Volna took out the jug and poured the coffee back into the cups.
They both watched her intently as she did this, turning now and then from her to me, with swift glances of speculative fear.
“Now if this is not drugged or poisoned, drink it;” and I took one of the cups and held it toward the man; “Quick,” I cried, so sternly that he trembled. His eyes were everywhere except on my face, and his lips moved convulsively.
“Drink it, fool,” said the woman with a sneer.
He stretched out his hand toward the cup, and then with a swift gesture struck at it and dashed it to the ground.
“I knew it. I need no more proof,” I declared.
“I’ll drink it,” cried the woman, making a snatch at the cup on the table. But I caught her hand, and Volna took away the cup.
“No, no, that is for the police,” I said.
At the mention of the police an angry oath leapt from her lips and she strove desperately to wrench her hand from my grip to get the cup. I had to use some violence to thrust her back.
Foiled in the effort to destroy the traces of the drug, her rage completely mastered her; and being unable to vent it upon us, she turned upon the man. With a running accompaniment of abuse and reproaches as the cause of the trouble she seized him and shook him till his teeth rattled like castanets, and then clouted and kicked him and tore at him with her nails like a fiend incarnate until he fell huddled up on the floor howling to her to stop.