The child was trapped. Here there was no earthly chance for escape. Here, too, thanks to the closed door, Laddie could not come to her aid. In palsied dread, she stood shaking and sobbing; as the man walked silently toward her.
Ruloff's flat face widened in a grin of anticipation. He had a big score to pay. And he was there to pay it. The fear of the dog was still upon him; and the shame that this child, the cause of all his humiliation, should have seen him run yelling up a tree. It would take a mighty good flogging to square that.
Sonya cried out, in mortal terror, at his first step. Then—probably only in her hysterical imagination, though afterward she vowed it had actually happened—came rescue.
Distinctly, against her quivering side, she felt the pressure of a warm furry bulk. Into her paralyzed hand a reassuring cold muzzle was thrust. And, over her, came a sense of wonderful safety from all harm. Facing her father with a high-pitched loud laugh of genuine courage, she shrilled:
"You don't dare touch me! You don't dare lay one finger on me!"
And she meant it. Her look and every inflection of the defiant high voice proved she meant it; proved it to the dumfounded Ruloff, in a way that sent funny little shivers down his spine.
The man came to a shambling halt; aghast at the transfigured little wisp of humanity who confronted him in such gay fearlessness.
"Why don't I dare?" he blustered, lifting the brass-buckled weapon again.
"You don't dare to!" she laughed, wildly. "You don't dare, because you know he'll kill you, This time he won't just knock you down. He'll KILL you! He'll never let you hit me again. I know it. He's HERE! You don't dare touch me! You won't ever dare touch me! He—"
She choked, in her shout of weird exultation. The man, ridden by his racial superstition, stared open-mouthed at the tiny demon who screeched defiance at him.