She heard it strike, and her heart
stopped beating, and the rigidity of death came into her limbs and body
as she saw the swift and terrible change in the stricken face of the man
she loved. He tried to smile at her, even as a red blot came where the
streak of gray in his hair touched his forehead. And then he crumpled
down at her feet, and his rifle rattled against the rocks.
She knew it was death. Something seemed to burst in her head and fill
her brain with the roar of a flood. She screamed. Even the men below
hesitated and their hearts jumped with a new sensation as the terrible
cry of a woman rang between the rock walls of the chasm. And following
the cry a voice came down to them.
"John Graham, I'm going to kill you--_kill you_--"
And snatching up the fallen rifle Mary Standish set herself to the task
of vengeance.
CHAPTER XXVII
She waited. The ferocity of a mother defending her young filled her
soul, and she moaned in her grief and despair as the seconds passed. But
she did not fire blindly, for she knew she must kill John Graham. The
troublesome thing was a strange film that persisted in gathering before
her eyes, something she tried to brush away, but which obstinately
refused to go. She did not know she was sobbing as she looked over the
rifle barrel.
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