Toutou flashed his knife, and I closed my eyes, thinking to see the torture begin. But when I opened them again, the knife was slashing the ropes that bound Nikka's limbs. For a second I credited the incredible. Were we to be set free? But no. Toutou sheathed the knife, and crouched before Nikka once more, animal-like, menacing.
"I am a bone-breaker," he rasped. "I break men, bone by bone, joint by joint. Have you ever felt your bones breaking, your sinews cracking? Guuhhrr-rrrr-rrr-rr!"
He pounced, and Nikka screamed, screamed in an excess of agony as the beast's fingers sank into his shoulder, torturing the nerves, tearing the sinews and muscles, dragging the bone from its socket.
But there was another cry from the open door. With a whirl of skirts a slight figure darted in, a knife gleamed and plunged home, and Toutou started back from his victim, his own left arm dripping blood. His face was a queer mixture of rage, lust and puzzled alarm. Shaking his head, with the saliva trickling down his chin, he stood, frowning, like an animal more than ever, an animal which had been curbed and chastised. And before him, knife in one hand, pistol in the other, stood Kara, her eyes blazing with passion, breast heaving through the rags of her bodice, her slender body quivering with anger.
"You would dare!" she cried shrilly. "You would dare to touch my man! No man lives who can touch him while I live. He is mine, I say! Mine! I will cut your throat, big French pig. I will carve out your bowels! I will pick out your eyes! I will, I say! I will!"
She danced toward him so energetically that he cowered and gave ground before her.
"Go!" she cried, gesturing with her pistol toward the door. "Quick, before I strike!" And she leaped at him. He clutched his wounded arm, and retreated. "Go, I say!" She raised her arm to stab him again. "Did you think I would let you touch him? Did not the others say that you should only harm one of them? And you took my man! Oh, I will cut you in ribbons!"
And this time he turned, and fled through the door, slamming it behind him. She was swift on his heels, jerked open the door and ran out into the passage after him.
"Run!" I heard her shout. "I am close to you! I, Kara Tokalji! My knife is at your back. Make haste—"
Then the door swung to, and shut out the echoes of Toutou's retreat. My whole thought was of Nikka, his face green in the lantern-light, his empty stomach retching with the nausea from horrible pain. Hugh called to him: