"Aüe! what trouble you make over this dead one. If in my island we talked so over every one who was killed, why----" Tera shrugged her shoulders, and continued more earnestly--"Listen! I will tell you all. I met Zara in the field, and I gave her a pearl that I might wear her dress. We changed, and I was going away. Then I thought she might betray me, and then Misi Brand would come after me. I was sorry I had not killed her. I had no knife or club, and I was not strong enough to strangle her with my hands. Then I remembered I had a cord of silk. I took this off the curtain, in Mr. Johnson's study some days before. It was blue, red, and white, very pretty, and I used it to tie round my waist, I gave it to Zara when we changed clothes. I could have killed her with that, and was sorry I had not done so, that she might tell no stories of me, and part me from Jack. But she was gone, so I walked on. Then I went back to the field."
"To kill her?" gasped Rachel.
"Ioé! to kill her," answered Tera, serenely; "but I could not do so at first, for she was talking to Mr. Mayne. Then she left him. He went down to Grimleigh, and Zara came towards me, crying. When she saw me, she ran up, and asked me for her certificate of marriage, which was sewn in her dress. She had forgotten it. I saw a chance then. I asked her to give me back the silk cord which she had round her waist. She gave it to me at once, and ripped the certificate out of the skirt of her dress, which I wore. As she bent down to do so, I threw the cord round her neck. She died very quietly," said Tera, musingly. "I do not think she felt pain. When she was dead, I dragged her along by the fence into the corn--a good way in, so that her body might not be seen. After that I went away, and caught the train to London. So you----"
"Oh!" cried Rachel, frantically. "Let me down! let me down! you wicked, wicked girl!"
Still holding the reins with one hand, Tera seized Rachel's wrist with the other, and held her to her seat. "I will not let you," she said fiercely; "if you try to go, I will tell Tolai to kill you. Be quiet! Listen! I tell you this to save your Herbert. But I do not want to be shut up in prison. Now Jack has the money, he will sail away. I go also, and when I am away, you can tell the truth."
"No one will believe me."
"Oh!" said Tera, who had lately learned the value of written statements, "I will write out all I tell you, and sign it Bithiah, Tera, what you will. Then I sail away, and no one will shut me up. Now you can go"--she pulled up the horse with a jerk--"but do not speak yet. If you do, I will say you--you will be sorry--that's all. Wait till I give you the paper and sail away with my dear Jack, You hear?"
"Yes, yes," said Rachel, her teeth chattering with fright at this exhibition of Tera's savagery. "I will say nothing--not a word!"
"Good! You can go, then. I drive on to Grimleigh, and go on board the schooner, where I shall be safe. I shall not return, and the trap I will leave to some one to take back."
Rachel, trembling violently, scrambled down as best she could. In her terror she believed that Tera might order Tolai to kill her. It was a strange experience to be at the mercy of two bloodthirsty savages on a quiet English road. Without a word she picked up her skirts and ran back, only anxious to get safely home. Tera burst into a jeering laugh at her manifest cowardice, then drove on at full speed to Grimleigh. Not until she was safe on board the schooner, with Jack beside her, would she feel secure. The laws in England were scarcely so lax as those in Koiau, and she could not presume on her rank as a chief's daughter in this land of the haolis (whites). After all, Tera had no reason to jeer at Rachel. In a different way she was just as great a coward. She did not fear death in itself, but she dreaded lest anything should part her from Jack.