foot from the floor, and she saw that he had paused in the act of ascending through a trapdoor. What the scene meant, who these men were, or what their entrance portended, with these questions her brain refused at the moment to grapple. It was much that--still remembering who might hear her, and what she held--she did not shriek aloud.
Instead, she stood in the gloom at her end of the passage, gazing with all her eyes until she had seen the third man step clear of the trap. She could see him; but the light intervened and blurred his view of her. He stooped, almost as soon as he had cleared himself, to help up a fourth man, who rose with a naked knife between his teeth. She saw then that all were armed, and something stealthy in their bearing, something cruel in their eyes as the light of the lantern fell now on one dark face and now on another, went to her heart and chilled it. Who were they, and why were they here? What was their purpose? As her reason awoke, as she asked herself these questions, the fourth man stooped in his turn, and gave his hand to a fifth. And on that she lost her self-control and cried out. For the last man to ascend was La Tribe! La Tribe, from whom she had parted that morning!
The sound she uttered was low, but it reached the men's ears, and the two whose backs were towards her turned as if they had been pricked. He who held the lantern raised it, and the five glared at her and she at them. Then a second cry, louder and more full of surprise, burst from her lips. The nearest man, he who held the lantern high that he might view her, was Tignonville, was her lover!
"Mon Dieu!" she whispered. "What is it? What is it?"
Then, not till then, did he know her. Until then the light of the lantern had revealed only a cloaked and cowled figure, a gloomy phantom which shook the heart of more than one with superstitious terror. But they knew her now--two of them; and slowly, as in a dream, Tignonville came forward.
The mind has its moments of crisis, in which it acts upon instinct rather than upon reason. The girl never knew why she acted as she did; why she asked no questions, why she uttered no exclamations, no remonstrances. Why, with a finger on her lips and her eyes on his, she put the packet into his hands.
He took it from her, too, as mechanically as she gave it--with the hand which held his bare blade. That done, silent as she, with his eyes set hard, he would have gone by her. The sight of her there, guarding the door of him who had stolen her from him, exasperated his worst passions.
But she moved to hinder him, and barred the way. With her hand raised she pointed to the trapdoor. "Go now!" she whispered, her tone stern and low, "you have what you want! Go!"
"No!" And he tried to pass her.
"Go!" she repeated in the same tone. "You have what you need." And still she held her hand extended; still without faltering she faced the five men, while the thunder, growing more distant, rolled sullenly eastward, and the midnight rain, pouring from every spout and dripping eave about the house, wrapped the passage in its sibilant hush. Gradually her eyes dominated his, gradually her nobler nature and nobler aim subdued his weaker parts. For she understood now; and he saw that she did, and had he been alone he would have slunk away, and said no word in his defence.