Dressed in her uniform as Ga-go-sa Ho-nun-as-tase-ta, the kilt and moccasins, she fronted de Veulle with eyes blazing, breast heaving.
"Do you seek now to buy the white maiden with this man's life?" she stormed.
"You have no place here," he replied in the Cahnuaga dialect. "Go away. You will make——"
"You shall not!" she defied him. "You have had your pleasure with me. Now you would like to have a woman of your own color. You shall not! I have been bad. I have forgotten the ways of my fathers. I have betrayed a good man."
She threw a glance at Ta-wan-ne-ars, straining at his bonds.
"For that I am sorry, but it is too late!" she exclaimed. "White maiden," she cried to Marjory, "do not listen to this man. He is more wicked than I—and I am now a creature of Ha-ne-go-ate-geh!"
De Veulle waved his arm toward the attentive circle of False Faces.
"Remove the Mistress," he ordered. "She is hindering the torture."
The False Faces moved forward reluctantly, but Ga-ha-no acted without hesitation. A knife leaped from a fold of her kilt, and she sprang upon de Veulle like the wildcat to which he had likened her. He retreated, and ripped out his own knife.
"Seize her, Murray," he panted in French. "She is insane."