"
"No."
"Why, then," sighed Barnabas, "I must carry you again."
Once more she shrank away from him, back and back to the crumbling
wall, and leaned there. But now because of his passionless strength,
she fell a-trembling and, because of his calmly resolute eyes and
grimly smiling mouth, fear came upon her, and therefore, because she
could not by him, because she knew herself helpless against him, she
suddenly covered her face from his eyes, and a great sob burst from
her.
Barnabas stopped, and looking at her bowed head and shrinking figure,
knew not what to do. And as he stood there within a yard of her,
debating within himself, upon the quiet broke a sudden sound--a small,
sharp sound, yet full of infinite significance--the snapping of a dry
twig among the shadows; a sound that made the ensuing silence but
the more profound, a breathless quietude which, as moment after
moment dragged by, grew full of deadly omen. And now, even as
Barnabas turned to front these menacing shadows, the moon went out.
CHAPTER XX
OF THE PROPHECY OF ONE BILLY BUTTON, A MADMAN
Upon the quiet stole a rustle of leaves, a whisper that came and went,
intermittently, that grew louder and louder, and so was gone again;
but in place of this was another sound, a musical jingle like the
chime of fairy bells, very far, and faint, and sweet.
Pages:
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180