"Could you not get into the coach, sir, to keep warm?" suggested old Adam; "you can be of no aid to me, you know. When I have finished--you--you can step out and see if it is done to your satisfaction."
For a moment the stranger hesitated, then said, sharply:
"I think I will take your advice, my man; my feet are about as numb as they could well be, I a.s.sure you; and as you say, my standing here will not help you. I can watch from the carriage window, and when the work is done step out and look at it."
With that he hurried quickly to the vehicle, and with a thankfulness in his heart that words are weak to describe, and with a mental "G.o.d be praised," the old grave digger bent to his task with renewed energy.
Both men watched narrowly and anxiously, as spadeful after spadeful of dirt quickly disappeared from the white ground. Then the white heaping snow was leveled over the dark narrow s.p.a.ce, and the grave digger announced that his work was completed.
"I do not know as it is worth while to examine it; the old fellow knows his business," remarked Halloran to his companion, who was by this time fairly well under the weather from large draughts of brandy he had drunk from a bottle he had seized from the bar. "Step up on the box beside the driver"--thrusting a bank note into the old grave digger"s nervous, trembling hand--"we will take you along the road as far as we go."
For an instant old Adam hesitated, but it was only for an instant, for he said to himself he must not arouse the suspicion of this stranger by refusing to ride, especially as he had begged for that permission so short a time before. He could frame no reasonable excuse for asking to remain behind.
Marking the spot as best he could in the intense darkness, he climbed up to the driver"s box as he had been bidden, and took his seat.
With a sharp cut of the whip upon their flanks, the horses were started, and swaying to and fro with their every motion as they dashed along over the uneven road, the coach sped onward.
No word fell from the driver"s lips, and old Adam was too much excited to vouchsafe a remark.
He knew that the men, as well as the rig, did not belong thereabouts, for he well knew every team in the village, and those of the adjoining farmers.
How far they traversed thus he could not judge, but to his intense relief he saw at last that they were pa.s.sing a familiar landmark, an old bridge that spanned a dry creek which was scarcely a dozen rods from his own door.
"I will leave you here," said Adam. "I thank you for giving me a lift."
Again the coach came to a halt, and the man within put out his head, inquiring sharply:
"What is the matter now?"
"This man wants to get off here."
"Very well," replied Halloran, drawing back into the warmth of the coach and giving the matter no further thought, and resuming the castles in the air which he had been building when the vehicle came to a stop. "I shall see that you carry out to the fullest detail the little plot I am laying this night for you," he muttered, looking steadily at his companion, who had dozed off into a heavy stupefied sleep upon the opposite seat, "and when you come into possession of the money which your marriage to the little heiress to-night will bring you, I shall come in for the lion"s share of it. You dare not refuse my demands, no matter how exorbitant they may be, under penalty of exposure. That will be the sword in my hands that will always hang over your head.
"It would have been more difficult to accomplish my scheme if the girl had lived. It is best as it is. Dead people tell no tales. Of course they will search for the girl when they discover that she has eloped, but will believe she is cleverly eluding them or traveling about the country. I have always had golden dreams of a fortune that would be in my grasp some day, and now, lo! my dream is about to be realized."
While he was thus soliloquizing, old Adam, the grave digger, was standing silently in the road where they had set him down, then suddenly he turned abruptly--not toward his home--but as quickly as his aged limbs could carry him back over the ground the coach had just traversed, praying to Heaven to guide him to the spot where he had dug the lonely grave of the beautiful, hapless young bride of an hour.
CHAPTER X.
s.n.a.t.c.hED FROM THE GRAVE.
Back over that terrible road of drifting snow the old grave digger made his way as swiftly as his trembling limbs could carry him.
He had endeavored to mark carefully the spot where he had made that lonely grave, but the snow was drifting so hard with each furious gust of wind as to make it almost impossible to find it upon retracing his steps.
Quaking with terror, and with a prayer on his lips to Heaven to guide him, old Adam sat down his lantern, and by its dim, flickering light peered breathlessly around.
There was the blasted pine tree and toward the right of it the stump.
The grave must be less than a rod below it.
With a heart beating with great strangling throbs, he paced off the distance, and then stood quite still, holding his lantern down close to the frozen earth.
For an instant his heart almost ceased beating--there was no sign of the little mound, with the leafless branch of bush he had been so careful to place there.
Then, suddenly a moan from beneath his very feet fell upon his ear, causing him to fairly gasp for breath.
"Thank G.o.d! I have found it!" he cried.
In an instant he had thrown off his coat, thin though it was, and set to work as he had never worked in all his life before--against time.
He had thrown in the earth loosely, taking care to leave the head exposed, for he felt as sure as he did of his own existence that life was not yet extinct in the body of the young girl for whom he was forced to prepare that grave at the point of a revolver in the hands of the two desperate strangers.
He had taken his own life in his hands when he had announced the work finished satisfactorily, for had the man stepped from the coach to examine the work he would have found the deep hole which left the head uncovered.
The cold winds and the drifting snow blew into the old grave digger"s face, but he worked on with desperate zeal, realizing that another life might depend upon the swiftness of his rescue.
At last, after what seemed to him an eternity of time, he reached the body, and quickly lifted it from its resting place.
Half an hour later he reached his own humble cottage home, bearing the slender burden in his strong arms.
His good wife had waited up for him. She could never sleep when Adam was away from home.
She heard his footstep on the crunching snow and hastened to open the door for him, starting back with a cry of great surprise as she caught sight of the figure in his arms.
"Is it some neighbor"s little girl lost in the storm, Adam?" she cried, clasping her hands together in affright.
"Don"t ask any questions now, Mary," he exclaimed, delivering the burden into her willing, motherly arms, and sinking down into the nearest chair, thoroughly exhausted. "I"ll tell you all about it later, when I get my breath and my nerves are settled. Do everything you can to revive the poor young creature. She is freezing to death."
As old Adam"s kindly wife threw back the dark cloak which had enveloped the fair young face and form, an exclamation of surprise broke from her wondering lips.
"She is a stranger hereabouts," she observed, but she wisely obeyed her husband"s injunctions, making no further remark, knowing she would hear all about it in good time.
In less time than it takes to tell it, the beautiful young stranger was put to bed in the little spare room up under the eaves, wrapped in flannel blankets, with bottles of hot water at the feet, and a generous draught of brandy, which the grave digger"s wife always kept in the house for emergencies, forced down her throat.
"She will soon return to consciousness now," she exclaimed to her husband, who stood beside the bedside anxiously watching her labors; "see that flush on her cheeks. We will sit down quietly and wait until she opens her eyes. It won"t be long."
And while they waited thus, Adam told his wife the story he had to tell concerning the young girl--this fair, hapless, beautiful young stranger whose wedding he had witnessed and burial he had a.s.sisted in within the hour, first binding his wife to solemn secrecy.
The good woman"s amazement as she listened can better be imagined than described. For once in her life she was too dumfounded to offer even a theory.
As they glanced toward the bed, to their amazement they saw the girl"s eyes fastened upon old Adam with an expression of horror in them, heartrending to behold, and they realized that she had heard every word he had said.
In an instant they were on their feet bending over the couch.