"Now, you black dog, die!"
CHAPTER IX
THE COLONEL IN CHAINS
The colonel and Umballa swayed back and forth. Umballa sank to his knees and then fought madly to rise but the hands at his throat were the hands of a madman, steel, resistless. The colonel's chains clinked sharply. Lower and lower went Umballa's head; he saw death peering into the cell. His cry rattled in his throat.
Not a sound from Kathlyn. She watched the battle, unfeeling as marble. Let the wretch die; let him feel the fear of death; let him suffer as he had made others suffer. What new complications might follow Umballa's death did not alarm her. How could she be any worse off than she was? He had polluted her cheeks with his kisses. He had tortured and shamed her as few white women have been. Mercy? He had said that day that he knew not the word.
"Ah, you dog! Haven't I prayed God for days for this chance? You black caha! Die!"
But Umballa was not to die at that moment or in that fashion.
That nervous energy which had infused the colonel with the strength of a lion went out like a spark, and as quickly. Umballa rolled from his paralyzed fingers and lay on the floor, gasping and sobbing. Hare fell back against the pillar, groaning. The cessation of dynamic nerve force filled him with racking pains and a pitiable weakness. But for the pillar he would have hung by his chains.
Kathlyn, with continued apathy, stared down at her enemy. He was not dead. He would kill them both now. Why, she asked with sudden passion, why this misery? What had she done in her young life to merit it? Under-fed, dressed in grass, harassed by men and wild beasts—why?