With a wild bound that tore the vines before her into shreds, Tahmeroo leaped down among the loose rocks, and seizing Jane Derwent by the shoulder, dragged her up the path into the moonlight; for the clouds that had tented her wedding with their gloom were swept away now, leaving the sky clear, full of stars, and pearly with the glow of a full moon.
Jane Derwent shrunk and cowered under those flashing eyes. She was forced to her knees among the stones, and held there, while Tahmeroo perused her face, lineament by lineament, as if it had been a book in which her own destiny was written. A fierce, angry fire burned in those black eyes, and that mouth, so beautiful when it smiled, writhed and trembled with terror, scorn, and bitter, bitter hate. She clutched her hand on the poor girl’s shoulder till its nails penetrated the skin; with the other hand she groped at her girdle, and drew a knife from its glittering sheath at her side; for this remnant of her savage dress she still retained.
Jane crouched down to the earth, shielding herself with both uplifted hands; her shrieks rang out, one upon another, till the opposite rocks echoed them back like demons.
This terror exasperated the young Indian to still keener madness. She drew back the knife with a force that lifted her clear of the form grovelling at her feet, the next instant it would have been buried in the white neck—but Mary Derwent sprang upon her, seized the uplifted arm and dragged it downward.
“Would you kill her? This is murder—she has never wronged you!”
Tahmeroo’s rage broke fearfully over the gentle girl as she clung to her arm; for one instant it seemed checked by the agony of that lovely face; but another cry from Jane brought the fury back; her eyes rained fire; she tore her arm from the grasp of those poor little hands; again the knife quivered on high—again she drew back to give a sure blow.
But a stronger arm than Mary’s grasped her now. The knife was torn from her with a force that sent her reeling down the bank—its blade flashed over her, struck with a sharp clink against the stones, rebounded and plunged into the spring, sending up a storm of diamonds as it fell.
“Tahmeroo—woman—squaw—how dare you touch this girl!”
Butler lifted Jane from the earth as he spoke, and holding her with one arm, thus confronted his young wife, as she rose from the stones-where he had dashed her.
She could not speak; her face was blanched; specks of foam settled on her marble lips; her eyes were lurid with smouldering fire, and all her limbs quivered like those of a dying animal.