An
unexpected encounter with the unknown in the darkness filled even the
dumb brutes with alarm, and brute and human alike had reason to be
alarmed; for this time and this place--stamped in blood on
history--marked the very height and centre of the reign of terror on the
Wilderness Road.
The boy strained his terrified gaze through the dark, but he could see
nothing except those vague, black forms of two horsemen, looming large
and threatening against the lurid glow of the furnace fires which
faintly lit the forest. The men and their horses looked like monstrous
creatures, half human and half beast, both as silent and motionless as
himself. He felt that they also were listening and watching in tense
waiting as he waited and watched, hearing only the frightened panting of
the horses and the faint rustle of the sable leaves overhead. And so all
held for an instant, which seemed endless, till a sudden gust of wind
swung the boughs and sent the glare of the furnace flames far and high
through the forest. The vivid flash came and went like lightning, but it
lasted long enough for the boy to recognize one of the black shapes.
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