en silence and footsteps
wandering furtively about. The night seemed all footsteps and whispers.
There came a louder knocking, and a voice:

"_Elspeth! Elspeth! Open the door; it's me._"

Then muttering and wandering noises, and silence again.

The child on the bed turned itself, murmuring uneasily in its dreams.
And then _they_ came. Zora froze, watching the door, wide-eyed, while
the fire flamed redder. A loud quick knock at the door--a pause--an oath
and a cry.

"_Elspeth! Open this door, damn you!_"

A moment of waiting and then the knocking came again, furious and long
continued. Outside there was much trampling and swearing. Zora did not
move; the child slept on. A tugging and dragging, a dull blow that set
the cabin quivering; then,--

"_Bang! Crack! Crash!_"--the door wavered, splintered, and dropped upon
the floor.

With a snarl, a crowd of some half-dozen white faces rushed forward,
wavered and stopped. The awakened child sat up and stared with wide blue
eyes. Slowly, with no word, the intruders turned and went silently away,
leaving but one late comer who pressed forward.

"What damned mummery is this?" he cried, and snatching at the sheet,
dragged it from the black distorted countenance of the corpse. He
shuddered but for a moment he could not stir. He felt the midnight eyes
of the girl--he saw the twisted, oozing mouth of the hag, blue-black and
hideous.

Suddenly back behind there in the darkness a shriek split the night like
a sudden flash of flame--a great ringing scream that cracked and swelled
and stopped. With one wild effort the man hurled himself out the door
and plunged through the darkness. Panting and cursing, he flashed his
huge revolver--"_bang! bang! bang!_" it cracked into the night. The
sweat poured from his forehead; the terror of the swamp was upon him.
With a struggling and tearing in his throat, he tripped and fell
fainting under the silent oaks.

_Twenty_

THE WEAVING OF THE SILVER FLEECE

The Silver Fleece, darkly cloaked and girded, lay in the cotton
warehouse of the Cresswells, near the store. Its silken fibres, cramped
and close, shone yellow-white in the sunlight; sadly soiled, yet
beautiful. Many came to see Zora's twin bales, as they lay, handling
them and questioning, while Colonel Cresswell grew proud of his
possession.

The world was going well with the Colonel. Freed from money cares,
praised for his generalship in the cotton corner, able to entert