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 man 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 knot-hole, the calm, grey 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 knot-hole 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.