Not knowing exactly what to do, but in a vague way feeling that he might be needed, the stranger stepped cautiously to the door and peered in.
With her back to the blackboard and her arms rigid against her sides, altogether in an attitude of one at bay, stood a girl. He first noticed that her hands were tightly clenched, and then his look went upward. Streaming through the window the same golden rays that burnished the weatherboards and flag-pole touched the looser strands of her hair. This, against the background of black, framed her upraised face with a halo of lustrous glory, softening the parted lips rather than showing them to be stamped with fear, but not disguising the terror which leapt from her eyes as they stared, fairly hypnotized, at an ungainly man who stood leering down at her. His head was set deep between massive, stooping shoulders, and his arms were abnormally long, while the color of his face indicated a diet, at some period of his life, of clay and berries. Two fang-like teeth, curving outward as the tusks of a wild boar—having furnished inspiration for the name by which he was most popularly known—added a last fierce touch to his repulsive features.
"Go home," the girl repeated, now in a weaker voice.
"It ain't time to go home," he growled. "When kids don't know their lessons you make 'em stay in, don't you? Well, I'm a-stayin', too!"
"Let me by this instant," she commanded, plucking another crumb of courage from the sheer imminence of danger.
"Aw, come off yoh high airs," he leered. "Ain't you been standin' me up afore the school an' actin' me like a fool? I ain't kicked, have I? Well, what you want to go cuttin' up for now?"
Brains partly numbed, or over-excited by shock, sometimes take queer and irrelevant channels of thought, and now the only thing on which she seemed able to concentrate was a duel she had witnessed on that very schoolhouse window sill but the previous day: a duel between a locust and a wasp. They had fallen there in deadly embrace, the clumsier holding his antagonist by brute strength that ultimately would break its frail body; but the wily wasp, conscious of this danger, sent thrust after thrust of its venomous stinger with lightning stabs up and down its enemy's armor, trusting to chance that a vulnerable spot might be found between the scales. She had watched this struggle with a breathless pleasure—for at times she could be pagan as of old—and when at last the little point slipped through, she felt no pity for the locust; rather, was she tempted to stroke the victor as it crawled from the suddenly relaxed grip of its stiffening foe, laved its wings, polished its legs, and rose into the air.
Weak with the consciousness of her peril, this mental by-play urged her to the necessity of speed; and, like the stinger, her mind began an hysterical thrusting for a more subtle method of defense.
"Tusk, I'm sorry I stood you up before the class," she tried, in speaking kindly, to hide her loathing. "But now you must go home at once, or I shall never be able to let you come to school again!"
He laughed outright.