There was instant commotion, with cries and exclamations from all. Quick as the others were, the old woman was at his side before them, snarling with rage. Her talon-like fingers sunk into his arm, and her gaze went darting about the room in a most convincing way. Some minutes pa.s.sed before the old woman could be quieted. Then King explained his action.
He swore solemnly, if sheepishly, that he could not have been mistaken, and yet the owner of that eye had vanished as if swallowed up by the mountain.
Baron Dangloss was convinced that the young man had seen the eye.
Without compunction he began a search of the room, the old woman looking on with a grin of glee.
"Search! Search!" she croaked. "It was the Spirit Eye! It is looking at you now, my fine baron! It finds you, yet cannot be found. No, no! Oh, you fools! Get out! Get out! All of you! Prince or no Prince, I fear you not, nor all your armies. This is my home! My castle! Go! Go!"
"There was a man here, old woman," said the Baron coolly. "Where is he?
What is your game? I am not to be fooled by these d.a.m.nable tricks of yours. Where is the man?"
She laughed aloud, a horrid sound. The Prince clutched Tullis by the leg in terror.
"Brace up, Bobby," whispered his big friend, leaning down to comfort him. "Be a man!"
"It--it"s mighty hard," chattered Bobby, but he squared his little shoulders.
The ladies of the party had edged forward, peering into the kitchen, alarm having pa.s.sed, although the exclamation "boo!" would have played havoc with their courage.
"I swear there was some one looking through that crack," protested King, wiping his brow in confusion. "Miss--er--I should say--_you_ could have seen it from where you stood," he pleaded, turning to the lady in grey.
"Dear me, I wish I had," she cried. "I"ve always wanted to see some one snooping."
"There is no window, no trap door, no skylight," remarked the Baron, puzzled. "Nothing but the stovepipe, six inches in diameter. A man couldn"t crawl out through that, I"m sure. Mr. King, we"ve come upon a real mystery. The eye without a visible body."
"I"m sure I saw it," reiterated Truxton. The Prince"s aunt was actually laughing at him. But so was the Witch, for that matter. He didn"t mind the Witch.
Suddenly the old woman stepped into the middle of the room and began to wave her hands in a mysterious manner over an empty pot that stood on the floor in front of the stove. The others drew back, watching her with the greatest curiosity.
A droning song oozed from the thin lips; the gesticulations grew in weirdness and fervor. Then, before their startled eyes, a thin film of smoke began to rise from the empty pot. It grew in volume until the room was quite dense with it. Even more quickly than it began, it disappeared, drawn apparently by some supernatural agency into the draft of the stove and out through the rickety chimney pipe. Even Dangloss blinked his eyes, and not because they were filled with smoke.
A deafening crash, as of many guns, came to their ears from the outside.
With one accord the entire party rushed to the outer door, a wild laugh from the hag pursuing them.
"There!" she screamed. "There goes all there was of him! And so shall we all go some day. Fire and smoke!"
Not one there but thought on the instant of the Arabian nights and the genii who went up in smoke--those never-to-be-forgotten tales of wonder.
Just outside the door stood Lieutenant Saffo of the guard, his hand to his cap. He was scarcely distinguishable, so dark had the day become.
"Good Lord!" shouted Tullis. "What"s the matter? What has happened?"
"The storm, sir," said Saffo. "It is coming down the valley like the wind." A great crash of thunder burst overhead and lightning darted through the black, swirling skies.
"Very sudden, sir," added Mr. Hobbs from behind. "Like a puff of wind, sir."
The Witch stood in the door behind them, smiling as amiably as it was possible for her to smile.
"Come in," she said. "There"s room for all of you. The spirits have gone. Ha, ha! My merry man! Even the eye is gone. Come in, your Highness. Accept the best I can offer--shelter from the hurricane. I"ve seen many, but this looks to be the worst. So it came sudden, eh? Ha, ha!"
The roar of wind and rain in the trees above seemed like a howl of confirmation. Into the hovel crowded the dismayed pleasure-seekers, followed by the soldiers, who had made the horses fast at the first sign of the storm.
