Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/316

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH to ignite the wick, the flickering flame barely dispelling the darkness for a dozen feet. But it revealed the face of my opponent, and I loosened my grip, staring at him in amazement. His whiskers were torn in the struggle, his face blood-stained, but I could not doubt his identity—Daniels the mountaineer.

What did this mean? It was the feud, then, back of all these murders. The woman had disappeared—vanished as mysteriously as she had come; but here was this man creeping into the house through the tunnel, knife in hand, urged by the same spirit of hatred, the same insanity of revenge. My heart hardened against him; pitiful object though he was, I felt no sympathy, no desire to aid. I could have trampled on him as upon a snake. Even as he recognized me, he read the truth in my eyes, and shrank back against the rock wall, his arms uplifted as if for protection.

"Was it you, Leftenant? By God, I did n't know."

"It makes no difference what you knew," I returned hotly. "You made no effort to find out; you tried murder, and there has been too much of that done here already."

"What is it you mean?—murder, here?"

"Yes, and 1 have no doubt you know more about it than I do; within forty-eight hours three men have been assassinated here in the dark—stricken down by the knife, and the fourth barely escaped with a serious wound."

He stared up at me, his head against the wall, as if scarcely comprehending. [ 298 ]