Here he could see without himself being seen....
He watched them lift a dark, inanimate object from the boat and
lay it on the wharf....He heard men's voices in excited, subdued
conversation....He saw the tall woman running up the road toward
the town. She paused within a dozen feet of his hiding place....
Then something happened to him. He seemed to be losing the sense
of sight and the sense of hearing. His brain was blurred, the sound
of voices trailed off into utter silence. He felt the earth giving
way beneath his quaking knees....The next he knew, men's voices
fell upon his dull, uncomprehending ears. Gradually his senses
returned. Out of the confused jumble words took shape. He heard
his own name mentioned. Instantly his every faculty was alive.
Through the brush he could see the dark, indistinct forms of three
or four men. They were in the road just below him.
"You shouldn't have let him out of your sight," one of the men was
saying. "Hang it all, we can't let him give us the slip now."
The listener's eyes, sharpened by anxiety, made out the figure of
the woman. She spoke,--and he was startled to hear the deep voice
of a man.
"He was making for the boarding house. Webster says he is not in
his room. I took it for granted he was going home or I wouldn't
have turned back."
Where had he heard that voice before? It was strangely familiar.
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