It was the first time any man had laid hands on her, and it aroused the devil. Her face and neck went crimson. Some of the fear vanished under this storm of violent repugnance. She noticed a naked hunting-knife on a ledge by the window. She flew to it and gripped it menacingly.
She came nearer and raised it to strike any obstructors. Then Connie’s lean figure leapt forward. The knife rattled to the floor and her wrist ached from the blow he had dealt it. He took her by the shoulders. 142
“Cut that! Tom’s won you, and you’d better get wise to that.”
“You brutes! Do you think you can——”
Her voice petered out as she saw the horrible expression in Tom’s eyes. There was no hope of mercy there. Words were lost on this monster. All the evening he had dwelled with rapture upon the object of the gamble. He took her from Connie and held her fast in his arms. Connie laughed.
“You allus had the luck. Wal, perhaps she’ll transfer her affections later!”
“Let me go!” she cried, now thoroughly panic-stricken. “Oh, God!—let me go!”
The chimpanzee-man merely gurgled in his throat. He lifted her from the ground and made for the inner room. One of her hands became free. She seized a bunch of his hair until it was wrenched from his hard scalp.
“Ugh!” he grunted. “Go on—it’s my turn in a minnit.”
“You monster!”