[35]

"As I stooped to raise her now fallen head a quick, loud sound came to our ears from the back of the house, as of boards being ripped up from the floor by a reckless and determined hand. Instantly the woman's face assumed a ghastly look, and, tossing up her arms, she cried:

"'He has found the box!—the box! Stop him! Do not let him carry it away! It is——' She fell back, and I thought all was over; but in another instant she had raised herself almost to a sitting position, and was pointing straight at the clock. 'There! there! look! the clock!' And without a sigh or another movement she sank back on the pillow, dead."

[36] IV. FLINT AND STEEL.

[36]

IV.

FLINT AND STEEL.

"Greatly startled, I drew back from the bed which but a moment before had been the scene of such mingled emotions.

Greatly

"'All is over here,' said I, and turned to follow the man whom with her latest breath she had bidden me to stop from leaving the house.

"As I could not take the lamp and leave my companions in darkness, I stepped out into a dark hall; but before I had taken a half dozen steps I heard a cautious foot descending the back stairs, and realizing that it would be both foolish and unsafe for me to endeavor to follow him through the unlighted rooms and possibly intricate passages of this upper hall, I bounded down the front stairs, and feeling my way from door to door, at last emerged into a room where there was a lamp burning.

"I had found the kitchen, and in it were Huckins and the man Briggs. Huckins had his hand on the latch of the outside door, and from his look and the bundle he carried, I judged that if I had been a minute later he would have been in full flight from the house.

[37] "'Put out the light!' he shouted to Briggs.

[37]

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