to wait for the passage of a second to make out just what was there.
An oil lamp stood upon the table in the middle of the room, but its light beneath the green shade fell in a narrow circle and left all the corners in darkness. He was vaguely aware that there was a man over yonder by the window, and that he held something in his hand over which he worked and muttered. It was a rifle, in whose magazine the cartridge evidently had jammed and had prevented the immediate firing of a second shot. Yet, even as Billy realized that this must be the case, the thing snapped into place and the hammer once more was drawn back with a sharp click. Sally, standing near him, dropped her candle, which fortunately went out, put her hands to her ears, and shrieked aloud,
“Stop him, Billy; he’s going to do it again!”
It was not their lives the man was threatening. He crouched over the window sill, steadied the barrel of his weapon against the ledge and took long, deliberate aim. Billy, as he ran across the room, could see over the stranger’s shoulder, down between the trees to the creek and the high rocks at the edge of the little harbour. There on the point in
