CHAPTER I.
It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The last gust had
been preceded by an ominous roaring down the whole mountain-side,
which continued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsed
into silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as of
stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the darkness seemed to
increase in proportion and grow almost palpable. Yet out of this sightless
and soundless void now came the tinkle of a spur\'s rowels, the dry
crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge of a hoof in the thick
carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then a voice, which in spite of its
matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lent a certain mystery to, said:--
"I can\'t make out anything! Where the devil have we got to, anyway?
It\'s as black as Tophet, here ahead!"
"Strike a light and make a flare with something," returned a second
voice. "Look where you\'re shoving to--now--keep your horse off, will
ye."
There was more muffled plunging, a silence, the rustle of paper, the
quick spurt of a match, and then the uplifting of a flickering flame. But it
revealed only the heads and shoulders of three horsemen, framed within a
nebulous ring of light, that still left their horses and even their lower
figures in impenetrable shadow. Then the flame leaped up and died out
with a few zigzagging sparks that were falling to the ground, when a third
voice, that was low but somewhat pleasant in its cadence, said:--
"Be careful where you throw that. You were careless last time. With
this wind and the leaves like tinder, you might send a furnace blast
through the woods."