The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions by William Hope Hodgson Page A

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    “Hands up!” she screamed, her voice cracking and her old eyes literally blazing, “You shall not murder that boy; not so what he’s done! HANDS UP! I say, or I’ll surely shoot at you.”
    The old woman’s expression was so full of a desperate resolve that the men’s hands went up, though maybe a little hesitatingly and doubtfully. Yet, they had gone up, and up they remained, as the muzzle of the heavy weapon menaced first one and then another. For suddenly it was very clear to the men that the woman was wound up to such a pitch of intensity that she would shoot first and do the thinking afterwards. It is true that several of the men held their revolvers in their hands; but what could they do? They could undoubtedly have snapped off shots at the old woman, but they were not going to shoot old Mrs Judge Barclay; the thought was below their horizon of practical things. Neither would it have done to have attempted to rush her, for there would have been, most surely, one or two sudden deaths achieved in the operation, and the after situation also would have to be faced; so, as I have told, they kept up their hands, and watched the old woman with quite as much curiosity as rancour. They were very practical men.
    Old Judge Barclay, however, failed to realise the entire earnestness of the situation, and, after a moment of stupefaction, began to run towards his wife in vast distress.
    “Anna, Anna!” he cried out. “Anna, my dear, put that down and come away!”
    But she ripped round at him:
    “Stand back, John!” she shouted shrilly. “I shall shoot!”
    But the old Judge still failed to realise, and continued to come towards her.
    “Stand back, John, or I shall shoot!” she screamed. “I’m fair wound up, an’ you’ll make me do murder! Stand back, John!”
    As she spoke, she fired the pistol to frighten him; and because she had never fired a pistol before, she had no suspicion that the reason her husband’s hat flew off was that the bullet had passed clean through the crown of it, just grazing his bald, old head. If she had thought at all about the displacing of the hat, she would merely have supposed that his sudden start at the shot accounted for it.
    The old Judge came to an abrupt stand, his face grown very white; but he said not a word more, and his wife took no further notice of him; not even insisting on his putting up his hands. She wheeled round sharply again upon the sheriff and his posse, and discovered the sheriff half way across the grass towards her; for he had thought to catch and disarm her whilst her attention was taken with the Judge. The old woman’s eyes blazed as she saw how nearly he had succeeded:
    “Back!” she screamed at him, and in the same instant fired. The sheriff reeled a moment; then steadied himself, and thrust his hands earnestly above his head. The bullet had struck him full in the stomach, but the huge buckle of his belt had turned it, so that it had glanced out through his shirt again harmlessly, a mere half-flattened little chunk of lead.
    “Get back to the others!” ordered the old woman, in a voice high and tense. “Turn your backs, all of you!”
    As one man, the posse faced about.
    “Go off a bit from the young man!” said Mrs Judge Barclay. “Stop there. Keep there!”
    She ran swiftly to the prisoner, whirled him round on his heels with one vigorous hand, and pulled out the sheath-knife, which had never been removed from his belt. She slashed at the thin rope about his wrists, and all the time she kept a strict watch upon the line of masculine backs before her. She cut the rope at last, and his hands also, but not badly; then pushed the knife into his cramped fingers, and the lad proceeded to cut loose the lashings about his ankles.
    “Now, GO!” said old Mrs Judge Barclay, fiercely, as he stood free. “An’ mind an’ sin no more. GO!”
    She almost shrieked as he stood and stared at her; and she pointed to the horses of the posse. He looked