Dark Hollow | Page 7

it was with unbounded relief
they pressed forward to greet the shadowy form of a young girl
hurrying towards them from the rear, with news in her face. She spoke
quickly and before Miss Weeks could frame her question.
"The woman is gone. Harry Doane saw her sliding out behind us just
after we came in. She was hiding in some of the corners here, and
slipped out by the kitchen-way when we were not looking. He has gone
to see--"
But interesting as this was, the wonder of the now rapidly increasing
hubbub was more so. A mob was at the gates! Men, women and
children shouting, panting and making loud calls.
Breathlessly Miss Weeks cut the girl's story short; breathlessly she
rushed to the nearest window, and, helped by willing hands, succeeded
in forcing it up and tearing a hole in the vines, through which they one
and all looked out in eager excitement.
A motley throng of people were crowding in through the double
gateway. Some one was in their grasp. Was it the woman? No; it was
Bela! Bela, the giant! Bela, the terror of the town, but no longer a terror
now but a struggling, half-fainting figure, fighting to free itself and get
in advance, despite some awful hurt which blanched his coal-black
features into an indescribable hue and made his great limbs falter and
his gasping mouth writhe in anguish while still keeping his own and
making his way, by sheer force of will, up the path and the two steps of
entrance--his body alternately sinking back or plunging forward as
those in the rear or those in front got the upper hand.
It was an awful and a terrifying sight to little Miss Weeks and,
screaming loudly, she left her window and ran, scattering her small
party before her like sheep, not into the near refuge of the front hall and
its quiet parlours, but into the very spot towards which this mob
seemed headed--the great library pulsing with its own terror, in the
shape of the yet speechless and unconscious man to whom the loudest
noise and the most utter silence were yet as one, and the worst struggle
of human passion a blank lost in unmeaning chaos.

Why this instinctive move? She could not tell. Impulse prevailed, and
without a thought she flew into Judge Ostrander's presence, and, gazing
wildly about, wormed her way towards a heavily carved screen
guarding a distant corner, and cowered down behind it.
What awaited her?
What awaited the judge?
As the little woman shook with terror in her secret hiding-place she felt
that she had played him false; that she had no right to save herself by
the violation of a privacy she should have held in awe. She was paying
for her temerity now, paying for it with every terrible moment that her
suspense endured. The gasping, struggling men, the frantic negro, were
in the next room now--she could catch the sound of the latter's panting
breath rising above the clamour of strange entreaties and excited cries
with which the air was full; then a quick, hoarse shout of "Judge!
Judge!" rose in the doorway, and she became conscious of the presence
of a headlong, rushing force struck midway into silence as the frozen
figure of his master flashed upon the negro's eyes;--then,--a growl of
concentrated emotion, uttered almost in her ear, and the screen which
had been her refuge was violently thrust away from before her, and in
its place she beheld a terrible being standing over her, in whose eyes,
dilating under this fresh surprise, she beheld her doom, even while
recognising that if she must suffer it would be simply as an obstacle to
some goal at her back which he must reach--now--before he fell in his
blood and died.
What was this goal? As she felt herself lifted, nay, almost hurled aside,
she turned to see and found it to be a door before which the devoted
Bela had now thrown himself, guarding it with every inch of his
powerful but rapidly sinking body, and chattering defiance with his
bloodless, quivering lips--a figure terrible in anger, sublime in purpose,
and piteous in its failing energies.
"Back! all of you!" he cried, and stopped, clutching at the door- casing
on either side to hold himself erect. "You cannot come in here. This is
the judge's--"

Not even his iron resolve or once unequalled physique could stand the
sapping of the terrible gash which disfigured his forehead. He had been
run over by an automobile in a moment of blind abstraction, and his
hurt was mortal. But though his tongue refused to finish, his eye still
possessed its power to awe and restrain. Though the crowd had
followed him almost into the centre of