She turned to flee, but his arm was round her, and his disengaged hand drew her head to his breast.
“You shall see, my dear,” he said. “The Widow shall become the Widower, and you shall be his first bride!”
She was limp in his arms now, incapable of resistance. A strange sense of inertia overcame her; and, though she was conscious, she could neither of her own volition, move nor speak. Michael, struggling madly to release his hands, prayed that she might faint—that, whatever happened, she should be spared a consciousness of the terror.
“Now who shall be first?” murmured the old man, stroking his shiny head. “It would be fitting that my lady should show the way, and be spared the agony of mind. And yet——” He looked thoughtfully at the prostrate figure strapped to the board, and, tilting the platform, dropped the lunette about the head of Gregory Penne. The hand went up to the lever that controlled the knife. He paused again, evidently puzzling something out in his crazy mind.
“No, you shall be first,” he said, unbuckled the strap and pushed the half-demented man to the ground.
Michael saw him lift his head, listening. There were hollow sounds above, as of people walking. Again he changed his mind, stooped and dragged Gregory Penne to his feet. Michael wondered why he held him so long, standing so rigidly; wondered why he dropped him suddenly to the ground; and then wondered no longer. Something was crossing the floor of the cave—a great, hairy something, whose malignant eyes were turned upon the old man.
It was Bhag! His hair was matted with blood; his face wore the powder mask which Michael had seen when he emerged from Griff Towers. He stopped and sniffed at the groaning man on the floor, and his big paw touched the face tenderly. Then, without preliminary, he leapt at Longvale, and the old man went down with a crash to the ground, his arms whirling in futile defence. For a second Bhag stood over him, looking down, twittering and chattering; and then he raised the man and laid him in the place where his master had been, tilting the board and pushing it forward.
Michael gazed with fascinated horror. The great ape had witnessed an execution! It was from this cave that he had escaped, the night that Foss was killed. His half-human mind was remembering the details. Michael could almost see his mind working to recall the procedure.
Bhag fumbled with the frame, touched the spring that released the lunette, and it fell over the neck of the Head-Hunter. And at that moment, attracted by a sound, Michael looked up, saw the trap above pulled back. Bhag heard it also, but was too intent upon his business to be interrupted. Longvale had recovered consciousness and was fighting to draw his head from the lunette. Presently he spoke. It was as though he realized the imminence of his fate, and was struggling to find an appropriate phrase, for he lay quiescent now, his hands gripping the edge of the narrow platform on which he lay.
“Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven!” he said, and at that moment Bhag jerked the handle that controlled the knife.