The Murder Hole

Excerpt

It was rumored that unwary travelers had been intercepted and murdered there, and that no investigation ever revealed what had happened to them. People living in a nearby hamlet believed that in the dead of night they sometimes heard a sudden cry of anguish; and a shepherd who had lost his way once declared that he had seen three mysterious figures struggling together, until one of them, with a frightful scream, sank suddenly into the earth. So terrifying was this place that at last no one remained there, except one old woman and her two sons, who were too poor to flee, as their neighbors had done. Travelers occasionally begged a night's lodging at their cottage, rather than continue their journey across the moor in the darkness, and even by day no one traveled that way except in companies of at least two or three people.