Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/275

ANOTHER MURDER down, and place his foot on the first rung of the ladder. Then there was a single sharp cry—startled, agonized—a moan, and the heavy fall of a body. Without a thought I leaped through the hole down into the darkness. I struck against a prostrate figure, stumbled slightly, rattling the lantern with my foot; my extended hand gripped at something, which gave way, and I stood groping blindly about without a sound to guide me. I knew what had happened, and now, the first mad rush over, my heart was in my throat. I felt for the lantern with my foot, found it at last, and managed to apply a match to the wick. At the foot of the ladder lay the soldier, a knife thrust in his throat, his head bent back, his dead eyes staring up at me, in the grip of my fingers was a rag, a strip of red calico, evidently ripped from a dress. That was all. I ran down the tunnel a dozen steps, throwing the light in advance, but saw nothing, heard nothing. The very mystery of it made my flesh creep, and halted me, peering here and there, afraid of my own shadow. That fiend of a woman was there somewhere, skulking in the blackness; we had passed her, and she had stolen along behind us, waiting a chance to strike down some straggler. But where in God's name could she have hidden? Three times I had been through there, searching every inch of the way, and discovered nothing. Who could she be? What spirit of hell could cause her thus to strike down innocent men? For the instant—puzzled, perplexed—I almost doubted her reality, deeming her an illusion, a dream. Yet that dead man yonder was no dream; this strip of red calico, still clutched in my hand, no illusion. [ 261 ]