“You acknowledge a share in it. And if you lay a hand on her child, I’ll call down upon you the blasphemy of a madhouse.”
The art she employed to play upon his heightened imagination was intensely eloquent, and exquisitely enacted. On the impulse of the moment the threat served to unnerve him completely and had Jack been the only one to deal with, their escape at that moment would have been certain.
A prey to his own secret superstition, though openly ridiculed theosophy, Jack stood spellbound, his fear distorted by the influence of the liquor he had drunk.
True, Rutley had braced him some, but Virginia threw about him a glow of such awesome consequences that he again weakened and unconsciously repeated under his breath: “The curse of a madhouse! Oh, I can’t do it! I’m a bit human yet.”
Then came a second roar from Rutley, impatient and contemptuous.
“Separate them, you chicken-hearted knave! Separate them, damn you, and be quick about it, too!” A slight jar at that moment struck the cabin.
Jack came out of his semi-trance with a shudder and, recovering his nerve, seemed to be disgusted at his momentary weakness, and forthwith he attempted to get between the women and the cabin door, addressing the child:
“A Daize a mus stay a dare. Yous a lak a me, eh a Daize?”
“Wretch, stand back!” Virginia commanded. She realized that the supreme moment had come.
Jack leered at her. Without further heed he addressed the child: