Page:Golden Fleece v1n2 (1938-11).djvu/113

 scorchingly. There was a creaking, grating sound a few feet above his head, and the bell sounded, not loudly, but with a sort of anticipatory clatter. Black Jem grinned twistedly. It was a big bell

There was a swishing as the rope hurtled upward, winding half around the iron wheel beside the bell, a sudden rush of air as the bell gained momentum and swung through its mighty arc, then, at last, the heavy, reverberating boom of the clapper striking the upward swinging metal.

And suddenly the eight foot cubicle in which Black Jem crouched hummed and throbbed to the beat of the big bell! The bell was ringing as though its rope were in the hands of a man demented, rapidly, frenziedly, as though its ringer wanted to turn the heavy oaken cradle completely over and bring bell and iron wheel crashing down through the belfry floor upon his own head. It rushed and swooped through the blackness above Jem's ears—half a ton of savage, plunging metal, buzzing and humming like a gigantic bumblebee. And—"Swoop—Boom! Swoop—Boom!" its call went out across the countryside.

HERE was no grin on Black Jem's face now. His hands were tight pressed across his ears to stop the vibrations that beat against his skull like a million hammers; his mouth burst open. He turned his back to the bell and crouched close against the belfry grille, as though by doing this he might gain an infinitesimal fraction of the silence outside.

Like dream sounds through the thunder of the bell he heard the running of men, their shouts and oaths and the clop of their feet as they assembled in the churchyard and on the porch of the church. The whinnying and stamping of excited horses mingled faintly with the booming of the bell, and dancing fingers of lanternlight, probing between the belfry grilles, sent crazy gleams and shadows spinning and swerving before Black Jem's eyes.

He could see the bell now, an iron demon whirling and raging above his head; he writhed and cowered, his face racked, his hands cupping his ears, against the dusty beams as the pigeons whirred into the night.

And then, small against the clangor of the bell, he heard a man's voice, shouting, "Ho, now, Eben Taylor! Have done with your ringing! Would you rouse the whole countryside 'twixt here and Boston? We are enough for the search; let the bell be still!"

Above Black Jem's head the bell obediently slowed its wild gyrations and hung motionless. But from the muttering, restless crowd below a voice suddenly shrilled:

"Look there, Judge Hackaday! Look there—a-droppin' from the belfry-grille! Pieces of gold—bloody pieces of gold! Sure as Tophet the varmint as done this deed tonight's acrouchin' in the belfry!"

Black Jem's trembling fingers fumbled like bloody claws in the gaping mouth of the empty leathern pouch, the pouch whose thong had been cut almost in two by the knife-stroke that killed Andrew Bennett. The thong had parted now, parted in the darkness as Black Jem writhed beneath the booming of the bell. And the gold was gone now, gone from Black Jem's hands forever; it had slipped through the grille piece by piece from the crazily tilted pouch