“You, who must drink water--now he knows you are not gods, but mortal creatures. Tricked by his question and your answer, your peril now is on you! Flee!”
The voice died. Stern found himself, with a strange, taut eagerness tingling all through him, facing the obeah and--and not daring to turn his back.
Retreat they must, he knew. Retreat, at once! Already in the forest he understood that heads were being lifted, beastlike ears were listening, brute eyes peering and ape-hands clutching the little, flint-pointed spears. Already the girl and he should have been half-way back to the tower; yet still, inhibited by that slow, grinning, staring advance of the chief, there the engineer stood.
But all at once the spell was broken.
For with a cry, a hoarse and frightful yell of passion, the obeah leaped--leaped like a huge and frightfully agile ape--leaped the whole distance intervening.
Stern saw the Thing's red-gleaming eyes fixed on Beatrice. In those eyes he clearly saw the hell-flame of lust. And as the woman screamed in terror, Stern pulled trigger with a savage curse.
The shot went wild. For at the instant--though he felt no pain--his arm dropped down and sideways.
Astounded, he looked. Something was wrong! What? His trigger-finger refused to serve. It had lost all power, all control.
For God's sake, what could it be?
Then--all this taking but a second--Stern saw; he knew the truth. Staring, pale and horrified, he understood.