e sure I questioned him, and, if you know the blacks,
you'll smile and say I had my labor for my pains--the which I had. His
place was at the quarters, and of what went on within the house he knew
no more than I. But this he told me; that company surely was expected,
and that some air of mystery was abroad.

When he was gone I ate a soldier's portion, knowing of old how ill a
thing it is to take an empty stomach into battle. For the same cause I
drank a second cup of wine,--'twas old madeira of my father's
laying-in,--and would have drunk a third but that the bottle would not
yield it.

It was fully dark when I had finished, and, thinking ever on my plan,
would strive afresh to weld its weakest link. This was the hazard of the
weapon-getting. With full-blood health and strength I might have gone
bare-handed; but as it was, I feared to take the chance. So with a
candle I went a-prowling in the deep drawers of the old oaken
clothes-press and in the escritoire which once had been my mother's, and
found no weapon bigger than a hairpin.

It was no great disappointment, for I had looked before with daylight in
the room. Besides, the wine was mounting, and when the search was done
the hazard seemed the less. So I could rush upon him unawares and put my
knee against his back, I thought the Lord of Battles would give me
strength to break his neck across it.

At that I capped the candles, and, taking post in the deep bay of the
window, set myself to watch for the lighting of the great room at the
front. This had two windows on my side, and while I could not see them,
I knew that I should see the sheen of light upon the lawn.

The night was clear but moonless, and the thick-leafed masses of the
oaks and hickories rose a wall of black to curtain half the hemisphere
of starry sky. As always in our forest land, the hour was shrilly vocal,
though to me the chirping din of frogs and insects hath ever stood for
silence. Somewhere beyond the thicket-wall an owl was calling
mournfully, and I bethought me of that superstition--old as man, for
aught I know--of how the hooting of an owl betokens death. And then I
laughed, for surely death would come to one or more of those beneath my
father's roof within the compass of the night.

Behind the close-drawn curtain, though I could see it not, the virgin
forest darkened all the land; and from afar within its secret depths I
heard, or thought I heard, the dismal howling of the timber wolves.