It is perhaps a singular thing that this absence of the three men from
the feed box at the time of the sharp lieutenant's investigation should
terrify the girl more than it should joy her. That for which she had
prayed had come to pass. Apparently the escape of these men in the face
of every improbability had been granted her, but her dominating emotion
was fright. The feed box was a mystic and terrible machine, like some
dark magician's trap. She felt it almost possible that she should see
the three weird men floating spectrally away through the air. She
glanced with swift apprehension behind her, and when the dazzle from the
lantern's light had left her eyes, saw only the dim hillside stretched
in solemn silence.
The interior of the barn possessed for her another fascination because
it was now uncanny. It contained that extraordinary feed box. When she
peeped again at the knothole, the calm, gray prisoner was seated upon
the feed box, thumping it with his dangling, careless heels as if it
were in nowise his conception of a remarkable feed-box. The sentry also
stood facing it. His carbine he held in the hollow of his arm. His legs
were spread apart, and he mused. From without came the low mumble of the
three other troopers. The sharp lieutenant had vanished.
The trembling yellow light of the lantern caused the figures of the men
to cast monstrous wavering shadows. There were spaces of gloom which
shrouded ordinary things in impressive garb. The roof presented an
inscrutable blackness, save where small rifts in the shingles glowed
phosphorescently. Frequently old Santo put down a thunderous hoof. The
heels of the prisoner made a sound like the booming of a wild kind of
drum. When the men moved their heads, their eyes shone with ghoulish
whiteness, and their complexions were always waxen and unreal. And there
was that profoundly strange feed box, imperturbable with its burden of
fantastic mystery.
Suddenly from down near her feet the girl heard a crunching sound, a
sort of a nibbling, as if some silent and very discreet terrier was at
work upon the turf. She faltered back; here was no doubt another
grotesque detail of this most unnatural episode. She did not run,
because physically she was in the power of these events. Her feet
chained her to the ground in submission to this march of terror after
terror. As she stared at the spot from which this sound seemed to come,
there floated through her mind a vague, sweet vision--a vision of her
safe little room, in which at this hour she usually was sleeping.
The scratching continued faintly and with frequent pauses, as if the
terrier was then listening. When the girl first removed her eyes from
the knothole the scene appeared of one velvet blackness; then gradually
objects loomed with a dim lustre. She could see now where the tops of
the trees joined the sky and the form of the barn was before her dyed in
heavy purple. She was ever about to shriek, but no sound came from her
constricted throat. She gazed at the ground with the expression of
countenance of one who watches the sinister-moving grass where a serpent
approaches.
Dimly she saw a piece of sod wrenched free and drawn under the great
foundation beam of the barn. Once she imagined that she saw human hands,
not outlined at all, but sufficient in colour, form, or movement to make
subtle suggestion.
Then suddenly a thought that illuminated the entire situation flashed in
her mind like a light. The three men, late of the feed box, were beneath
the floor of the barn and were now scraping their way under this beam.
She did not consider for a moment how they could come there. They were
marvellous creatures. The supernatural was to be expected of them. She
no longer trembled, for she was possessed upon this instant of the most
unchangeable species of conviction. The evidence before her amounted to
no evidence at all, but nevertheless her opinion grew in an instant from
an irresponsible acorn to a rooted and immovable tree. It was as if she
was on a jury.
She stooped down hastily and scanned the ground. There she indeed saw a
pair of hands hauling at the dirt where the sod had been displaced.
Softly, in a whisper like a breath, she said, "Hey!"
The dim hands were drawn hastily under the barn. The girl reflected for
a moment. Then she stooped and whispered: "Hey! It's me!"
After a time there was a resumption of the digging. The ghostly hands
began once more their cautious mining. She waited. In hollow
reverberations from the interior of the barn came the frequent sounds of
old Santo's lazy movements. The sentry conversed with the prisoner.
At last the girl saw a head thrust slowly from under the beam. She
perceived the face of one of the miraculous soldiers from the feed box.
A pair of eyes glintered and wavered, then finally settled upon her, a
pale statue of a girl. The eyes became lit with a kind of humorous
greeting. An arm gestured at her.
Stooping, she breathed, "All right." The man drew himself silently back
under the beam. A moment later the pair of hands resumed their cautious
task. Ultimately the head and arms of the man were thrust strangely from
the earth. He was lying on his back. The girl thought of the dirt in his
hair. Wriggling slowly and pushing at the beam above him he forced his
way out of the curious little passage. He twisted his body and raised
himself upon his hands. He grinned at the girl and drew his feet
carefully from under the beam. When he at last stood erect beside her,
he at once began mechanically to brush the dirt from his clothes with
his hands. In the barn the sentry and his prisoner were evidently
engaged in an argument.
The girl and the first miraculous soldier signalled warily. It seemed
that they feared that their arms would make noises in passing through
the air. Their lips moved, conveying dim meanings.
In this sign language the girl described the situation in the barn. With
guarded motions, she told him of the importance of absolute stillness.
He nodded, and then in the same manner he told her of his two companions
under the barn floor. He informed her again of their wounded state, and
wagged his head to express his despair. He contorted his face, to tell
how sore were their arms; and jabbed the air mournfully, to express
their remote geographical position.
This signalling was interrupted by the sound of a body being dragged or
dragging itself with slow, swishing sound under the barn. The sound was
too loud for safety. They rushed to the hole and began to semaphore
until a shaggy head appeared with rolling eyes and quick grin.
With frantic downward motions of their arms they suppressed this grin
and with it the swishing noise. In dramatic pantomime they informed this
head of the terrible consequences of so much noise. The head nodded, and
painfully but with extreme care the second man pushed and pulled himself
from the hole.