Down came the rain in torrents, whisked and driven, whirled and shot by the howling winds, split by the lightning and urged to greater glee by the deafening applause of the thunder. Apple carts in the skies!
Out in the dooryard the merry grandson of the Witch was dancing as if possessed by revelling devils.
CHAPTER VIII
LOOKING FOR AN EYE
"Washing the dead men"s bones," was the remark King made a few minutes later. The storm was at its height; the sheets of rain that swept down the pebbly glen elicited the gruesome sentence. He stood directly behind the quaking Loraine, quite close to the open door; there is no doubt that the observation was intended for her ears, maliciously or otherwise.
She gave him an awed glance, but no verbal response. It was readily to be seen that she was terrified by the violence of the mountain tornado.
As if to shame him for the frivolous remark, she suddenly changed her position, putting herself behind him.
"I like that," he remonstrated, emboldened by the elements. "You leave me in front to be struck by the first bolt of lightning that comes along. And I a stranger, too."
"Isn"t it awful?" she murmured, her fingers in her ears, her eyes tightly closed. "Do you think we"ll be struck?"
"Certainly not," he a.s.sured her. "This is a charmed spot. It"s a frolic of her particular devils. She waves her hand: all the goblins and thunder-workers in this neck of the woods hustle up to see what"s the matter. Then there"s an awful rumpus. In a minute or two she"ll wave her hand and--presto! It will stop raining. But," with a distressed look out into the thick of it, "it would be a beastly joke if lightning should happen to strike that nag of mine. I"d not only have to walk to town, but I"d have to pay three prices for the brute."
"I think she"s perfectly--ooh!--perfectly wonderful. Goodness, that was a crash! Where do you think it struck?"
"If you"ll stand over here a little closer I"ll point out the tree. See?
Right down the ravine there? See the big limb swaying? That"s the place.
The old lady is carrying her joke too far. That"s pretty close home.
Stand right there, please. I won"t let it rain in on you."
"You are very good, Mr. King. I--I"ve always thought I loved a storm.
Ooh! But this is too terrible! Aren"t you really afraid you"ll be struck? Thanks, ever so much." He had squared himself between her and the door, turning his back upon the storm: but not through cowardice, as one might suppose.
"Don"t mention it. I won"t mind it so much, don"t you know, if I get struck in the back. How long ago did you say it was that you went to school with my sister?"
All this time the Witch was haranguing her huddled audience, cursing the soldiers, laughing gleefully in the faces of her stately, scornful guests, greatly to the irritation of Baron Dangloss, toward whom she showed an especial attention.
Tullis was holding the Prince in his arms. Colonel Quinnox stood before them, keeping the babbling, leering beldame from thrusting her face close to that of the terrified boy. Young Vos Engo glowered at Truxton King from the opposite side of the room. Mr. Hobbs had safely ensconced himself in the rear of the six guardsmen, who stood near the door, ready to dash forth if by any chance the terrified horses should succeed in breaking away.
The Countess Marlanx, pale and rigid, her wondrous eyes glowing with excitement, stood behind John Tullis, straight and strong, like a storm spirit glorying in the havoc that raged about her. Time and again she leaned forward to utter words of encouragement in the ear of the little Prince, never without receiving a look of grat.i.tude and surprise from his tall protector.
And all this time the goose-herd grandson of the Witch was dancing his wild, uncanny solo in the thick of the brew, an exalted grin on his face, strange cries of delight breaking from his lips: a horrid spectacle that fascinated the observers.
With incredible swiftness the storm pa.s.sed. Almost at its height, there came a cessation of the roaring tempest; the downpour was checked, the thunder died away and the lightning trickled off into faint flashes. The sky cleared as if by magic. The exhibition, if you please, was over!
Even the most stoical, unimpressionable men in the party looked at each other in bewilderment and--awe, there was no doubt of it. The glare that Dangloss bent upon the hag proved that he had been rudely shaken from his habitual complacency.
"It is the most amazing thing I"ve ever seen," he said, over and over again.