THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE
Hour after hour Nance stood beside the wall of the shed-room and with the patience of a cat waited for the sobs to cease and the girl to be quiet.
Mary had risen from the bed once and paced the floor in the dark for more than an hour, like a frightened, wild animal, trapped and caged for the first time in life.With growing wonder, Nance counted the beat of her foot-fall, five steps one way and five back--round after round, round after round, in ceaseless repetition.
"Goddlemighty, is she gone clean crazy!" she exclaimed.
The footsteps stopped at last and the low sobs came once more from the bed.The old woman crouched down on a stone beside the log wall and drew the shawl about her shoulders.
A rooster crowed for midnight.Still the restless thing inside was stirring.Nance rose uneasily.Her lantern was still burning in her storehouse under the cliff.The wick might eat so low it would explode.She had heard that such things happened to lamps.It was foolish to have left it burning, anyhow.
She glided noiselessly from the house into the woods, entered her hidden door exactly as she had done before, extinguished the lantern, placed it on a shelving rock and put a dozen matches beside it.
In ten minutes she had returned to the house and crouched once more against the wall of the shed.
The low, pleading voice was praying.She pressed her ear to the crack and heard distinctly.She must be patient.Her plan was sure to succeed if she were only patient.No woman could sob and pray and walk all night.She must fall down unconscious from sheer exhaustion before day.
The old woman slipped into the kitchen, took up the quilt which she had spread on the floor for her bed, wrapped it about her thin shouldersand returned to her watch.
Again and again she rose, believing her patience had won, and placed her ear to the crack only to hear a sound within which told her only too plainly that the girl was yet awake.Sometimes it was a sigh, sometimes she cleared her throat, sometimes she tossed restlessly.One spoken sentence she heard again and again:
"Oh, dear God, have mercy on my lost soul!""What can be the matter with the fool critter!" Nance muttered."Is she moanin' for sin? To be shore, they don't have no revival meetings this time o' year!"She had known sinners to mourn through a whole summer sometimes, but never in all her experience in religious revivals had a mourner carried it over into winter.The dancing had always eased the tension and brought a relapse to sinful thoughts.
The hours dragged until the roosters began to crow for day.It would soon be light.
She must act now.There was no time to lose.She pressed her ear to the crack once more and held it five minutes.
Not a sound came from within.The broken spirit had yielded to the stupor of exhaustion at last.
With swift, cat's tread Nance circled the cabin and entered the kitchen.The quilt she carefully spread on the floor leading to the entrance to the living-room, crossed it softly and stood in the doorway with her long hands on the calico hangings.
For five minutes she remained immovable and listened to the deep, regular breathing of the sleeping man.Her wits were keen, her eyes wide.She could see the dim outlines of the furniture by the starlight through the window.Small objects in the room were, of course, invisible.To light a candle was not to be thought of.It might wake the sleeper.
She knew how to make the light without a noise or its rays reaching his face.He had startled her with the electric torch because of its novelty.She was no longer afraid.She would know how to press the button.He had left the thing lying on the table beside the black bag.He might havehidden the gold.He would not remember in his drunken stupor to move the electric torch.
She glided ghost-like into the room.Her bare feet were velvet.She knew every board in the floor.There was one near the table that creaked.She counted her steps and cleared the spot without a sound.
Her thin fingers found the edge of the table and slipped with uncanny touch along its surface until her hand closed on the rounded form of the torch.
Without moving in her tracks she turned the light on the table and in every nook and corner of the room beyond.She slowly swung her body on a pivot, flashing the light into each shadow and over every inch of floor, turning always in a circle toward the couch.
