Dark Hollow | Page 5

risen already to meet them. In that case they
might expect at any minute to see his tall form emerging in anger upon
them through some door at present unseen.
This possibility, new to some but recognised from the first by others,
fluttered the breasts of such as were not quite impervious to a sense of
their own presumption, and as they stood in a close group, swaying
from side to side in a vain endeavour to see their way through the
gloom before them, the whimper of a child and the muttered
ejaculations of the men testified that the general feeling was one of
discontent which might very easily end in an outburst of vociferous
expression.
But the demon of curiosity holds fast and as soon as their eyes had
become sufficiently used to the darkness to notice the faint line of light
marking the sill of a door directly in front of them, they all plunged
forward in spite of the fear I have mentioned.
The woman of the harsh voice and self-satisfied demeanour, who had
started them upon this adventure, was still ahead; but even she quailed
when, upon laying her hand upon the panel of the door she was the first
to reach, she felt it to be cold and knew it to be made not of wood but
of iron. How great must be the treasure or terrible the secret to make
necessary such extraordinary precautions! Was it for her to push open
this door, and so come upon discoveries which--
But here her doubts were cut short by finding herself face to face with a
heavy curtain instead of a yielding door. The pressure of the crowd
behind had precipitated her past the latter into a small vestibule which
acted as an ante-chamber to the very room they were in search of.

The shock restored her self-possession. Bracing herself, she held her
place for a moment, while she looked back, with a finger laid on her lip.
The light was much better here and they could all see both the move
she made and the expression which accompanied it.
"Look at this!" she whispered, pushing the curtain inward with a quick
movement.
Her hand had encountered no resistance. There was nothing between
them and the room beyond but a bit of drapery.
"Now hark, all of you," fell almost soundlessly from her lips, as she
laid her own ear against the curtain.
And they hearkened.
Not a murmur came from within, not so much as the faintest rustle of
clothing or the flutter of a withheld breath. All was perfectly still--too
still. As the full force of this fact impressed itself upon them, a
blankness settled over their features. The significance of this
undisturbed quiet was making itself felt. If the two were there, or if he
were there alone, they would certainly hear some movement, voluntary
or involuntary--and they could hear nothing. Was the woman gone?
Had she found her way out front while they approached from the rear?
And the judge! Was he gone also?--this man of inalterable habits--gone
before Bela's return--a thing he had not been known to do in the last
twelve years? No, no, this could not be. Yet even this supposition was
not so incredible as that he should still be here and SILENT. Men like
him do not hold their peace under a provocation so great as the
intrusion of a mob of strangers into a spot where he never anticipated
seeing anybody, nor had seen anybody but his man Bela for years.
Soon they would hear his voice. It was not in nature for him to be as
quiet as this in face of such audacity.
Yet who could count upon the actions of an Ostrander, or reckon with
the imperious whims of a man mysterious beyond all precedent?--He
may be there but silent, or--

A single glance would settle all.
The woman drew the curtain.
Sunshine! A stream of it, dazzling them almost to blindness and
sending them, one and all, pellmell back upon each other! However
dismal the approach, here all was in brilliant light with every evidence
before them of busy life.
The room was not only filled, but crammed, with furniture. This was
the first thing they noticed; then, as their blinking eyes became
accustomed to the glare and to the unexpected confusion of tables and
chairs and screens and standing receptacles for books and pamphlets
and boxes labelled and padlocked, they beheld something else;
something, which once seen, held the eye from further wandering and
made the apprehensions from which they had suffered sink into
insignificance before a real and only too present terror.
The judge was there! but in what a condition.
From the end of the forty foot room, his seated