"Wait till the evening performance is over and I'll talk about that. 'Sh! Quiet! Crawl over there out of the way, and when I say run, beat it for the road." These last phrases were uttered in a whisper, her face close to my ear. She gave me a little push, and I withdrew a few yards and waited. The ground, I may say, was wet, and the drizzle had become a monotonous autumn rain. The light of the lantern fell warmly upon Hezekiah's face as she held its illumined countenance toward her, crouching on the stile-steps. I heard now what her keener ear had caught earlier--the tramp of feet along the path. The suitors were returning to the inn, and the voices of one or two of them reached me. One--I thought it was Ormsby--was execrating the weather. They were stepping along briskly, and my remembrance of their retreat over this same stile through the amber evening dusk was so vivid that I knew just how they would appear if a light suddenly fell upon the path. [Illustration: The light of the lantern fell warmly upon Hezekiah's face.] The nature of Hezekiah's undertaking suddenly dawned upon me. No one but Hezekiah could ever have devised anything so preposterous, so utterly lawless; but in spite of myself I waited in breathless eagerness for the outcome. I could not have interfered now, if I had wished to do so, without betraying her and involving myself in a predicament that could not redound to my credit. Nearer and nearer came the patter of feet, and I heard, for I could not see, the scraping of Hezekiah's slipper,--a wet little shoe by now!--as she crept higher on our side of the stile. The first suitor groped blindly for the steps, slipped on the wet plank, growled, and rose to try again. That growl marked for me the leader of the van. Hartley Wiggins, beyond a doubt, and in no good humor, I guessed! The others, I judged, had trodden upon one another's heels at the moment Wiggins stumbled. Thus let us imagine their approach--six gentlemen in top hats headed for a stile on a chilly night of rain. It was at this strategic moment that Hezekiah pushed into the middle of the stile-platform, its grinning face turned toward the advancing suitors, the jack o' lantern her hand had fashioned. I marked its position by its faint glow an instant, but an instant only. The world reeled for a moment before the sharp cry of a man in fear. It cut the dark like a lash, and close upon it the second man yelled, in a different key, but no less in accents of terror. The first arrival had flung himself back, and so close upon him pressed the others and so unexpected was the halt, that the nine men seemed to have flung themselves together and to be struggling to escape from the hideous thing that had interposed itself in their path. All was over in a moment. In the midst of the panic the lantern winked out, and instantly Hezekiah was beside me.