But she shook her head broodingly.
"You can't tell that either—only the gods know the end, Tristram Sahib."
* * * * *
Something had wrapped itself about their senses. They had talked of impersonal things and—save for that one break of his—without emotion. But the emotion had been there, below the surface, crushed out of sight by an effort of the will which left them no physical consciousness. It walled them within themselves as the trees and dense foliage walled them in from the heat and tumult.
Thus the storm broke on them without warning. It had risen little by little with the dull boom of an angry sea. They had heard nothing. But there had been a silence so tense, so prolonged that they looked at each other, wondering, waiting, though they did not know it, for the scream that ripped through, tearing down the barriers of their unconsciousness, forcing a breach through which the full fury of the sound bore down upon them.
Sigrid had risen instantly to her feet.
"Tarantella!" she breathed. "Tarantella!"
He did not wait to speak. He pushed through the undergrowth, not knowing that she had followed him. On the fringe of the coppice he turned and found her at his elbow.
"Something's happened," he said briefly. "We can't stay here—we've got to get back to the village——"
She nodded. A minute before she had looked ill, almost broken. Now the colour burnt in her cheek, she held herself lightly, strongly, and her eyes shone as they swept the scene before them.