The Lowest Rung Part 8

The night had become very still. Her hearing seemed to reach out till she felt she could have heard a coyote move in its hole miles away. The log fire creaked and shifted. The tall clock in the corner ticked, catching its chain now and then as its manner was. The wooden walls shrunk and groaned a little. The small home-like sounds only accentuated the enormous silence without. Suddenly in the midst of them a real sound fell upon her ear--very low, but different, not like the fragmentary inadvertent murmur of the hut; a small, purposeful, stealthy, sound, aware of itself. She listened, as she had listened before, without moving. It was not louder than the whittling of a mouse behind the wainscot, hardly louder than the sc.r.a.ping of a mole's thin hand in the soil. It continued. Then it stopped. It was only her foolish fancy after all. There it was again. Where did it come from?

_The man in the next room?_

She took up the lamp and crept down the narrow pa.s.sage to the door of the back kitchen. His loud, even breathing sounded distinctly through the crannies of the ill-fitting door. Surely it was overloud. She listened to it. She could hear nothing else. Was his breathing a pretence? She opened the door noiselessly, and went in, shading the light with her hand.

She bent over the sleeping man. At the first glance her heart sank, for he had not taken off his boots. But as she looked hard at him her suspicions died within her. He lay on his back with his coa.r.s.e, emaciated face towards her, his mouth open, showing his broken teeth.

The sleep of utter exhaustion was upon him. She could have killed him as he lay. He was not acting. He was really asleep.

She crept out of the room again, leaving the door ajar, and went back to the kitchen.

Hardly had she sat down when she heard the sound again. It was too faint to reach her except when she was in the kitchen. She knew now where it came from--_the door_. Some one was picking the lock.

The instant the sleeping man was out of her sight she suspected him again.

Was he really asleep after all? He had not taken off his boots. When she came back from making his bed she had found him standing by the mantelshelf. Had he unloaded the pistol in her absence? Would he presently get up, and open the door to his confederates?

Her mind rose clear and cold and unflinching. She took up the pistol, and then laid it down again. She wanted a more noiseless weapon. She got out her husband's great clasp-knife from the open tool-box, took the lamp, and crept back to the man's bedside. She should be able to kill him--certainly she should be able to kill him; and then she should have the pistol for the other one.

But he still slept heavily. When she saw him again, again her suspicions fell from her. She _knew_ he was asleep.

She shook him by the shoulder, noiselessly, but with increasing violence, until he opened his eyes with a groan. Then only she remembered that she was shaking his wounded arm. He saw the knife in her hand, and raised his left arm as if to ward off the blow.

"Listen," she whispered, close to his ear. "Don't speak. There is a man trying to break into the house. You must get up and help me."

He stared at her, vaguely at first, but with growing intelligence. The food and sleep had restored him somewhat to himself. He sat up on the couch.

"Take off my boots," he whispered; "I tried, and could not."

Her last suspicion of him vanished. She cut the laces with her knife, and dragged his boots off. They stuck to his feet, and bits of the woollen socks came off with them. They had evidently not been taken off for weeks. While she did it, he whispered, "Why should any one be wanting to break in? There's nothing here to take."

"Yes, there is," she said. "There's a lot of money."

"Good Lord! Where?"

"Under the floor in the kitchen."

"Then it's the kitchen they'll make for. You bet they know where the money is, if they know it's here. Are there many of 'em?"

"I don't know."

"Well, we shall know soon enough," said the man. He had become alert, keen. "Have you any pistols?"

"Yes, one."

"Fetch it, but don't make a sound, mind."

She stole away, and returned with the pistol. She would have put it into his hand, but he pushed it away.

"It's no use to me," he said, "with my arm in a sling. I will see what I can do with my left hand and the knife. Can you shoot?"

"Yes."

"Can you hit anything?"

"Yes."

"To be depended on?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's darned lucky. How long will that door hold?"

They were both in the little pa.s.sage by now, pressed close together, listening to the furtive pick, pick, of some one at the lock.

"I don't think it will hold more than a minute."

"Now, look here," he said, "I shall go and stand at the foot of the stair, and knife the second man, if there is a second. The first man I'll leave to you. There's a bit of light outside from the snow. He'll let in enough light to see him by as he opens the door. Don't wait. Fire at him as he comes in, and don't stop; go on firing at him till he drops. You've got six bullets. Don't you make any mistake and shoot me.

I've had enough of that already. Now, you look carefully where I'm going to stand and when I'm there you put out the lamp."

He spoke to her as a man does to his comrade.

That she could be frightened did not seem to enter his calculations. He moved with cat-like stealth to the foot of the tiny staircase, and flattened himself against the wall. Then he stretched his left arm once or twice as if to make sure of it, licked the haft of the knife, and nodded at her.

She instantly put out the lamp.

All was dark save for a faint thread of light which outlined the door.

Across the thread something moved once--twice. The sound of picking ceased. Then another sound succeeded it, a new one, unlike the last, as if something was being gently prized open, wrenched.

"The bar will hold," she said to herself; and then remembered for the first time that the rung into which the bar slid had been loose these many days. It was giving now.

It had given!

The door opened silently, and a man came in.

For a moment she saw him clear with the accomplice snowlight behind him.

She did not hesitate. She shot once and again. He fell, and struggled violently up, and she shot again. He fell, and dragged himself to his knees, and she shot again. Then he sank gently and slowly down, as if tired, with his face against the wall, and moved no more.

The man on the stairs rushed out and looked through the open door.

"By G----! he was single-handed," he said.

Then he stooped over the prostrate man, and turned him over on his back.

"Dead!" he said, chuckling. "Well done, missus! Stone dead!"

He was masked.

The dirty left hand tore the mask callously off the grey face.