Vinnie could not repress a smile as he answered, clutching the electric slippers tighter than before:
“Yes; they not stir now.”
She muttered a few words in a low tone, passing her hands backward and forward before her face, and commanded the slippers to dance.
At the same instant she set the battery in action, and the chief’s hands, acted upon by the electricity, which she had made more powerful than before, seemed to clutch the slippers like a vise.
A horrible expression of mingled rage and pain crossed his distorted face, and he gave utterance to a shrill scream of fear and agony that might have been heard, so loud and resonant was it, fully a mile away.
At last Vinnie ceased to turn the machine, and Ku-nan-gu-no-nah reeled back and sunk down in a corner of the cabin almost exhausted.
His eyes rolled wildly in their sockets, his mouth twitched nervously, his long, coarse black hair stood half-erect, and he trembled with an awful, superstitious fear in every fiber of his being.
“What does the chief think now of the white maiden’s power?” asked Vinnie. “What does he think of the little box and the dancing moccasins? Where now is his vaunted strength? Can the great brave do what a pappoose can do? Does he want to try again?”
“No! No!” panted Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, with chattering teeth. “Sun-Hair is a great conjuror. She has a power from the Great Spirit! She has a devil-box, and moccasins such as are worn where the Long-knives go when they die—where there is fire always! Hell, they call it. The white maiden is a greater conjuror than Yon-da-do. She has a devil-box and hell-moccasins!”
At this moment there were sounds of footfalls outside the door. The noise came nearer, and there was a sharp, scratching sound on the door like that produced by some keen-pointed instrument.