THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE (Historical Thriller) by Emerson Hough

Author:Emerson Hough [Hough, Emerson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788027220434
Publisher: Musaicum Press
Published: 2017-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX

THE DREAM

Table of Contents

That night John Law dreamed as he slept, and it was in some form the same haunting and familiar dream. In his vision he saw not the low roof nor the rude walls about him. To his mind there appeared a little dingy room, smaller than this in which he lay, with walls of stone, with door of iron grating and not of rough-hewn slabs. He saw the door of the prison cell swing open; saw near it the figure of a noble young girl, with large and frightened eyes and lips half tremulous. To this vision he outstretched his hands. He was almost conscious of uttering some word supplicatingly, almost conscious of uttering a name.

Perhaps he slept on. We little know the ways of the land of dreams. It might have been half an instant or half an hour later that he suddenly awoke, finding his hand clapped close against his side, where suddenly there had come a sharp and burning pain. His own hand struck another. He saw something gleaming in the light of the flickering fire which still survived upon the hearth. The dim rays lit up two green, glowing, venomous balls, the eyes of the woman whom he found bending above him. He reached out his hand in the instinct of safety. This which glittered in the firelight was the blade of a knife, and it was in the hand of Mary Connynge!

In a moment Law was master of himself. "Give it to me, Madam, if you please," he said, quietly, and took the knife from fingers which loosened under his grasp. There was no further word spoken. He tossed the knife into a crack of the bunk beyond him. He lay with his right arm doubled under his head, looking up steadily into the low ceiling, upon which the fire made ragged masses of shadows. His left arm, round, full and muscular, lay across the figure of the woman whom he had forced down upon the couch beside him. He could feel her bosom rise and pant in sheer sobs of anger. Once he felt the writhing of the body beneath his arm, but he simply tightened his grasp and spoke no word.

It was not far from morning. In time the gray dawn came creeping in at the window, until at length the chinks between the logs in the little square-cut window and the ill-fitting door were flooded with a sea of sunlight. As this light grew stronger, Law slowly turned and looked at the face beside him. Out of the tangle of dark hair there blazed still two eyes, eyes which looked steadily up at the ceiling, refusing to turn either to the right or to the left. He calmly pulled closer to him, so that it might not stain the garments of the woman beside him, the blood-soaked shirt whose looseness and lack of definition had perhaps saved him from a fatal blow. He paid no attention to his wound, which he knew was nothing serious.

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