Page:Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (1921).djvu/248

Rh “Don’t you ask me that, Hi,” said she, agitatedly, “I can’t tell you that. You don’t know Levi, Hiram; I darsn’t tell you anything he don’t want me to. If I told you where I been he’d hunt me out, no matter where I was, and kill me. If you only knew what I know about him, Hiram, you wouldn’t ask anything about him.”

Hiram stood looking broodingly at her for a long time; then at last he again spoke. “I thought a sight of you onc’t, Sally,” said he.

Sally did not answer immediately, but, after a while, she suddenly looked up. “Hiram,” said she, “if I tell ye something will you promise on your oath not to breathe a word to any living soul?” Hiram nodded. “Then I’ll tell you, but if Levi finds I’ve told he’ll murder me as sure as you’re standin’ there. Come nigher—I’ve got to whisper it.” He leaned forward close to her where she sat. She looked swiftly from right to left; then raising her lips she breathed into his ear: “I’m an honest woman, Hi. I was married to Levi West before I run away.”

The winter had passed, spring had passed, and summer had come. Whatever Hiram had felt, he had made no sign of suffering. Nevertheless, his lumpy face had begun to look flabby, his cheeks hollow, and his loose-jointed body shrunk more awkwardly together into its clothes. He was often awake at night, sometimes walking up and down his room until far into the small hours.

It was through such a wakeful spell as this that he entered into the greatest, the most terrible, happening of his life.

It was a sulphurously hot night in July. The air was like the breath of a furnace, and it was a hard matter to sleep with even the easiest mind and under the most favorable circumstances. The full moon shone in through the open window, laying a white square of light upon the floor, and Hiram, as he paced up and down, up and down, walked directly through it, his gaunt figure starting Rh