."

Sir Charles, followed by Landless, the Muggletonian and some three or
four others, entered the great room, which, with the master's room,
occupied that side of the house allotted to the baronet. The wax
candles still burned upon the spinet, and upon the high mantel, and in
the middle of the floor lay the overturned chess table. Three of the
four windows were closely shuttered, but the fourth was open, and before
it stood a graceful figure, looking out into the darkness.

Sir Charles strode hurriedly over to it. "Cousin! this is madness! You
know not to what danger you may be exposing yourself. Come away!"

"I am watching for the moonrise," she said dreamily. "It is very near
now. Look at the white glow above the water, and how pale the stars are!
How beautiful it is, and how cool the wind upon your forehead! Listen!
that was the cry of a jay, surely! and yet why should we hear it at
night?"

"It is the cry of a jay, sure enough," said the overseer, pausing in his
hurried passage through the room, "but it was made by Indian lips."

"Come away, for God's sake!" cried the baronet.

"Look! there is the moon!" she answered.

Above the level of marsh and water appeared a thin line of silver. It
thickened, rounded, became a glorious orb. The marshes blanched from
black to gray, and across the water, from the dim land to the great
silver globe, stretched a long, bright, shimmering path.

A knot of women appeared in the doorway, laden with powder-flasks and
platters filled with bullets. One, with only a stick wound with faded
flowers in her hand, left them and glided to the open window.

"Margery!" said Patricia softly.

The mad woman, pressing in front of her mistress, looked out into the
night and saw the white shining road cutting through the darkness and
stretching endlessly away. She threw up her arms with a cry of rapture.

"The road to Paradise! the road to Paradise!"

An arrow whistled through the window and struck into her bosom--into her
heart--the staff dropped from her hand, and she swayed forward and fell
at her mistress's feet.

The night, so placid, still and beautiful, was rent and in an instant
made hideous by a sound so long, loud, and dreadful, that it might have
been the shriek of a legion of exultant fiends. It rose to the stars,
sunk to the earth and rose again, unearthly, menacing, curdling the
blood and turning the heart to stone.

"The war-whoop," said Woodson. "Close the window, quic