It was a matter of seconds now. Any instant she might hear the snap, and see the one who was giving his life for her quiver and become still. No longer hesitating, she flew at them with the blade raised high and poised herself for the stroke. Yet she could not send it. Again she tried, and a sob of rage burst from her throat as the hand refused to obey. Had the creature turned, it might have been less difficult; but the utter revulsion of driving steel into unsuspecting and unresisting flesh was more than she could master. Slowly the head was yielding to those horrible hands, and the newcomer's eyes rested on her own for the merest instant. It was the look of a courageous man sinking beneath waves; but the sweat and whipcord veins were eloquent of his frenzied resistance.
"Someone's coming! Someone's coming!" she suddenly cried, rushing to the door and flinging it wide open.
Tusk looked up with a snarl.
"Quick! Quick!" she cried again. "Here, this way—quick! He's killing a man! Oh, thank God!" She sprang back into the room, rapturously clasping the knife to her breast. "They've come! They've come!"
With an oath Tusk flung his victim heavily to the floor and dashed to a rear window through which he disappeared. She watched only long enough to see that his rout was absolute—that her ruse of approaching help had been successful. Then she turned.
The room seemed dark to her eyes which had just been peering into the sunset's fading glow, and she walked with feeling steps toward the spot where she knew the body lay, asking in a whisper: "Are you alive?" The heavy silence made her shiver. There, at her feet, sprawled the shadowy bulk, twisted and grotesque, and an uncontrollable feeling of loathing crept over her.
With startling suddenness a quail, close by the open door, ripped out his evening call, and she sprang back as though the thing upon the floor had moved. Yet she continued to stare down at it, her cold hands pressed against her burning cheeks—fascinated, horrified. A few little minutes ago he had been a moving, feeling being like herself; and now he had entered the portals of that mysterious eternity—at this very moment he was standing before the calm scrutiny of God Himself! How was he behaving in that great inspection? Trembling with bowed head, like herself? Or smiling with a courage he had shown during his last earthly moments while giving his life for her?
So vivid were these thoughts which raced like fury through her brain that when the body did actually move she gave a piercing shriek of terror. But she had recovered even before the echo of her voice resounded through the little room and, instantly alert, brought the drinking bucket from its shelf to bathe his face.
Kneeling there—or, rather, in an attitude of sitting on her crossed feet—eagerly watching for another sign of life, the tenderness which spoke in mute eloquence from every movement of her ministrations for the stranger who had stood between her and insult, was a boon that might have repaid any man for worse hurts than his. She drew his head upon her lap and began carefully to staunch a trickle of blood flowing from a small cut in his temple.
The sun went down, regretfully backing out of sight, and by its slow retreat seeming loath to leave them to the somber night. She did not notice its decline, but in the afterglow leaned nearer, pushing back his matted hair and searching each of his well-molded features. There was nothing of a personal interest in the look; there was nothing in the contact of their touch that aroused in her the least personal appeal. He was merely a thing hurt, a thing wounded in her defense.