horescently. Frequently old Santo put down a thunderous hoof. The
heels of the prisoner made a sound like the booming of a wild kind of
drum. When the men moved their heads, their eyes shone with ghoulish
whiteness, and their complexions were always waxen and unreal. And there
was that profoundly strange feed box, imperturbable with its burden of
fantastic mystery.

Suddenly from down near her feet the girl heard a crunching sound, a
sort of a nibbling, as if some silent and very discreet terrier was at
work upon the turf. She faltered back; here was no doubt another
grotesque detail of this most unnatural episode. She did not run,
because physically she was in the power of these events. Her feet
chained her to the ground in submission to this march of terror after
terror. As she stared at the spot from which this sound seemed to come,
there floated through her mind a vague, sweet vision--a vision of her
safe little room, in which at this hour she usually was sleeping.

The scratching continued faintly and with frequent pauses, as if the
terrier was then listening. When the girl first removed her eyes from
the knothole the scene appeared of one velvet blackness; then gradually
objects loomed with a dim lustre. She could see now where the tops of
the trees joined the sky and the form of the barn was before her dyed in
heavy purple. She was ever about to shriek, but no sound came from her
constricted throat. She gazed at the ground with the expression of
countenance of one who watches the sinister-moving grass where a serpent
approaches.

Dimly she saw a piece of sod wrenched free and drawn under the great
foundation beam of the barn. Once she imagined that she saw human hands,
not outlined at all, but sufficient in colour, form, or movement to make
subtle suggestion.

Then suddenly a thought that illuminated the entire situation flashed in
her mind like a light. The three men, late of the feed box, were beneath
the floor of the barn and were now scraping their way under this beam.
She did not consider for a moment how they could come there. They were
marvellous creatures. The supernatural was to be expected of them. She
no longer trembled, for she was possessed upon this instant of the most
unchangeable species of conviction. The evidence before her amounted to
no evidence at all, but nevertheless her opinion grew in an instant from
an irresponsible acorn to a rooted and immovable tree. It was as if she
was on a jury