She struggled
to free herself, but his fingers tightened about hers.
"Let me go!" she panted. He laughed his cool laugh of triumph.
"Let you go--ask me anything but that, Betty! Have you no reward
for patience such as mine? A whole summer has passed since I saw
you first--"
There was the noisy shuffling of feet on the stairs, and
releasing Betty, Murrell swung about on his heel and faced the
door. It was pushed open an inch at a time by a not too
confident hand and Mr. Slosson thus guardedly presented himself
to the eye of his chief, whom he beckoned from the room.
"Well?" said Murrell, when they stood together on the landing.
"Just come across to the keel boat!" and Slosson led the way down
the stairs and from the house.
"Damn you, Joe; you might have waited!" observed the outlaw.
Slosson gave him a hardened grin. They crossed the clearing and
boarded the keel boat which rested against the bank. As they did
so, the cabin in the stern gave up a shattered presence in the
shape of Tom Ware. Murrell started violently. "I thought you
were hanging out in Memphis, Tom?" he said, and his brow darkened
as, sinister and forbidding, he stepped closer to the planter.
Ware did not answer at once, but looked at Murrell out of heavy
bloodshot eyes, his face pinched and ghastly. At last he said,
speaking with visible effort,
"I stayed in Memphis until five o'clock this morning."
"Damn your early hours!" roared Murrell. "What are you doing
here? I suppose you've been showing that dead face of yours
about the neighborhood--why didn't you stay at Belle Plain since
you couldn't keep away?"
"I haven't been near Belle Plain, I came here instead.
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