Yet he still had fire enough to point the weapon squarely at
his subordinate, who had taken a menacing step towards him.
"I catch my breath. . .then we go in, and do
it!" Ballard could only glare at him, his hopes for lust slipping
away.
The two women, holding whispered counsel of their own, had begun to
form plans for an ambush, when a second unexplained sound met their
ears. Soft, but infinitely nearer it came: some round and yielding
object had struck the floor gently, then bounded a short distance
further with a rustle of hay.
Again Mary dropped down on all fours, groping, but this time toward a
more definite source. Again her hand met something solid, which she
could not at first identify. It seemed to be. . .a ball of twine,
wrapped about some heavier object.
"Anne," she whispered anxiously, rejoining her companion. "It must
have been cast through the window. What can it be?"
Holding it up in what poor light could be found, the older woman made
out a tiny sheet of parchment wrapped beneath the first few strands,
on which some kind of message had been scrawled.
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