“I am not mad,” she moaned, “not yet. I love him. Man or monster, it would have been all the same to me, for I loved him.”
Her father turned away, burying his face in his hands.
“God!” he muttered. “What an awful punishment you have visited upon me for the sin of the thing I did.”
The silence which followed was broken by Sing who had kneeled opposite Virginia upon the other side of Bulan, where he was feeling the giant’s wrists and pressing his ear close above his heart.
“Do’n cly, Linee,” said the kindly old Chinaman. “Him no dlead.” Then, as he poured a pinch of brownish powder into the man’s mouth from a tiny sack he had brought forth from the depths of one of his sleeves: “Him no mlonster either, Linee. Him white man, alsame Mlaxon. Sing know.”
The girl looked up at him in gratitude.
“He is not dead, Sing? He will live?” she cried. “I don’t care about anything else, Sing, if you will only make him live.”
“Him live. Gettem lilee flesh wounds. Las all.”
“What do you mean by saying that he is not a monster?” demanded von Horn.
“You waitee, you dam flool,” cried Sing. “I tellee lot more I know. You waitee I flixee him, and then, by God, I flixee you.”