The voices
were above me, under the roof. Suddenly I saw signs of active movement
going on just beyond the place where the thing lay upon the rafter.
There was something else up there with it! Then followed panting, like
the quick breathing that accompanies effort, and the next minute a black
mass dropped through the air and dangled at the end of the rope.
Instantly, it all flashed upon me. I sprang to my feet and rushed
headlong across the floor of the barn. How I moved so quickly in the
darkness I do not know; but, even as I ran, it flashed into my mind that
I should never get at my knife in time to cut the thing down, or else
that I should find it had been taken from me. Somehow or other--the
Goddess of Dreams knows how--I climbed up by the hay bales and swung out
along the rafter. I was hanging, of course, by my arms, and the knife
was already between my teeth, though I had no recollection of how it got
there. It was open. The mass, hanging like a side of bacon, was only a
few feet in front of me, and I could plainly see the dark line of rope
that fastened it to the beam.
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