Lenore’s voice raised in a piercing scream of terror; but a fiercer instinct took hold of Bess. The impulse that moved her was simply that to fight to the death, now as well as later. A heavy hammer, evidently a tool recently in use by Doomsdorf, lay on the window sill, and she sprang for it with the strength of desperation. But her hand had hardly touched it before she herself was hurled back against the log wall behind her.
The squaw had not sat supine in this stress. With the swiftness and dexterity of an animal, she had sprung to intercept the deadly blow, hurling the girl back by her hand upon the latter’s shoulder. If she made any sound at all, it was a single, chattering sentence that was mostly obliterated in the sound of battle. And already, before seemingly a second was past, Doomsdorf was standing back in his place in the center of the room.
Except for the huddled heap in the blood-spattered corner of the cabin, it was as if it had never happened. The squaw was again stolid, moving slowly back to her chair; Doomsdorf breathed quietly and evenly. The two girls stood staring in speechless horror.
“I hope there won’t be any more of that,” Doomsdorf said quietly. “The sooner we get these little matters straightened out, the better for all concerned. It isn’t pleasant to be hammered to pieces, is it?”
He took one step toward Ned, and Lenore started to scream again. But he inflicted no further punishment. He reached a strong hand, seized Ned’s shoulder, and snatched him to his feet.
“Don’t try it again,” he advised. “Here in this cabin—on this island—I do and say what I like. I don’t stand for any resentment. The next time it won’t be so easy, and that will be too bad for everybody. You wouldn’t be able to do your work.”
Racked by pain but fully conscious, Ned looked into the glittering eyes. It was no longer possible to disbelieve in this hairy giant before him. The agony in his throat muscles was only too real. And the only recourse that occurred to him was one of pitiful inadequacy.
It was a moment of test for Ned, and he knew of no way to meet it except as he met such little crises as sometimes occurred to him in his native city. The only code of life he knew was that he practiced in his old life: now was its time of trial. His own blood on his hands; the grim, wicked face before him should have been enough to convince a man less inured in his own creed of self-sufficiency and conceit; yet Ned would not let himself believe that he had found his master.
As a child has recourse to senseless threats, he tried to take refuge in his old attitude of superiority. “I don’t know what you mean, and I don’t care to,” he said at last. In pity for him Bess’s eyes filled with tears. “I only know we won’t accept the hospitality of such men as you. We’ll go—right now.”
Doomsdorf’s answer was a roaring laugh of scorn. Presently he walked to the door and threw it wide.