These two had their backs to her, the third his face;
and it was the sight of this third man which had driven the blood to her
heart. He ended at the waist! It was only after a few seconds, it was
only when she had gazed at him awhile in speechless horror, that he rose
another foot from the floor, and she saw that he had paused in the act of
ascending through a trapdoor. What the scene meant, who these men were,
or what their entrance portended, with these questions her brain refused
at the moment to grapple. It was much that--still remembering who might
hear her, and what she held--she did not shriek aloud.
Instead, she stood in the gloom at her end of the passage, gazing with
all her eyes until she had seen the third man step clear of the trap. She
could see him; but the light intervened and blurred his view of her. He
stooped, almost as soon as he had cleared himself, to help up a fourth
man, who rose with a naked knife between his teeth. She saw then that
all were armed, and something stealthy in their bearing, something cruel
in their eyes as the light of the lanthorn fell now on one dark face and
now on another, went to her heart and chilled it. Who were they, and why
were they here? What was their purpose? As her reason awoke, as she
asked herself these questions, the fourth man stooped in his turn, and
gave his hand to a fifth.
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