Somehow there raced through her brain the exhilarating conviction that at last the mystery of her origin was to be cleared away, and with it all that had been as a closed book. No thought of death entered her mind at that time. Afterward she was to feel that death would be most welcome, no matter how it came.
Her captors made the trip across the river in dead silence. There was no moon and the night was inky black. The exposed portions of her face tingled with cold, but she was so heavily wrapped in the blanket that her body did not feel the effects of the zero weather.
At length the icy stretch was passed, and after resting a few minutes, Sam proceeded to ascend the steep bank with her in his arms. Why she was not permitted to walk she did not know then or afterward. It is possible, even likely, that the men thought their charge was unconscious. She did nothing to cause them to think otherwise. Again they passed among trees, Sam's companions following in his footprints as before. Another halt and a brief command for Davy to go ahead and see that the coast was clear came after a long and tortuous struggle through the underbrush. Twice they seemed to have lost their bearings in the darkness, but eventually they came into the open.
"Here we are!" grunted Sam as they hurried across the clearing. "A hard night's work, pals, but I guess we're in Easy Street now. Go ahead, Davy, an' open the trap!"
Davy swore a mighty but sibilant oath and urged his thick, ugly figure ahead of the others.
A moment later the desperadoes and their victim passed through a door and into a darkness even blacker than that outside. Davy was pounding carefully upon the floor of the room in which they stood. Suddenly a faint light spread throughout the room and a hoarse, raucous voice whispered:
"Get out of the way--we're near froze," responded Davy gruffly.
"Get down there, Bill, and take her; I'm tired carryin' this hundred and twenty pounder," growled Sam.
The next instant Rosalie was conscious of being lowered through a trap door in the floor, and then of being borne rapidly through a long, narrow passage, lighted fitfully by the rays of a lantern in the hands of a fourth and as yet unseen member of the band.