The sharp, shifty eyes were continually turning with an expectant look to the door. Ambrose found himself watching the door, too.
To Ambrose the uncouth dance had neither head nor tail; nevertheless, it had a striking effect on the participators and spectators.
Minute by minute the excitement mounted. The stick-kettles throbbed faster and ever more disquietingly. It seemed as if the skin of the drums were the very hearts of the hearers, with the drummers' knuckles searching out their secrets.
Eyes burned like stars around the walls, and the chant was renewed with a passionate abandon. The figures hitched and sprang around the homely iron stove like lithe animals.
Suddenly the noise of running feet was heard outside, and a man burst in through the door with livid face and starting eyes. The drumming, the song, and the dance stopped simultaneously.
The man cried out a single sentence in the Kakisa tongue. Cried it over and over breathlessly, without any expression.
The effect on the crowd was electrical. Cries of surprise and alarm, both hoarse and shrill, answered him. A wave of rage swept over them all, distorting their faces. They jammed in the doorway, fighting to get out.
"What is it?" cried Ambrose of Watusk.
Watusk's face was working oddly with excitement.
But it was not rage like the others. The difference between him and all his people was marked.