Page:Randall Parrish - The Red Mist.djvu/186

 170 My eyes never left Nichols' face. What he read of threat I know not, but his lips began to stumble through the form, though I could scarcely distinguish a word. His face was gray with terror, and I dare not look aside at the silent girl—only I vaguely realized that the hand held in mine trembled, and once, when she had to speak, the two words uttered were almost a sob.

Never surely was there a stranger marriage in all the world. The dying embers of the stable fire shot red gleams of flame over us through the unshaded windows, giving to Nichols a ghastly look, and glowing on the steel barrel of the revolver I held poised at his head. His voice faltered and broke, and clotted blood rendered hideous one side of his face, while his hands shook as if with palsy. All the sneaking coward in him was manifest. Outside a dozen voices roared, one rising gruff above the others shouting orders. Once a single shot crashed through the upper panel of the door and broke the glass of a window opposite. The girl, startled, reeled against me, and the preacher stopped, gasping for breath.

"No firing, you fool!" roared a deep voice angrily. "We don't want any dead ones—beat down the door!"

"Go on!" I ordered grimly, and thrust the black