"
"Then is it a deception which is repeated!" exclaimed Content, rising from
his chair as a faint and broken blast from the shell, like that which had
first announced their visiter, again struggled among the buildings, until
it reached every ear in the dwelling.
"Here is warning as mysterious as it may prove portentous!" said old Mark
Heathcote, when the surprise, not to say consternation of the moment had
subsided. "Hast seen nothing that might justify this?"
Eben Dudley, like most of the auditors, was too much confounded to reply.
All seemed to attend anxiously for the second and more powerful blast,
which was to complete the imitation of the stranger's summons. It was not
necessary to wait long; for in a time as near as might be, to that which
had intervened between the two first peals of the horn followed another,
and in a note so true, again, as to give it the semblance of an echo.
Chapter XI
"I will watch to-night;
Perchance 't will walk again."
Hamlet.
"May not this be a warning given in mercy?" the Puritan, at all times
disposed to yield credit to supernatural manifestations of the care of
Providence, demanded with a solemnity that did not fail to produce its
impression on most of his auditors.
Pages:
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250