Page:Wadsworth Camp--the gray mask.djvu/217

Rh Immediately he knew there was someone. He sprang aside, whipping out his revolver, crouching against an expected attack; for a figure blacker than the night had glided in his path from behind a tree trunk, and the hands carried something round, black—

"Put that thing down," Garth whispered, "then up with your hands!"

Her laugh barely reached him.

"I thought it was you, Jim."

He dropped his revolver in his pocket and strode forward, angry and anxious.

"What are you doing here, Nora?"

He laughed uncomfortably.

"For a minute I looked for the veiled woman."

"I've come," she said confidently, "for her, and to see that you don't throw your life away, because you won't admit the possibility of incomprehensible forces."

"You must go back," he said. "What's in that bundle you're carrying?"

She held the bundle up, and Garth touched it. It was a soft substance wrapped in a black shawl.

"What is it?" he repeated.

"A white gown," she answered simply, "and a white veil, so that I may take the bomb after I have trapped this queer creature; so that I may talk to these men and learn how wide the organization is."

She argued logically enough that there was less risk this way than the other. Once she had the bomb in her hands the great danger would be over.