Every house they passed--for they were
in the residence section now--had its pair or multiple pairs peering out
through the slats of a blind, or, as in a theatre preceding a
performance, at the side of a drawn curtain. Like wildfire the news had
spread; like turtles timid women folk had drawn close within their
shells; yet everywhere curiosity they could not repress prompted them to
take a last look before the storm. Once, and once only, the pedestrians
were interrupted. Then a house dog came bounding across the lawn to
pause at a safe distance and growl a menace; and again the all-noting
Indian had observed the cause of the unwonted bravery, had heard the low
voice from the kitchen that had urged the beast on.
Thus nearer and nearer that sunny fall morning the storm approached.
Long before this, unobservant though she was, had the girl not been
living in the future instead of the present, she would have recognised
its coming. For the pursuers were gaining rapidly now. They had crossed
onto the same street, the principal residence thoroughfare, and were
coming as a crowd ever moves: swiftly, those in the rear exerting
themselves to get to the fore, and so again. Far from silent by this
time, the man ahead, the man who never deigned a backward glance, could
hear their voices in a perpetual rumble; could distinguish at intervals,
interrupting it, above it, a voice commanding, inflaming.
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