But I was too terrified for her sake to listen—too determined that the fellow should not get back and tell his gang.
"Do as I say," I commanded, giving her a shake.
She had stopped speaking and was desperately using her strength. I, also, had grown desperate. Our position was too unwarrantably exposed to tolerate this further, and urgently I began to pry open her fingers when, by some twist of her own or awkwardness on my part, I slipped and fell out backwards into a deep, narrow slit between the logs, drawing her down with me and wedging my shoulders as if they were held in a vise.
It might have been a serious fall—for her, I mean—had not providentially she landed atop of me; but now, trying to arise, I found that I had measured neither her strength of purpose nor of muscle. Her determination had not been cooled by this mishap, rather had it become more aroused with the consciousness of her advantage; for, in answer to my first movement, she caught my cheeks and passionately shook me. Her eyes, scarcely half a foot away, stared down into mine with a frightened, pleading, commanding look. They were open wider than usual, giving the impression that this was the first test of physical encounter she had ever experienced.
"You're safe here!—you shan't move!" she was whispering wildly.
"I must," I declared. "He's got to be stopped, I tell you!"
I did not want to hurt her, yet at all hazards that man had to be killed, and I began really to struggle.
"No—no!" she panted, pushing down my partially raised head with a jolt that made me see stars. For she was fighting this time, with the ferocity of a tigress, and I, held by her weight, found the task of freeing myself no easy one. I tried working loose one shoulder, growling between my teeth:
"I will get out of here!"
"You won't—you won't!" She reiterated this as if sheer force of mind could make me yield. And then her hair, uncoiling, fell softly over my face and closed my eyes.