The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow | Page 2

from a task whose seriousness he had no
difficulty in measuring.
To those who knew William Jewett well, it was evident that he had
been called from some task which still occupied his thoughts and for
the moment somewhat bewildered his understanding. But as he was a
conscientious man and quite capable of taking the lead when once
roused to the exigencies of an occasion, Mr. Roberts felt a certain
interest in watching the slow awakening of this self-absorbed man to
the awful circumstances which in one instant had clouded the museum
in an atmosphere of mysterious horror.
When the full realization came,--which was not till a way had been
made for him to the side of the stricken woman crouching over the dead
child,--the energy which transformed his countenance and gave
character to his usually bent and inconspicuous figure was all if not
more than the anxious director expected.
Finding that his attempts to meet the older woman's eye only prolonged
the suspense, the Curator addressed her quietly, and in sympathetic
tones inquired whose child this was and how so dreadful a thing had
happened.
She did not answer. She did not even look his way. With a rapid glance
into the faces about him, ending in one of deep compassion directed
toward herself, he repeated his question.
Still no response--still that heavy silence, that absolute immobility of
face and limb. If her faculty of hearing was dulled, possibly she would
yield to that of touch. Stooping, he laid his hand on her arm.
This roused her. Slowly her eyes lost their fixed stare and took on a
more human light. A shudder shook her frame, and gazing down into
the countenance of the young girl lying at her feet, she broke into
moans of such fathomless despair as wrung the hearts of all about her.

It was a scene to test the nerve of any man. To one of the Curator's
sympathetic temperament it was well-nigh unendurable. Turning to
those nearest, he begged for an explanation of what they saw before
them:
"Some one here must be able to tell me. Let that some one speak."
At this the quietest and least conspicuous person present, a young man
heavily spectacled and of student-like appearance, advanced a step and
said:
"I was the first person to come in here after this poor young lady fell. I
was looking at coins just beyond the partition there, when I heard a
gasping cry. I had not heard her fall--I fear I was very much
preoccupied in my search for an especial coin I had been told I should
find here--but I did hear the cry she gave, and startled by the sound, left
the section where I was and entered this one, only to see just what you
are seeing now."
The Curator pointed at the two women.
"This? The one woman kneeling over the other with her hand on the
arrow?"
"Yes, sir."
A change took place in the Curator's expression. Involuntarily his eyes
rose to the walls hung closely with Indian relics, among which was a
quiver in which all could see arrows similar to the one now in the
breast of the young girl lying dead before them.
"This woman must be made to speak," he said in answer to the low
murmur which followed this discovery. "If there is a doctor present----"
Waiting, but receiving no response, he withdrew his hand from the
woman's arm and laid it on the arrow.
This roused her completely. Loosing her own grasp upon the shaft, she

cried, with sudden realization of the people pressing about her:
"I could not draw it. That causes death, they say. Wait! she may still be
alive. She may have a word to speak."
She was bending to listen. It was hardly a favorable moment for further
questioning, but the Curator in his anxiety could not refrain from
saying:
"Who is she? What is her name and what is yours?"
"Her name?" repeated the woman, rising to face him again. "How
should I know? I was passing through this gallery and had just stopped
to take a look into the court when this young girl bounded by me from
behind and flinging up her arms, fell with a deep sigh to the floor. I saw
an arrow in her breast, and----"
Emotion choked her, and when some one asked if the girl was a
stranger to her, she simply bowed her head; then, letting her gaze pass
from face to face till it had completed the circle of those about her, she
said in her former mechanical way:
"My name is Ermentrude Taylor. I came to look at the bronzes. I
should like to go now."
But the crowd which had formed about her was too compact