"I am listening," I replied.
"You must know--you must--know,--I must tell you. The boy--the woman
is--"
On a sudden Mother Borton sat bolt upright in bed, and a shriek, so
long, so shrill, so freighted with terror, came from her lips that I
shrank from her and trembled, faint with the horror of the place.
"They come--there, they come!" she cried, and throwing up her arms she
fell back on the bed.
The candle shot up into flame, sputtered an instant, and was gone. And
I was alone with the darkness and the dead.
CHAPTER XXVII
A LINK IN THE CHAIN
I sprang to my feet. The darkness was instinct with nameless terrors.
The air was filled with nameless shapes. A spiritual horror surrounded
me, and I felt that I must reach the light or cry out. But before I had
covered the distance to the door, it was flung open and Corson stood on
the threshold; and at the sight of him my courage returned and my
shaken nerves grew firm. At the darkness he wavered and cried:
"What's the matter here?"
"She is dead."
"Rest her sowl! It's a fearsome dark hole to be in, sor."
I shuddered as I stood beside him, and brought the lamp from the
bracket in the hall.
Mother Borton lay back staring affrightedly at the mystic beings who
had come for her, but settled into peace as I closed her eyes and
composed her limbs.
"She was a rare old bird," said Corson when I had done, "but there was
some good in her, after all."
"She has been a good friend to me," I said, and we called a servant
from below and left the gruesome room to his guardianship.
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