Page:Randall Parrish - The Red Mist.djvu/140

 124  account would be closed. Once legally this villain's wife all her inheritance would be in his control. That must be the object, the vile, cowardly purpose, which had brought him, and his murderous crew to this lonely house through the storm. He expected to surprise the girl alone, and unprotected; in the canting preacher Nichols he had a tool fitted to do his bidding, yet even under such conditions he dare not venture on the deed unaccompanied. He had to bring a gang of cut-throats along with him—a dozen men to overcome the resistance of a frail girl. That very fact stamped him for what he was—a sneaking cur, afraid of his contemplated crime. True; yet this did not necessarily mean that he would prove any the less dangerous. His very sense of cowardice might render him the more desperate, while the number of his supporters, and their jeers at any failure on his part, would drive him to greater atrocity. All this flashed over me in the single moment we stood there, hesitating, confused, all our plans for escape instantly shattered. I had no thought but to fight—to fight desperately, protecting this girl's honor with my life. I knew of no escape, no means by which we might find a way out of the toils in which we were caught—we must meet them here at the stair head, in the dark, and defend ourselves to the last extremity. Death, even,