For Tom, too, had been armed--with just such powerless weapons as he himself possessed--pistols, a cutlass! And Tom had died a nameless death, by incomprehensible means.
A new thought came to Byrne.

That stranger knocking at the door and fleeing so swiftly at his appearance had come there to remove the body.
Aha! That was the guide the withered witch had promised would show the English officer the shortest way of rejoining his man.

A promise, he saw it now, of dreadful import.

He who had knocked would have two bodies to deal with.

Man and officer would go forth from the house together.